GEELONG MUSIC GROUP. June 2016
It’s been a sorry year for music, with lots of current and former stars dying. I initially suggested this session in April, following Keith Emerson’s death in March. George Martin also dies in March; and in April, Prince and Merle Haggard died; and I discovered later that Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane/Starship had died in January. Toney Convey told me that Tony Conrad had died on April 9; Conrad had worked with Stockhausen, LaMonte Young and (briefly) the Velvet Underground.
THE LIFE & MUSIC OF KEITH EMERSON
2 November 1944 – 10 March 2016
Keith Noel Emerson was a self-taught English keyboard player and composer. As a teenager, Emerson played piano semi-professionally; then in 1959 or 1960, he bought his first Hammond organ. Over the next twenty years, he became famous for his virtuosity on piano, Hammond organ, harpsichord and synthesiser.
‘Progressive rock’
Emerson, his music and the bands of which he was a founder or member were all part of ‘progressive rock’ – a musical style that combined rock’s power and energy with European classical music’s scope & scale.
Fans of ‘prog rock’ believed that it brought new depth and sophistication to rock; its detractors saw its fusion of classical and rock styles, together with its spectacular stage shows, as self-indulgent betrayals of rock’s populist origins. Indeed, its reliance on music from earlier times means that ‘progressive’ rock was ‘regressive’ rock.
Early career
Emerson played in several bands before finding fame in the late 1960s with The Nice. Initially formed as a backing band for US soul singer P. P. (Pat) Arnold – big hits “The first cut is the deepest” and “Call me angel of the morning” – the Nice became an independent unit, in which Emerson wrote and performed his own compositions, as well as rock-based arrangements of western classical music – the beginnings of ‘progressive rock’.
1. The Nice (1968) “Brandenburger” from Ars Longa, Vita Brevis. Immediate. 4.24
(Bach will reappear in our story later.)
2. The Nice (1969) “Hang on to a dream” (Tim Hardin) from Nice. Immediate. 4.46
3. The Nice (1968) “America” from Ars Longa, Vita Brevis. Immediate. 6.15
Development of ‘Progressive rock’ - late 1960s through the 1970s
The Nice’s Ars Longa Vita Brevis (1968) was an example of early ‘progressive rock’ being played by the so-called ‘psychedelic’ bands. Influenced by jazz and R & B, rather than rock ‘n’ roll or pop, these bands popularised lengthy song cycles or multi-movement suites featuring virtuoso soloists. E.g., Pink Floyd’s A Saucerful of Secrets (1968) and Procol Harum’s In Held Twas in I (1968).
Unlike jazz and R & B, however, the early ‘progressive rock’ bands mixed different musical styles – blues, country-and-western, classical Indian and European baroque – and experimented with electronics and pre-recorded sounds, often in a single piece of music. Clearly, this was music to listen to, not to dance to!
Progressive rock was defined by its combination of five characteristics:
1. Tone colours. Symphonic, choral or church music. Accoustic guitars, electric guitars, bass, drums and percussion blend with massive backdrops of sustained keyboard chords and complex, often choral vocal arrangements.
E.g. Yes’s Close to the Edge (1972) and Genesis’s Foxtrot (1972).
2. Subject matter. Epics from science fiction, mythology and fantasy literature.
3. Form. Long song cycles or multi-movement suites painting a picture or idea.
4. Virtuosity. Metrical and instrumental virtuosity, often including different musical styles within one composition. (Emerson, Lake & Palmer “Take a pebble” [from Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Island.] features several styles, including rock, country and baroque. At 12.33, it’s too long to include here.)
5. Presentation. Spectacular stage shows and state-of-the-art recordings.
This short track just hints at some of those characteristics
4. Yes (1971) “We have heaven” from Fragile. Atlantic. (1.30)
International fame through progressive rock
Following Emerson’s lead in The Nice, ‘progressive rock’ bands generally included a keyboard player as a soloist. For example, Pink Floyd’s Rick Wright, Genesis’s Tony Banks, Yes’s Rick Wakeman and Deep Purple’s Jon Lord.
In 1970, Emerson left the Nice to co-found ‘supergroup’ Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP), which achieved international fame throughout the 1970s. Emerson wrote and/or arranged much of ELP's music, which included his compositions and rock-based arrangements of western classical music.
ELP’s version of progressive rock was a heavier, electronic sound, dominated by Emerson’s virtuosity on various keyboards. He was rock’s first rock keyboard virtuoso, displacing the electric guitar’s dominance of ‘pop’, just as the electric guitar had displaced the saxophone as the lead instrument in rock ‘n’ roll.
ELP’s first 5 albums (Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Tarkus; Pictures at an Exhibition; Trilogy; Brain Salad Surgery) achieved huge sales and the band filled huge venues.
Technologies
‘Progressive rock’s music, lyrics and images invoking a lost ‘golden age’ of a simpler pastoral/organic society in contrast to contemporary western society’s blend of urbanism, technology, alienation, materialism and soulless bureaucracy.
How ironic, then, that ‘prog rock’ bands – especially ELP - used increasingly sophisticated and complex musical technologies to create ever more spectacular stage shows increasingly removed from their audiences. The most prominent of these new musical technologies were keyboards - the Mellotron and the Moog synthesiser.
1968’s Switched-on Bach by Walter Carlos helped to popularize synthesizers, which had been used until then only in experimental music. Carlos played the synthesiser as just another keyboard, so no-one was prepared for Emerson’s approach to it!
ONLY VINYL TRACK
5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer “Tank” (1970) from Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Island Records. (excerpt) The finale features nine tracks of Moog synthesiser overdubbed to create harmony, plus another track of solo.
6. The Who (1971) “Baba O’Riley” from Who’s Next. Track/Decca (4.59)
EMS-VCS3 computer used to create a ‘background’ sequence.
7. Tangerine Dream (1971) “Exit Heaven” from Ultima Thule compilation (2011) Pink. (4.43) Synthesised sequences of notes and ‘washes’ of sound.
In ELP, Emerson continued - as in The Nice – to play western classical music – both ‘straight’ and in rock-based arrangements. Here’s an example of each approach:
8. Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1971) “Promenade, Pt. 1” from Pictures at an Exhibition. Island. (1.57) (Mussorgsky)
9. Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1972) “Hoedown” from Trilogy. Island. (3.47) (Copland’s ‘Rodeo”)
Moog asked Emerson to trial several new models and in 1973, he used a polyphonic synthesiser first on traditional hymn “Jerusalem” from ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery.
Going solo
ELP disbanded 1978 and Emerson went solo, composing several film soundtracks.
10 Keith Emerson (2001) “The Church” from La Chiesa soundtrack. Cinevox. (3.58)
(A medieval church was built on bodies of the possessed. Centuries later, a librarian removes a rock and unleashes the evil therein.)
Emerson formed two further groups in the ELP tradition - Emerson, Lake & Powell and 3. In the early 1990s, ELP reformed for two albums – Black Moon (1992) and In The Hot Seat (1994) - and undertook several tours, but broke-up in late 1990s.
11. Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1992) “Footprints in the snow” from Black Moon. Victory Records. (3.47)
In 2002, The Nice reformed for a tour; and in 2010, ELP staged a one-off show in London to celebrate their 40th anniversary.
During the 2000s, Emerson toured with his own band (the Keith Emerson Band!) and collaborated with several orchestras. But the boy could still rock!
12. Keith Emerson (2012) “Black Dog” (single) Purple Pyramid Records. (3.54) (From a Led Zeppelin tribute album.)
In 2012, Emerson released his final album, The Three Fates Project – a mix of original pieces and reinterpretations of earlier work. From creating rock-based interpretations of the classics, Emerson ended up ‘classicizing’ rock.
13. Keith Emerson (2012) “The Endless Enigma Pt. 2” from The Three Fates Project. Varese Sarabande Records. (3.07) (From ELP’s Trilogy.) With guitarist Marc Bonilla & Munchner Rundfunkorchester, cond. Terke Mikkelsen)
Electronic Sound (1969) was George Harrison’s second solo studio album (the first was Wonderwall Music in 1968) and the second and final release by Zapple Records (the first was Life With The Lions by John Lennon & Yoko Ono) – an Apple subsidiary created to record and release avant garde music.
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