Lets reclaim "progressive"...

I bought a large collection of Jazz CDs recently. You'll hear more about them shortly, but one of the popular artists with the original owner was Stan Kenton. Kenton was a big band leader and pianist. To be honest I don't like his music much, but he was very popular at a certain point in the late 40s. In 1947 he formed a new, larger band than his previous on to present "Concerts in Progressive Jazz". The album that resulted from this was called 'A Presentation of Progressive Jazz'. Reviews included "jerry-built jumble of effects and counter-effects" and "this album presents very little that can justifiably be called either jazz or progressive. "Billboard said it was "as mumbo-jumbo a collection of cacophony as has ever been loosed on an unsuspecting public.”

Now in fairness Kenton’s music can best be described as bombastic at best. And this got me thinking, again, about the use of the word “progressive” in music. Google “what is progressive rock” and you get; “a style of rock music popular especially in the 1970s and characterised by classical influences, the use of keyboard instruments, and lengthy compositions.”

Google “progressive music” and you land on a Wikipedia entry that talks about “progressive music which  “usually synthesizes influences from various cultural domains, such as European art music, Celtic folk, West Indian, or African. It is rooted in the idea of a cultural alternative and may also be associated with auteur-stars and concept albums, considered traditional structures of the music industry.” Ok so once you’ve picked your way through that lot you may be fairly confused, I certainly am, and be no closer to a definition of what progressive means. When it comes to Jazz the article decides that Progressive Jazz “originated in the 1940s with arrangers who drew from modernist composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith. Its "progressive" features were replete with dissonance, atonality, and brash effects. “ By now you may be starting to get tired of the rather pompous style of the Wikipedia author, I certainly am, and be thinking that Progressive Jazz probably should be more about Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Sun Ra – who all came along rather later and whose innovations belong to the late 50s and 60s. 

Now I started avoiding Prog magazine’s mostly quite interesting Facebook group because of the interminable question, is XXXX prog? Looking now I find that the site rules now include “Please do not post "Is XXXX prog?" questions, lets focus on interesting discussions.” Great I can follow it again. Prog Magazine itself does include a good bit of music that follows the definition of ”progressive music” we saw above. Now of course they include the old guard, ELP, Yes, Pink Floyd, they want to sell magazines to old folks. But they go far enough off piste to include music that stretches genre boundaries pretty close to breaking point. Which is great. If you assume (as I do) that the first proper progressive rock album was ‘In the Court of the Crimson King’ and then step off in to Van Der Graaf Generator and thence into outer space then very little of what is called “Prog” is actually progressive, any more than Stan Kenton was ”progressive” when it came to Jazz.

In the citations for the Wikipedia entry mentioned earlier there is a note that quotes  - Willis 2014, p. 219, “'Progressive' music can be seen as an experimentation with alternative routes"; Moore 2004, p. 22, "What was so revolutionary about this post-hippie music that came to be called 'progressive' ... was that ... the umbilical link between idiolect and style had been broken."; Macan 1997, p. 246, "the progressive rock of the 1970s had been 'progressive' only as long as it pushed the stylistic and conceptual boundaries of rock outwards" As all the references circle back to the article they are quoted in I can’t tell you anything about the books the quotes come from. But I think we can start to get a definition of what the word “progressive” means to those who ask the “is it Prog?” question on Facebook. It doesn’t in fact mean progressive at all, and we should probably use “prog” to distinguish the music that derives from 70s artists like ELP, Yes, and lesser mortals, and we can lump Mr Kenton in with the as Prog Jazz, with the distinguishing feature that the music is loud, grandiose, and bombastic. We can then reserve the “progressive” for music that stretches boundaries, Coltrane, Miles or Cecil Taylor in Jazz, and King Crimson, Tool, Frank Zappa, and maybe even The Velvet Underground in rock. Thoughts on properly progressive rock acts happily received.

Giving snobbery the Byrd.

As you may have noticed music snobbery is rife. Extremists shouting in support of their thing, and ready to leap to social media to tell you why your thing is rubbish. I'm not getting into the is X or Y artist Prog debate here because, frankly, I have a life.   

The 70s output of Blue Note Records has been seen, mostly by those for whom Jazz froze in 1962, as way inferior to the "heyday" of the 50s and 60s. My taste in Jazz was largely informed by The Kyle Cathie book 'Jazz on CD' by John Fordham. This introduced me to Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan and many others. What it skipped over was anything that crossed over into fusion, funk or rock. Bill Bruford's excellent Earthworks was dismissed, more seriously so was Miles Davis after 1969. The Mahavishnu Orchestra got a brief mention under John McLaughlin, who himself only merited a 20 word bio and 1 album suggestion, from 1969. Even in the mid 90s there was a healthy cd reissue market so that's not an excuse.

So, until very recently I missed out on the 1970's at Blue Note. I picked up Donald Byrd's 'Street Lady' at a charity shop, and it's great. If you are of the view that Fender killed Jazz with their Rhodes Piano and Precision Bass then try this, and the rest of the Mizell Brothers' productions for Blue Note, and other labels. A friend then reminded me about Quantic Soul Orchestra and introduced me to guitarist Wilbert Longmire, who doesn't rate a Wikipedia entry it seems, but try his 'Sunny Side Up' album. Jazz Funk, or Fusion, or whatever has therefore entered my life giving me something new to look out for. The couple of compilations I have bought suggest the quality is much higher than my previous prejudice would have allowed for. Why Steely Dan never found Longmire I'm not sure he would have fitted them like a glove.

Now, on second thoughts I am getting into the Prog or not thing. The doyen of Prog writers, Sid Smith, has recently pointed out on Twitter some of the hypocrisy surrounding the magazine of the same name, as well as the lack of actual progression in much of the music that calls itself "Progressive". By the numbers Genesis and Pink Floyd retreads do seem to dominate, but that doesn't mean there isn't some good music within the rough confines of Prog. Prog Magazine itself seems to be less worried about the definition than their readers, embracing everything from material that is closer to Folk to electronic music of the Tangerine Dream type.

Duke Ellington is credited with saying "There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind". The rest of the quote from an article called 'Where Is Jazz Going?' in Music Journal from 1962 is ... "the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed." For me the definition extends far enough to include, if it makes you feel good it doesn't matter what label it carries or what other people think of it.

My weird take on Yes

When I mentioned Yes in my post on Progressive Rock I got this tweet. I asked why weird and got no reply so here are some more weird opinions.

Yes, like Elbow and Camel, are so much better live than on record. Rick Wakeman describes their albums as "sterile" and he is often right. The Union album is quite dreadful, but the tour that went with it, eight musicians playing for the music rather than themselves, the convenient doubling of everything except Bass & singer allowed songs like 'Awaken' to expand and evolve. The current state of play is that there are two bands called Yes, with 2 or 3 "proper" members each, and some extras. The whole mess is explained in detail at Henry Potts' site. Personally I could care less.

So why write about them? I joined in with the Drama album in 1980, and only dabbled with their music until the Internet came along. Drama was and is a great album, top drawer songwriting, crisp production, and the best ever examples of Chris Squire's bass as lead instrument style in 'Does It Really Happen' and 'Tempus Fugit'. The new boys brought new vigour to the music. Geoff Downes simpler sound pallette feels more integrated with the rest of the band, particularly Steve Howe's guitar, than Wakeman did on either of the previous two albums. They were unafraid to innovate, Trevor Horn playing bass on Run Through The Light for instance.

So with the advent of the interwebs (in my world) about 1999, I started looking backward, and catching up with what bands were doing. This was the heyday of the email newsletter and information and opinion about new releases and band activities was filtering through as never before. Yes had one and I subscribed, just in time for "The Ladder", another album with a fair bit of innovation, while remaining undeniably Yes. It's the best songs 'Homeworld (The Ladder)', and 'The Messenger' that work best and Bruce Fairbairn's production doesn't pander to their more noodly tendancies. The Ladder songs come properly alive on "House of Yes: Live from House of Blues" the album resulting from the following year's worth of touring. Some of the old stuff is given a makeover and Steve Howe manages to play on Trevor Rabin era songs, although he is far from happy about it.

After the orchestral "Magnification" album which failed mainly due to lack of good material and being released on 10th September 2001, innovation and progress stopped in Yes-World. They retreated to the formula pioneered at the Keys To Ascension shows in 1996, largely ignoring anything after 1979 (ok they did play the title song of Magnification in 2002 and a couple more newer songs in 2004). Innovation having died, and unwilling to wait on Jon Anderson's health the band fractured recruited a couple of Jon-alike singers and set off on tour in 2008. None of the resulting music or numerous live albums sound like anything other than going through the motions. With Chris Squire gone and Alan White using a sub/back up drummer in recent years they increasingly sound like their own tribute band. The "other" band Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman spreads its net wider, talking in material from all eras (except Drama which none of them played on)

So my weird conclusions are that Yes work best when a producer has a firm hand on the tiller. They thrived on innovation, particularly live. The best Yes music is song based and not about awesome musical technique. They were and probably still are a band ruled by their business decisions, rather than musical ones. Oh and Chris Squire is God's own Bass Player.

This being true I would suggest listening to

Yes (1969) A good bridge between the sixties and seventies, with a few cracking songs
Going For The One (1977) The return to songs after the noodling years
Drama (1980) Something new and different
Talk (1994) The best Rabin years album, with a good balance between his & Jon Anderson's influence
Keys To Ascension (1996) The best look back at the seventies, technology had caught up and the material was fresh after being set aside for a while.
House of Yes (2000) A contrasting look at old material and some new songs

I have to say I'm looking forward to Fly From Here - Return Trip in March 2018, same album with Trevor Horn taking lead vocals, the follow up to both Drama and The Buggles Adventures in Modern Recording which Yes fans should certainly hear. The best Yes album of the last 15 years is Anderson/Stolt's Invention of Knowledge, 

With the blue touch paper lit I'm now retiring to a safe distance. Feel free to disagree with me...

Labelled with Prog

My audiobook recently has been "The Show That Never Ends - The Rise and Fall Of Prog Rock" by David Weigel. While it focuses on the stories of the 70's heavyweights there are also diversions into other parts of Progworld which have pointed me towards yet more overlooked music.

Looking through the genre tab of the iPod it turns out I have quite a bit of stuff labelled "Progressive Rock". Seems strange for someone whose music tastes formed at the end of the 70's and the early 80's. Then there's the Prog Magazine Readers group on Facebook which spends most of its time arguing about what is or isn't "Prog". So what's it all about (Alfie)?

To set my stall out I don't like ELP, not too fussed about Pink Floyd (for me the Collection of Great Dance Songs compilation is all the Floyd you need) and I can take or leave most Genesis. I've nothing against the early/mid 70s, I just wasn't there...

King Crimson: My interest in Crimson starts in 1981, in fact I saw the band while it was still called Discipline at Moles Club in Bath on their first gig. The inventiveness of the trio of 80s albums still amazes me. Live they were constantly challenging, listen to any of the downloads at DGM Live, better, listen to them all. From there right up to the current 8 man band revisiting and rewriting earlier incarnations it's the sound of boundaries and envelopes being pushed. Nothing has ever got close to King Crimson. They are the musical equivalent of flicking away a lit cigarette without looking to see where it lands.

 

Camel: Much gentler stuff, and a different kind of inventive. If you like Gilmour's guitar but not Waters' polemics then try Camel. A much sparkier prospect live where the Jazz & Blues inflections that can sound twee on record catch fire and Andy Latimer's guitar work has space to stretch out.

Renaissance: I know, not very radical whats with the orchestras and all. Forget Northern Lights, it's Betty Thatcher-Newsinger's lyrics sung by Annie Haslam and earlier by Jane Relf that make Renaissance's best albums worth your attention.

Procol Harum: Again ignore the hit and go for the live stuff. I got properly interested when BBC4 showed their Live at Union Chapel, and it's a good place to start.


David Weigel's definition of Prog drifts towards Jazz Rock, Electronic and AOR. Consequently people like Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt, Mike Oldfield and John Wetton get a fair covering. His look at 80s "Neo Prog" doesn't go much further than Marillion, and the more recent revival, or perhaps that should be reappraisal, concentrates on Porcupine Tree, which is fair enough given Steven Wilson's ubiquity. It stops short of his recent chart shaking "To the Bone" album, which itself has generated some "is it Prog?" debate. Personally I think the place to start with Wilson's work is "Hand Cannot Erase".


John Mitchell, the other name to conjure with in modern Prog circles, has a very definite sound that he brings to his albums with Frost*, Lonely Robot and his production work, particularly Kim Seviour's excellent "Recovery Is Learning" album. Kim was previously singer with Touchstone, who highlight much of the problem with current Prog leaning music. Talented musicians, decent production, but hit and miss material, making most albums a struggle. Mitchell and Wilson have the songwriting skills to move beyond the banal to something with some lyrical bite and most importantly a tune. You see why I'm not keen on ELP now.

A few recommendations some from slightly outside the Prog box, that I think are "progressive" within a fairly traditional rock music format.

Elbow. As I suggested in my live review in March, Elbow have many of the qualifications for Progressive-ness, better live than on record, songs that can be the stuff of epics, and a comfort with the fact that they are good at what they do.
Try: "Live at Jodrell Bank", "Build a Rocket Boys" and "Little Fictions"


Steeleye Span "Wintersmith" with Terry Pratchett. I'm not a massive Pratchett fan (although try The Long Earth written with Stephen Baxter), but this rendering of his stories hits the spot. Chris Tsangrides production toughens up the sound without losing the organic, folk based feel. Get the deluxe edition with extra tracks and live material.
Try "The Dark Morris Song" "Crown of Ice" and "The Good Witch" for a flavour of the album

Robert Fripp / Andrew Keeling / David Singleton: The Wine of Silence. Fripp's soundscapes orchestrated by Andrew Keeling and produced by David Singleton are a thing of beauty. Probably more accurately seen as modern classical music, nevertheless meets the definition of progressive as something challenging and involving. Don't try it, just buy it.

Yes: The best of the "proper" Prog bands for me. Rick Wakeman describes their studio albums as "sterile" and by and large he's right. Despite a tendency (mostly Steve Howe I gather) to repeat the recorded works the same every night, right down to the solos, Yes can be a great live band, or at least before they turned into their own tribute band.
Try Keys To Ascension, very close to the best of live from a time when they were playing at their best. The only song missing is Southside of The Sky. Also try Live from the House of Blues, and the best studio album Going For The One.