One of the most important and loved Italian prog bands,and one of the most famous among foreign listeners. Le Orme were another of those bands coming from the beat era that had the mostconvincing musical evolution in the 70's. They were formed in Marghera(nearVenice) in1966 but their debut came in 1967 with Fiori e colori,recorded by the original four-piece line-up.
The "emigration" of rock music from the USA to Britain was not onlybeneficial but even pivotal for the development and propagation of rock music.First of all, rock music was digested by the British "fashion" industry,which transformed it into a well-publicized, iconic commodity, thusgenerating cash-cow phenomena such as the Beatles.In Britain rock music became "trendy" when in the USA it was still, mainly,an underground, cult (and occasionally taboo) phenomenon, boycotted by boththe major record companies and the (puritan) middle-class audience.The British media made rock music fashionable.If rock music had remained the music of Dylan, Fugs, Zappa andVelvet Underground, it would have remained a cultural phenomenonwith a huge impact, capable of producing artistic masterpieces and generatingintellectual debates, but, most likely, it would have never captured theimagination of the masses the way it did during the late 1960s.In the USA, rock music had been perceived as a revolutionary event, verymuch related to a generational gap (between the "great" generation and the"hippy" generation) and an ideological gap (between the Establishment andthe underground). In Britain, rock music, while not reneging on thosepremises, morphed them so that they became popular icons, comparable tothe miniskirt and long hair, icons that could appeal not only to juvenile"delinquents" but also to the bourgeois masses.In other words, rock music in the USA was antagonistic, hostile and conflictual;whereas rock musicin Britain made peace with society at large.Thus it became a commodity, destined to become, like cinema, one of thearts that exerted the strongest influence on the costumeat the turn of the century.
Le Orme - The Universal Music Collection (2009)
The "British Invasion" also brought an artistic benefit to rock music.Since the beginning, British musicians were less "literal" in theirinterpretation of the rock'n'roll canon (less rooted in country and blues).Later on, British musicians began to graft onto the spirit of rock'n'roll theartistic, political and philosophical issues of European culture(just like it happened with cinema).Zappa and the Fugs had merely meant to lampoon the USA way of life;the Velvet Underground and the Jefferson Airplane had merely meant tohail hallucinogenic substances;and Bob Dylan had merely meant to fight political and social injustice;but British musicians did not have (or wanted) to deal with those issues andtransfigured them into universal messages that related to the daily livesof people all over the (western) world.For USA musicians, rock was the medium, not the message: for Britishmusicians, rock became the message.
Enfant prodige Steve Winwood, who had already penned (vocals, organ and composition) Spencer Davis Group's Gimme Some Loving (1966), afeverish gospel hymn, formedTraffic (2), which debuted with aquintessential psychedelic album, Mr Fantasy (nov 1967 - dec 1967), butsoon became the leading force of the fusion style that mergedfolk, blues, soul and jazz. If their jams were never too exciting(reminiscent of lounge-music although in a clever way), they defined a kindof timbric counterpoint that basically changed the whole point of "jamming"(impressionistic instead of emotional)and turned it into the rock equivalent of chamber music.Dear Mr. Fantasy (1967) and Glad (1970) were their mostsuccessful "frescoes", but Winwood's collaboration with Eric Clapton,Blind Faith (jun 1969 - aug 1969), credited to Blind Faith (1), was perhaps better Traffic than Traffic ever were.
Possibly the most influential guitarist in the entire history of rock music,Jeff Beck (2)was the man who (as a member of the Yardbirds) divulged the scienceof distortion and feedback. The group that he formed withpianist Nicky Hopkins, bassist Ron Wood and vocalist Rod Stewart recordedTruth (may 1968 - aug 1968), which virtually invented hard-rock one year beforeLed Zeppelin. However, his masterpiece is probably the instrumentaljazz-fusion tour de force of Blow By Blow (oct 1974 - mar 1975).
The release of In The Court Of The Crimson King (sep 1969 - oct 1969),the debut album by King Crimson (14),heralded the golden age of progressive-rock.The magniloquent, symphonic sound of Ian McDonald's mellotron enrolled themin the neo-classical movement of Nice, Moody Blues and Procol Harum,but the psychedelic overtones, the medieval visions, the gothic atmosphereand the romantic pathosof the title-track and Epitaph set them clearly apart.What guitarist Robert Fripp and bassist Greg Lake penned were majestic ballads,not transcriptions of classical music.Moonchild was an abstract, futuristic poem in which the melody was lessimportant than the soundscape, and the violent, syncopated, distorted jam of21st Century Schizoid Man invented a new way to putneurosis into music.In The Wake Of Poseidon (mar/may 1970 - may 1970) further explored the same ideas,increasing the degree of melodrama and the amount of sound effects, andFormentera Lady (1971) was the definitive tour de force of the band.King Crimson had turned rock'n'roll upside down, repudiating thesavage form while retaining the emotional content.When Yes drummer Bill Bruford and Family bassist John Wetton joined Frippfor a new, jazzier edition of the band, the sound veered towardsharsh, strident, convoluted compositions such asLark's Tongues In Aspic (1973) and brainy, cryptic, virtuoso albumssuch as Red (aug 1974 - oct 1974).King Crimson's third edition, featuring guitarist Adrian Belew and bassistTony Levin, adopted an even more intellectual stance in compositions such asSheltering Sky (1981).Robert Fripp (3)never stopped recording stimulating music.Two collaborations with Brian Eno, notably No Pussyfooting (sep 1972/aug 1973 - nov 1973),several solo albums, notably Exposure (jul 1977/jan 1979 - jun 1979), the manifesto of his"frippertronics",two collaborations with Police's guitarist Andy Summers,notably I Advance Masked (sep 1981/may 1982 - oct 1982),a collaboration with David Sylvian, The First Day (dec 1992/mar 1993 - jul 1993),were just the tip of the iceberg.
Yes (12), possibly the most accomplishedmusicians of the progressive-rock generation,were also the ultimate in magniloquence and exhibitionism.Their sound was born out of the fusion of pop, rock, folk, jazzand classical music. They borrowed ideas from the Nice, fromrenaissance and baroque music, from Crosby Stills & Nash's vocal harmonies,from post-Davis funk-jazz, from psychedelic jamming, and from old-fashionedmelodies. If the fusion was not unique, the glacial composure certainly was:Yes albums sounded more like scientific experiments than party music.The Yes Album (oct/nov 1970 - feb 1971) introduced their schizophrenia:Yours Is No Disgrace and Starship Trooper went forstrenuous instrumental bravura, whileI've Seen All Good People revolved around a catchy refrain.The virtuoso performers (particularly drummer Bill Bruford and keyboardist RickWakeman) achieved a sublime degree of balance on Fragile (sep 1971 - nov 1971),whose Roundabout, South Side Of The Sky andHeart Of The Sunrise flowed like clockwork mechanisms.The apex of Yes' apparent contradiction (a style that was bothfrigid and romantic) was reached on Close To The Edge (apr/jun 1972 - sep 1972),whose Close To The Edge and And I And Youwere lengthy, complex and densely chromatic fantasias, and the very definitionof "art-rock".On the other hand, the four monumental suites ofTales From Topographic Oceans (aug/oct 1973 - dec 1973) proved that extended compositionsdo require more than mere virtuosity.
Two line-ups that worked for JohnMayall spawned two of the most creative bands of early prog-rock.Colosseum (10) recordedValentyne Suite (jun 1969 - nov 1969), whose title-track was aside-long phantasmagoriaof jazz, blues, classical and hard-rock sounds, brightly chromatic andluxuriant, one of the masterpieces of British progressive-rock.Mark-Almond (2), the duo of former JohnMayall's sidemen Jon Mark (guitar) and Johnny Almond (reeds),specialized in suites ofa different kind, mellow and laid-back, centered on simple folk-jazz tunes,skirting lounge-music and easy-listening muzak,such as The City (1971), on their first album,and Sausalito Bay Suite (1972), on their second album.Gothic, ethnic and folk variationsTM, , Copyright 2009 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
However, no band achieved the degree of ethnic fusion that theThird Ear Band (102) achieved onAlchemy (dec 1968 - ? 1969), one of the albums that invented"world-music".An acoustic chamber ensemble of (essentially) tablas, oboe, viola andcelloperformed Indian, medieval, native North-American, gypsy,middle-eastern, minimalist, jazz, classical and folk music, all withinthe same song.The four suites on their second album, Third Ear Band (apr 1970 - ? 1970),pushed the idea even further: the ethnic sources are not recognizable anymore,and the music flows like a stream of consciousness, a spiritual experience,a daydream. De-contextualized, the "third ear" music is closer toBuddhism meditation than to western composition.The band was equally successful on Macbeth (aug 1971 - ? 1972), which addedelectric and electronic sounds to their ethnic stew.
Emerson Lake & Palmer (1), formed by former Nicekeyboardist Keith Emerson, former King Crimson bassist Greg Lake and formerAtomic Rooster drummer Carl Palmer a few months after the success of Crosby Stills & Nash,pushed progressive-rock towards technical excesses that, basically,obliterated whatever merit their jazz-classical fusion had.This art of obfuscating art worked best on the futuristic/mythological conceptalbum Tarkus (jan 1971 - jun 1971),although their technological peak was perhaps Karn Evil 9 (1973).Their music, ever more pretentious and magniloquent, wasfounded on a fundamental misunderstanding of what "virtuoso" means. 2ff7e9595c
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