Why no 'USA' Prog bands made the big 5?

Funny that the Canadians embraced prog more than most of the US

Genesis, Gabriel, Yes, Tull, Crimson etc
Sold out multi shows to estatic crowds in Montreal, Quebec and Toronto

Rush was heavily influenced by them and I felt the best N American representation of Prog

Xanadu indeed

 

I love both albums, while the first I would count as prog due to the instrumentation, the second one is absolutely a soft rock kind of album. It has it's moments, but only two songs (Valkyrie and Did You See Him Cry) really get close to the first record's sound.

 

I do think this American/jazz influence, European/classical influence is a bit over-stated at times.

OK, Lake and Emerson overtly stated a couple of things and Wakeman's background (or part of) is well-known, as is Kerry Minnear's, but if you look at a number of UK-ian musicians, especially drummers, who came through in the '60s and '70s and played in bands, not necessarily prog, with a tendency to longer forms, you'll find quite a few with a grounding in or predilection for jazz: Bill Bruford; Phil Collins; Ginger Baker; Steve Upton (Wishbone Ash); Guy Evans (VDGG); Bonham was even a big Alphonse Mouzon fan; Jack Bruce; the rest of the Brand X crew; pretty much anyone who was in Soft Machine; possibly the likes of Egg and Hatfield and The North; and...and...

It isn't that clear cut.

 

The biggest prog (and progressive) band is The Beatles.

 

Well, classical is not the only influence in prog rock. Prog was in the first place a natural progression from british psychedelia (most key members from prog outfits had a past in psych bands), and Pink Floyd certainly is an example of that evolution. As I had written earlier, I don't consider half of Floyd's catalog prog either, but I don't hesitate to file albums like Atom Heart Mother, Meddle (Echoes!) or Animals under prog.

 

The Beatles never were prog, but the Sgt. Pepper's album definitely served as a template and early influence for what a few years later would become the album-oriented prog genre.

 

So what would an exclusive American Big 5 look like?

Kansas
Utopia
Styx
???
???

 

There were many good US prog bands in the 70s: Pavlov's Dog, Ambrosia (first album), Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, Muffins, Ethos, Yezda Urfa, Mirthrandir, Starcastle, Victor Peraino's Kingdom Come, Fireballet... but most of them very obscured

 

yikes, no

mid to late 70s, based on ability/credibility:

Zappa
Muffins
Utopia
Happy the Man
Crack the Sky

 

Have to at least put Return to Forever in there-- Romantic Warrior is probably the classic prog/fusion album.

Could make a case for Chicago and Spirit as well.

 

Fusion was/is a whole another thing: RTF, Headhunters, Lifetime, etc.,

Spirit, Chicago and many many others were definitely progressive, just not prog (calcified dead ends of progressive post '72)

 

Much too "easy" to be right. If "classical music" had had significant homes after World War 2, they'd be Paris (around Boulez and Schaeffer) and New York (around Cage). Certainly not the UK, who produced little of note in that field.

 

Pretty closely related at this point though, especially with Chick Corea bringing in a lot of prog-like titles and imagery. And of course some prog bands completely absorbed fusion, UK being the best example.

 

Also consider all the early 70s UK jazz-rock progressives like Catapilla, Circus, East of Eden, Soft Machine, Nucleus, Walrus, Mike Westbrook, etc.,

 

There is/was no equivalent in the US of the UK's art schools. The US has private art colleges, but nothing on the scale of the state-funded art colleges in the UK.

Obviously, not everyone who was in a prog band went to art school; and not everyone who went to art school joined/formed a prog band. But it was a part of British music culture for which there was simply no equivalent in the US.

Hopefully some UK posters can add a bit more (or tell me I'm completely off-base!).

 

Hmm I guess 'home' referred the presence of the market/listeners. The UK has never been the home of the world's leading composers.

 

There are (or were !) healthy markets for classical music all around mainland Europe as well as as northern America. It seems to me that most, if not all, populous cities in the US have opera houses and concert halls, and that the US has its fair share of classical record labels.
Though it's true that "classical-minded" countries like France, Italy and Germany have their own prog traditions, I see no cause and effect there.

 

In comparison to what the British were doing and how many albums they were selling, maybe Kansas and that's it. Utopia were a good band, but not really prog, Zappa was a terrific visionary but not prog, etc. When you get into stuff like Happy the Man, Starcastle, Cathedral, Styx or Pavlov's Dog, you're either getting into obscure bands that only prog nerds remember or you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, IMO. Most of them did not have the lasting influence of Yes, Genesis or King Crimson.

 

right, and this is why the blues explosion in 1962, fueled the american blues interest several years later.

So blues were our home, and then what happened? We expatriated them? Ignored them? Ran off with their little sister?

 

I know I'm probably all wrong, but didnt Emerson also say he was big time influenced by Brubeck, and spent many hours learning his stuff?

Its funny, but when I listen to some crazy 5/4 thing like Tarkus, I'm thinking, thats Brubeck, not Mussorgsky

altho I might be wrong. I often am.

 

Yeesh, guys, come on. It isn't THAT hard:

Rush (going to claim them from Canada)
Spock's Beard
Dream Theater
Echolyn
Tiles
Enchant
(pre-Perry) Journey

 

William Byrd, and John Dowland were pretty good.

Seriously I am just now reading abook about musical history and it seems that in the rennaissance a lot of the musical progress and modernism was coming from England. Just like at some other times.

 

"Rondo" by the Nice was from Brubeck. There were also some jazz quotes in ELP ("St. Thomas" in Karn Evil 9 2nd Impression, Oliver Nelson in "Hoedown").

 

Also Good God and Grits

 

It’ true and there was great Purcell. However, after Baroque era, the UK never had a composer as influential as, say, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Ravel and Debussy.