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

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Rufus rag, Mar 5, 2018.

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  1. Indeed, just as there is an effort to whitewash Television, Mink De Ville, Talking Heads, etc., from punk because they are not buzzsaw guitar bands. There seems to be a similar effort to fit everything into a sterile box for progressivism that wipes away the complexity and the variety to just five silly cape wearing bands. History and people are much messier, complex and more interesting than that.
     
  2. Mrtn77

    Mrtn77 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paris
    I didn't mean to imply English composers of the Renaissance were worthless or uninteresting. More that England had always seemed more insular in its way than innotative, though I suppose both these traits can coexist. Likewise, I love Dowland but had always pictured him as an offshoot of French lute playing (and note he spent time in France as a young man) rather than an initiator but I may well be wrong. The fact I'm more interested in and familiar with his consort music than his songs may have me at a disadvantage as well.
     
  3. Rose River Bear

    Rose River Bear Senior Member

    Before I answer that, you need to define what "significant" means. I am getting a feeling the term has different meanings for the both of us.
     
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  4. For cape wearing prog, maybe, but it doesn't include all the UK/European progressive jazz rock bands of '68-'72 Xhol Caravan, Soft Machine, Catapilla, Embryo, Kraan,, etc.,

    Too many people are fitting definitions into their own small/limited listening orbits.
     
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  5. ti-triodes

    ti-triodes Senior Member

    Location:
    Paz Chin-in
    Bill Bruford was mentioned earlier, but did expand on the subject a bit more. He placed the Church of England as a big influence for a lot of bands. The influence of English music halls added theatrical flair. Add classical music from the BBC as well as pirate and Continental radio stations and you have a variety that US bands didn’t grow up with. The US also wasn’t subjected to the devastation of Europe after WW2 that influenced life well into the 50’s.
    For the immense size of the US, there was still a lot less variety and fewer homegrown influences like blues and country.
     
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  6. I suggest you check out the first 3 Kansas albums for some excellent homegrown Prog.
     
  7. ostrichfarm

    ostrichfarm Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    I think "cape-wearing prog" of the Yes/ELP variety is what we're talking about here, no? And I personally don't think of, say, Caravan or Soft Machine as "prog with a capital P", but as Canterbury-sound bands above all, with progressive and jazz-fusion elements.

    It's not that far from the Softs (from Third onward) to a band like Nucleus, who are playing straight-up jazz fusion -- and John Marshall was in both bands, obviously, as well as playing with Euro-jazz folks like Eberhard Weber who consciously avoided African-American elements (or at least "blues") in his music.

    BTW my second-favorite "prog" band is Gong, who I also don't think of as prog with a capital P -- at least, not in the Daevid Allen years -- but that's about the closest genre fit. (Space prog, maybe?)
     
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  8. Three of these bands are just too obscure to qualify-and I say this as a fan. Kansas had the chops, the songs and the popularity to qualify as one of our big 5. Zappa and Utopia also qualify IMO.
     
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  9. Mrtn77

    Mrtn77 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paris
    What appealed in the word "significant" was precisely that it allowed for quite a bit of leeway, so don't hesitate to use it as you see fit.
     
  10. Rick Robson

    Rick Robson

    Location:
    ️️
    I think you got it. I don't know what's the music that was being played on the European radios in the 50's, but for sure the musical scene changed radically and abruptly throughout and right after the two World Wars, atonal music being one example of that that springs to mind now.
    And obviously the 60's generation grew out of that former major music being played by their parents or listened on the radio. In my viewpoint, that's one of the reasons for the weirdness found on a bunch of late 60's-early 70's British Prog Rock works. This literally didn't exist in the US.
     
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  11. Rick Robson

    Rick Robson

    Location:
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    Sorry but you couldn't be more wrong. I suggest you dig into just some of the mainstream RPI (Italian prog rock) and German prog rock, and you'll easily realise the cause-effectc factor. When it comes to the use of Art Music elements in prog rock works, there is plenty more to find in those countries than anywhere else in western Europe. And I think that the English language was an important factor for the Afro-American musical influence spread first and more widely on the mainstream British Prog, albeit in varied and different proportions.
     
  12. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    The first album was, as were parts of Another Live. Todd was heavily influenced by Yes, and the first Utopia drummer Kevin Ellman was an influence on Neil Peart, who cited Ellman's use of concert toms.

    What could you possibly call a thirty minute song like The Ikon other than "Prog"?
     
  13. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Why no US groups in top 5 Prog? Easy...not enough elves here. :shrug:
     
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  14. Doggiedogma

    Doggiedogma "Think this is enough?" "Uhh - nah. Go for broke."

    Location:
    Barony of Lochmere
    Or even Blues For Allah [​IMG]
     
  15. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Know why? Chupacabra ate 'em!
     
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  16. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    It's them damn little legs, y'know...pretty sure a leprechan coulda taken 'em...
     
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  17. George Co-Stanza

    George Co-Stanza Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    Indeed. I have long been a Kansas fan and consider Leftoverture one of the greatest achievements of the 70's, which I know is a bold statement, considering how magnificent that decade was for music.
     
  18. bRETT

    bRETT Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    I'd guess that Soft Machine just thought of themselves as a jazz band. Most of the rock influence went out with Kevin Ayers, and the rest with Robert Wyatt.
     
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  19. drad dog

    drad dog A Listener

    Location:
    USA
    I'm thinking that England was special then, a little, and was also in the 1960s, maybe for similar reasons. I am not versed enough to know.

    This author says that Dowlands First Book of Songs, from 1597, are "the first examples of the kind of solo song that - Structurally and stylistically - has since thrived more or less continously in western music."

    I think the point was the making of church texts into lyrics, and fitting the syllables to the melody was a huge change, happening around protestant music. And I suppose I am talking here about "songs" and not more broad contexts.
     
  20. audiotom

    audiotom I can not hear a single sound as you scream

    Location:
    New Orleans La USA
  21. deredordica

    deredordica Music Freak

    Location:
    Sonoma County, CA
    I don't know, but Kansas is way up there.
     
  22. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    I'm just curious - would you folks consider this "Prog"? It's a 30 minute long instrumental suite with an obscure title, in a whole bunch of different time signatures.

     
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  23. Too busy inventing singer songwriters and country rock ? :tiphat:
     
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  24. klockwerk

    klockwerk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio USA
    Absolutely! Todd went thru a prog phase on his solo albums and the 1st 3 or 4 Utopia albums. I think of Todd as one of the many bands who incorporate prog into their albums from time to time. And even the 'Todd plus' 2015 Runddans album is progressively bent.
     
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  25. audiotom

    audiotom I can not hear a single sound as you scream

    Location:
    New Orleans La USA
    Mannheimer Steamroller before they did Christmas albums did come wonderful prog albums

    I-IV
     
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