KEITH EMERSON

Give to the 60 years old Keith Emerson, some young arms, let him play his keyboards like he can and you will have a great evening of ELP music with new songs from his Kieth Emerson Band, which are quiet good and fits very well with the ELP's material. The role play by Marc Bonilla on guitar and vocals give a heavier sound to the usual ELP's sound. The songs of ELP have been re-arranged and that is quiet refreshing, the songs have more speed and more power with Bonilla's guitar work.

The set list doesn't have any dull moments, even "Lucky Man" is rocking!. And what a way to finish the concert with a 30 minutes of "Tarkus", that contains some improvisations. The sound is clear and powerful in 5.1 surround, a lot better than the ELP 40th anniversary DVD.

This is where Keith Emerson should be at this point in his career. Yes , he is still capable of playing, but not with the pace and complexity that most of the music he has written requires. Better to expand on what he has written , allowing others to front on certain aspects, while he takes the arranger and orchestrator role. His skills are still there enough to be a contributing player , but it doesn't have to be all about his playing. That's a given. What would be more interesting are more efforts like this album, reworking some of his past compostions , and integrating them with new visions, and the combined efforts with others as is done here.

This album is one of the best recordings he has ever been involved in. Even though we have heard some of it before, many, many times, It comes across in many ways as fresh, new and exciting. For those with really good playback systems, the HQCD version is absolutely fantastic.

This album exceeded my expectations in one way, and disappointed in another.

I am not much of a fan of most orchestral renditions of classic prog rock. Earlier albums, many with some of the original band members adding tracks, rendered classics by Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, to name a few, into syrupy muzak.

Well. This album is different. A number of orchestrators, including Keith Emerson himself, managed to capture the spirit of the original ELP pieces, while infusing some surprises, and even some whimsey into the scores. The power of the orchestra is supreme in this recording, and it seems Mr. Emerson approves.

The disappointment comes from Emerson himself. While he's there on most tracks, adding piano, organ and synthesizers, there is very little of the fire in his fingers that made the classic ELP so much fun. I know he still has the magic. I've seen him with his recent band, and he can still light up the keyboards (literally and figuratively).

The Endless Enigma is split into two parts. The first has the orchestra showing just how beautiful this Emerson piece is. On the second part, Emerson and Marc Bonilla join in, but the orchestra still powers the piece. Another high point is Bonilla's American Matador, where the orchestra also raises the recording above the original.

There are a few new pieces on the album. Two pieces by Bonilla show that he is no slouch in orchestral composition, while Emerson's one new track, After All Of This, is much too sedate for my tastes.

The best piece is Tarkus. The orchestration here is superb, and even Emerson gets a bit excited when playing. This track is a masterpiece.

After spinning a few ELP disks I needed to hear more of Keith today. He's perhaps my all time favourite musician, and his compositional and playing skills just reach a place inside of me that few artists do. This album is simply piano, and in this basic context the complexity and beauty of his art can be plainly experienced. It's amazing how versitile an instrument the grand piano is. Stripped of the usual electronic envelope he's famous for, the music is elemental, and perhaps truer and more immediate. If only he would create and release more like this. Play on sir. ****

Sure, this album doesn't take itself seriously, but some of the greatest films ever made were comedies. While I'm not saying that this is a comedy, some of it certainly is a lot of fun, and about seventeen seconds are downright silly (Intro-Juicing). But that aside, it has some fun tunes. Not exactly prog, but anyone with eclectic tastes will recognize a very Caribbean flavor to the whole deal. Hints of reggae, especially in Rum-a-ting. Hello sailor is fun, not incredibly special, but pretty pleasant at least. Tunes like Big Horn Breakdown and Yancey Special are somewhat silly, but still very fun. Salt Cay and Green Ice are both catchy and memorable without being simplistic. Rum-a-Ting is very reggae, but in a surprisingly Emerson way, considering the flavor of the album, and turns out to be pretty good. Chickcharnie is a fast-paced tune, turning out to be one of the most infectious tunes I've heard. Jesus Loves Me is Emerson recording a gospel song being sung during a church service in the Bahamas, where the whole thing was made. All in all, the album is a whole bunch of fun--if albums like CLOSE TO THE EDGE are CASABLANCA, this is IRON MAN. I enjoy it, people with a more conservative mindset might not. Regardless, don't pick this album up if you want Emerson. It is not the Keith Emerson we all know and/or love.

Who needs Greg Lake? Marc Bonilla's dead-ringer performance as singer is the first thing you notice on this great DVD. And then you see how he handles his guitar duties: effortless, smooth and sweet.

This is more than ELP - this is HELP: like the trio was supposed to work, if Hendrix had joined. I'm not saying that Bonilla is on the same league with the late Jimmy. But his guitar contributions here have improved ELP's music by miles.

Although Keith's hands are not as quick and acurrate as they used to be in the glory days, he's still a master. He's got more punch, power and edge than today's keyboad rivals. And although he's not young, he's totally not acting his true age.

You get ELP's greatest hits, including a drummer who has a P in his last name (Tony Pia). Did Emerson do this on purpose? I don't care. Main highlights are "Bitches Crystal", 3rd movement from the old Piano Concerto, super-smoking working of "The Barbarian" - and a huge, long version of "Tarkus".

I've seen ELP on many DVD's, most of them too old to be fun. Most of the ELP DVD's on the market today sound plain bad. Even the new & improved version of the legendary "Pictures in an Exhibition" DVD is not as good as this.

The only musician which doesn't really shine here is Travis Davis on bass. Maybe Keith hates Lake so much, he wants his parts out of the mix, I don't know. But Davis is the only one in the band without any meaningful solo during the gig.

One of the best parts on this DVD is the original MOOG snyth, with its full body on stage. Emerson uses it very nicely, and the sound production is better than ever (you can hear the Oomph and Bang all the day to your speakers). What a joy!

When comparing this DVD to the studio album by the Keith Emerson band (2008), I say ditch the studio album. It sounds too dry and boring.

In short - it was a great gig, there in Moscow. I don't miss Lake anymore, now that we have Bonilla. And the arrangements sound much more powerful, with the electric guitar in full swing. Get this before you die.

This is a great live album. The performances are some of the best I've heard from Keith Emerson in years. But there are flaws. The first I presume is evident on all versions of this album. The recording, which sounds like it came from a mixing board, distorts at many times.

The other problem, which occurs on the Varese Sarabande release that I have, is that whoever mastered the CD is a moron. Anyone who has ever burned music to a CD with all but the cheapest software has seen the setting to either put a gap between each track, or have them run directly from one track to the next.

Well guys? This is a live album, having the crowd noise stop for two seconds between each track is annoying, and inexcusable. And on disk 1, tracks 7 through 12 are a suite, where each track is a piece of the one song. The gaps here are more than annoying, they ruin the flow of the song.

Luckily, I can rip the CD, and re-burn the tracks properly. But I shouldn't have to.

That out of the way, Emerson has come all the way back from his well known medical issues, and brings everything to this concert. Sure, some of the passages are a bit slower than we remember, but his solos are as fierce as ever. Marc Bonilla, with whom Emerson has been playing for years now, is a technically better guitarist than Greg Ocean (he's too big to be a Lake now), although not as subtle. But Bonilla has a talent of knowing just what to keep from Lake's versions of the songs. And the additional guitar in the songs adds some awesome heaviness while at the same time allowing Emerson to break loose on the keys.

The songs that benefit the most are the Piano Concerto (3rd Movement), that sounds less classical, and more metal here, and The Barbarian, which become much more barbaric. And Lucky Man has been rearranged without losing the soul of the song. I just which they would include their new version of Living Sin.

The Miles Away suite from the Emerson/Bonilla studio album, despite the gaps, is much more energized here, and the 35 minute Tarkus is luscious.

This is quite a similar case as was the GREG LAKE 2-disc retrospective I reviewed earlier this year. Neither of these ELP guys can be proud of their solo careers, and both compilations include for the major part material originally released under the name Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Emerson's solo discography consists mostly of some soundtrack albums, live albums, a Christmas album and, as perhaps his most serious one, "Emerson Plays Emerson" from 2002 (the title certainly tries to refer to the world of Classical music).

Again, it's more than likely that an average listener already has (heard) plenty of ELP, and some NICE too (Emerson's band before ELP), which probably directs a great deal of one's expectations towards the solo stuff represented - and paves way for a disappointment. I have never been much of an ELP fan, but very often their different talents together resulted as "more than the sum of its parts" as the saying goes. For example 'Take a Pebble' from their eponymous debut is gorgeous, and nothing as great as that is heard here, I think, because of the all-too-plain attempt to exclude tracks featuring Greg Lake's vocals. In fact, a big part of the ELP stuff heard here is simply some of the most irritating ELP stuff. Virtuosity wins over musical values. By the way, I nearly hate similar field in the Art Music too (Paganini's virtuoso violin pieces give me the creeps!). And unfortunately his solo material basically offers more of the same.

The opening little piece is merely a curiosity, showing Keith aged 14. One of the more interesting tracks is 'Lament for Tony Stratton Smith' (if it's composed and premiered in the memory of that late great mind of the Charisma label, it's 1987, then why it's placed amidst 60's NICE stuff in an otherwise chronological set? Some other tracks too miss the year info, albeit Keith gives a few words on most tracks). Sadly during its 8 minutes it goes worse than the first half of it. Also 'Main Title' from a film Inferno starts nicely but turns into his usual clichés.

A couple of tracks from the aforementioned Emerson Plays Emerson album are among the highlights (if that word can be used here at all), but they both are under three minutes long. Musically the best moments in this compilation come close to Baroque keyboard music played by piano. But then again: I prefer listening to the real music of Johann Sebastian Bach. And the same advice goes to all of you.

The Moscow album sounds much better than the studio album from the same year (2008). Both Emerson and Bonilla are both fantastic on stage. Bonilla replaces Greg Lake's absence with great ease. Tony Pia's drumming is more than adequate. The only victim of the live final mix is Travis Davis: his bass is not very audible, especially when compared to the studio album.

The show's highlights are: 1) Third movement from Emerson's piano concerto; 2) Bitches Crystal; 3) The Barbarian; 4) Tarkus. The other stuff is good enough, but not always exciting as those four big tracks.

Bonilla's guitar work is effortless - makes you wonder how did Emerson put up with Lake's miserable guitar abilites all these years. Also, Bonilla's voice is superior to Lake's current old voice. So the audience really benefits from his frontman qualities.

Emerson's fingers are a bit sloppy here and there, but overall he has almost returned to form (he had terrible problems with his hands all thorugh the 90's). His solos are cool enough to maintain interest, and Bonilla's help is priceless: his chordwork enables Emerson to focus on his right hand, while his solos and melodical lines are complementary to Emo's attack.

If you get the DVD, you'll see Emerson fiddling the giant moog behind him. In any other aspect, the CD version is better. I suspect a few studio edits in some places, but most of the time the sound is wild and authentic.

In short: The Keith Emerson Band sounds just a good, and sometimes better than the mighty ELP. This quartet is a prog dream come true.

I tried. I tried but, definitely, I'm not into ELP and these pompous keyboards. When it's not an emphatic keyboard solo, it's AOR / FM song a la Asia (not the good ones). And it sounds more like US prog than english prog. This carries no emotion to me, no melodies, only some power prog with all the tips and tricks we know for years now. And I have another problem with the ELP and relatives, they're responsible for a lot of the bad image of the prog (along with the awful "Tales of topographic oceans" and solo works from Rick). I tried... without success !