Keith Emerson's opinion on Jurgen Fritz?

I resort to proggers with more knowhow than me to satisfy this curiosity question.

We should take bets.  My money is on Dick Heath.

A very interesting question-i don't know, but am really curious about that. In a recent interview, Emerson was asked who is the keyboard player that he feels is woefully under-rated,  and he mentioned Brian Auger.
            At the other end of things, when Triumvirat were touring the States, Jurgen Fritz was interviewed and asked "that question"-What do you think of all the talk about Triumvirat sounding like ELP, and he responded "Well, i'm flattered. But there are aspects of Triumvirat's sound that are similar to ELP, and aspects that are different."

I think the only similarity between Triumvirat & ELP was the instrumentation. With Lake in the band it gave ELP another dimension. A baladeer to provide some respite from the insanity. If you're going to ask that question you might as well ask what Emerson thought about Rick van der Linden ( I'm pretty sure that they met at least once ). I know that he's not too crazy about Wakeman mentioned something about Wakeman. He mentioned something to that effect in Pictures Of An Exhibitionist. 

So we don't know then and Ivan hasn't jumped on this thread yet.

 Regarding his connection with Banco, i read somewhere that Keith actually saw the band at one point in Italy, and of course, they were on Manticore at one point like PFM.

I read somewhere on the Triumvirat.net site that Emerson knows Jurgen Fritz. Still doesn't answer this thread's question, though.

First of all, I think Triumvirat is a very good band that I got to know when their album Spartacus was first released.

That being said, I find that especially with Illusiions and Spartacus they were not just paying tribute to ELP, to my mind they were pure plagiarists concerning instrumentation, sound, and (to a slightly lesser extent) composition.

I see no reason to beat about the bush here because, you see, I don't mind! The spirit of ELP was going downhill fast with the release of Works Volume 1, and Triumvirat were there to, at least for a short while, fill the void, which was a very good thing to the EPL-starved enthusiast. So good on them.

But I don't see that it does them any good, even in retrospect, to construct some non-existent originality around them, ignoring the facts that are plainly there for all to hear. Even so, Illusions and Spartacus are and always will be brilliant albums.

It's a damn shame that ELP and Triumvirat both lost the plot badly shorty afterwards. Anything following Brain Salad Surgery and Spartacus, although not that bad, couldn't compare to what had gone before.

No offense, Doug


Edited by npjnpj - April 25 2013 at 02:03

ELP ceased to be a proper band after 1974 only returning in 1977 because their record company discouraged them from releasing solo albums. They were all individually working on music that used orchestration so the Works project made sense commercially but did untold damage to their reputation imo. Black Moon and the subsequent tour in the 90's was at least a decent swansong ( or could have been if they hadn't got caught up in record company politics once again)

I haven't valued his opinions in the past. He once stated that Randy Bachman was a great guitarist and I have never heard any guitar work with ..THE GUESS WHO or B.T.O. that stands the test of time or hardly compares to the average standard playing Rock guitarist of the 70's. To be such an outstanding pianist..you would think Emerson might mention John McLaughlin or Holdsworth. Here is a musician that likes Scott Joplin and he's telling you that Randy Bachman, the guy who plays guitar on that moronic song "American Woman" is outstanding? I mean..did I miss something? He seemed to dislike Patrick Moraz when Refugee was formed..if memory serves..and if so it's self explanatory why anger/jealousy developed within him when he watched a new Classical pianist performing with x-NICE members. I have not much faith in his opinions.