Comparing prog from different countries

My first impression of this website is that there is an amazing base of knowledge here. I'm from the US and my knowledge of European prog and jazz is nowhere on the level of some of you.  I knew this when I started the thread - that I was probably going to find myself in over my head very quickly. But the great thing is this - I want to learn more, and thankfully you all have responded in ways that are perfect. I mean, I wanted to learn more about French prog, to get past my impasse and somewhat negative attitude there, and now you have given me the names of some bands to consider which I will do. Same goes for some other countries too. And so I hope to go out and do some more listening and then get back with some impressions.

My comment about UK vocalists drew a small amount of fire which is OK.  I'm not surprised at that.  And I think that my impression that these vocalists might not have been that popular on the continent (especially Germany and Italy) is based on what seems to be a lack of imitators and nothing more. Imitation is flattery.....

And as for Greg Lake being the quintessential prog vocalist......I wouldn't have a problem with that, but I might ask you to define "quintessential" and "prog".......:) 

aldri7

I don't know them very well, but the albums from Le Cimetière des Arlequins to Guet-Apens should be worth a number of tries at least. Anyway, their last album, Moyen-Âge, is a rock solid in my book, but it is not widely acclaimed here on PA.

 

Pulsar (a French band) draw influences from Pink Floyd and King Crimson while Ange are influenced by the sound of Genesis and K.C. Both bands have a great originality to their style of writing. It's amazing to me how they managed to pull that off in the real world! Goblin ...from Italy have a direct influence of ELP/Genesis within their sound yet have a much darker structure musically than both of those bands stylistically based on their constant interplay between guitar and keyboards interchanging or reversing methods of playing the "Devil's interval".

 

Rio bands like Univers Zero and Art Zoyd use the same formula yet it is based more so around the style of Avant-Garde composition derived from the 20th century. Which again...when I mention the "Devil's Interval"...I am making reference to tri-tones that they re-construct in a thousand ways, never totally heard before by those who were K.C. fans in the 70's, but more likely to have been performed first by string quartets of the 50's and through the music of John Cage, George Crumb, and many other greats. Nevertheless all cemented together to form a new inventive prog style of writing. A style that is evident (only in sections), on "Piece of Mind" by Curved Air.

 

Folk music is more evident in the style of French prog bands to me than the German experimental Krautrock ..however there are exceptions to that rule. Conventum (from Canada) and Harmonium seemed to have less influences from other's who were on the prog scene before them ..unless they were crafty enough just to cover it up...or maybe the music simply fell into place naturally and nothing was ever said between members of those bands just as nothing was hardly said when YES wrote Fragile. A telepathic experience where everything was created during the moment and pieced together between band members without too much verbal communication. Their minds could have been wiped clean of anything particular they experienced on that day and the notes entered their minds, they played it, it was fitting and bingo .."Southside of the Sky" was written or they could have came up with a signature line because they did in fact have a specific person, place , or thing on their mind. Nothing is an exact science when writing however ethnic, classical, folk influences you heard as a child before attending music college or even just formal training is planted in your mind...so therefore because you are human , you could delude yourself into believing that you wrote it. A question unanswered in most cases and left to the Gods...whoever they might be...either cosmic muffin or whatever you prefer that delusional energy level to be. Some kind of spiritual energy does channel through musicians and they create some of the most original music in history because of it...yet the musician has no control over it, doesn't care to define it as anything other than human growth of predictability and may find the topic farce. But according to the evidence of what has been composed in the past..there is something out there to the extent of the unknown which is a force that musicians connect with. Very much like Gnosis ..where upon you may feel something and not have an explanation for it. 

 

It's not too hard, really.

 

You take the movies from the time in those countries, the writers in those countries, and then the painters ... and you can see who is progressive or not.

 

German -- it's clearly defined in Edgar Froese's words in the Krautrock special ... and it also went for film, theater and art.

 

French -- Probably more history minded and such, in general any experimental and progressive out of that country was either like ... Heldon ... or Ange ... but the problem is ... how do you rate Alan Stivell, from Brittany? ... he's so varied and at times progressive, to the point of embarassing folks that never heard the mixes he has!

 

Italy -- I always though more classical music minded, even groups that took directly, classical music concepts and did them in rock instruments ... many groups fit this spot. However, it is easy to say that Banco, and Le Orme, did not exactly follow this route ... and still got it done, but I think they were too well defined to not know what they were doing.

 

Spain -- in the 70's the bands I heard were quite Yes, Supertramp sort of blends, with the usual amount of spanish guitar to show the difference. Funny thing, Carmen, was not from Spain. They were from LA, and many times they were more interesting as "spanish music" than the more traditional folks.

 

England -- I will not take a lot away from the english, except that they went ahead, and did not worry about what it was. And it goes back the tne mid-psych days and into the "beat" days ... something that is still not quite clear and studied as an important art movement that helped create many bands. But London, also has, some of the best theater in the world, and they even used electric bands, and Gryphon is a perfect example of a "progressive" band, that probably would not be ... if we unplugged the instruments! But it was good and then some.

 

I'm not as well versed on Eartern Europe to discuss, or Northern Europe. I am in film, and some theater, but not music, surprisingly enough.

 

But there are some odditties ... Egberto Gismonti is considered "jazz" and should be "progressive folk" when he is solo and alone on piano or guitars. Instead his early works have an amazing combination of Jan Garbarek, and Charlie Haden to create some intensely beautiful stuff that would be "progressive jazz" but no one can find a way to describe that ... and of course, to say that Brazil did not have "progressive" music is insane ... ! Or Argentina, but the subtleties I am not clear or familiar with.

 

One last one ... there was a film called "Bitter Sugar" that came from Cuba ... in that film there was a lot of music including a couple of things that were definitly progressive. Not all music in Cuba is the traditional, tiresome stuff ... there is more there than meets the eye!

 

Sorry for the generalizations ... hard to discuss these things out of context ... if you add the film makers, the artists and the writers to the country and jigger them really good, you know right away that you have a very strong "artistic" scene, that developed ... and as such the USA, England, Germany and France ... were at the forefront of it, and Tokyo joined up a bit later in full force! It's really hard to say that France's music was not progressive or experimental when some of their writers, and film makers were by VERY FAR the most experimental and innovative folks around during the 60's and 70's ... and what was seen in film, could also be seen in other arts.

The Brit prog bands didn't get much initial exposure on radio so they developed a highly theatrical approach to help project what they were doing and gain attention I think. I gather the early reviews of Genesis were not always that favourable so I'm not sure they achieved this universal acceptance that you imagine. The first time that any of their albums charted anywhere was in fact Italy and not Britain so I don't there could have been that much resistance from that country to the vocal style.

BTW I always assumed the quintessential British/English prog vocalist to be Greg Lake anyway.