Happy 40th! "Tales From Topographic Oceans"!

There was an article on The Oregonian almost a year ago, I think, that was upset that the Portland Symphony did not have enough attention and was not selling enough tickets. So I wrote a response to The Oregonian and the person who wrote that ... who gets free tickets to the Symphony, btw!!! ... and told him that the folks needed to get more modern and interesting ... and stop just doing shows with Pink Martini ... which appear to be the ones that get them the best money.

 

I even suggested, some Frank Zappa, Yes, Jethro Tull (TAAB or PP) ... and even Deep Purple's opus.

 

I never got a reply/suggestion, but the idea is pretty obvious ... they are not interested in the youngsters that don't care about yet another Bach recital this weekend to celebrate the death of his stepson ... PDQ! And no humor! That editorial was not well done and if I was an editor I would have gotten an opposing view by a rock reviewer, of which they have a lot of them ... that love that traditional jazz around here!

 

Even in Germany, they have done a day of Edgar Froese music with an orchestra ... it's coming ... but some of these folks are afraid of stepping aside from the stuff they know too much ... and learn from the stuff they don't know, which in the case of Portland is ... don't want to know because it's not music!

 

And Pink Martini is ... cheap and 2nd rate. I felt like if I wanted to watch that kind of stuff I would go to a bar in San Francisco and watch Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks ... a heck of a lot more fun ... and sexy, too!

Thanks!  I've seen Yes perform "Ritual" live several times, including twice with Moraz!  This photo was taken at the "Solos" performance near Chicago, 14 August 1976, and you can tell it is "Ritual" because Howe is playing his Les Paul Junior guitar!  Great photo by my friend Curt, one of the best concert photographers ever! 

 

 

I think they are a good start ... but some of them are not well done at all.

 

For example, Caravan and the New Sinfonia, is fabulous ... most progressive folks here don't seem to appreciate it as much as I like it! And I think it has to do with the "idea" of what progressive music is, than it does the reality of the music itself!

 

The "Yes", "Tull" and "Genesis" things were not that good ... they should have gotten one of the members of the band involved to make it tighter and better. The "Yes" one, that I remember hearing about 20 years ago, was very poor and I was not interested in an orchestral version of Roundabout! I thought that an orchestral version of TFTO would be more interesting than the pop song hits that so many of these things are doing, see?

 

The PF one, that was around LA, was awful! I think they tried to emulate the showtime special and it fell flat for me.

 

Dream Theater's concerts with an orchestra were excellent. Even if it was metalized ... still it was excellent. Not only does it take talent to do that, it also takes musical knowledge and appreciation!

 

The FZ versions going around, specially that one from NY is not very good ... and I think that it is trying to be too much of a swing band/orchestra thing, that takes away from the music ... sort of try to implement the music into the 30's and make it minnie the moocher all over again, and I think that it is sad, and very bad. In fact, I have written on the Zappa board that I would rather see ZpZ do completely different versions of his dad's work in order to give it a chance to grow more ... like classical music does under the hands of different conductors. But, I'm not convinced that Dweezil is that musically versatile or mentally capable of having to pay attention to the music and joint on top of it ... he can do it as long as it is controlled, but he's not capable of free forming like his dad is ... I think he is too tied up to the notes, chords and music to step outside of it, and he does not have the internal fluidity that dad had!

 

But I heard, and I have no idea who it was, a really nice chromatic harp/harmonica did a version of some pop music that was magnificent ... might have been Toots Thielmans ... but wow ... and that is the kind of freedom that will help a lot of the music come alive and be remembered.

 

I would like to see a full orchestra version of some of these things, but some of the stuff is just all the melodic themes, and nothing else, and takes away a lot of the actual music, and this is why I like the Sinfonia thing with Caravan ... at least one piece was composed specifically for it, and it is excellent, and it also tells you how good some of these folks are in music ... they are not just rock'n'roll'ers!

 

It's all good ... we just need more of it. But local orchestras are afraid to do this ... and specially the Portland one that thinks that you and I are too stupid to know any music beyond the top ten classics! Cold day in hell I will ever buy a ticket to sweep their latrines!

Can I ask where you get this bullsh*t from? Do you just make it up without bothering to check your "facts"? Or do you actually look at what "most progressive folks here" actually say and then completely ignore that because it disagrees with your preconceptions and prejudices so just make it up anyway?

(please feel free to follow the link, unless you're scared of learning something)

Reworded as it was not meant to say that no one likes the album ... it was meant to say that when it comes to Caravan's favorites, this is not always mentioned, and the remastered album with the other pieces in it (in order too!) is even better!

BTW, I'm a newb here (obviously), though I was pretty active on a.m.p. back in the 90s.  Thanks for creating / maintaining this space!

^

If this is true, I feel truly sorry for you