...also because for me Canterbury is only a 'Psychedelic Jazz in Rock' () style!

Now, I don't see Camel as something close to any of these bands / artists.

 

Yeah Slow yourself down and Six ate have a Santana feel. I really like the first album and I think it is better than Mirage. Sixate, Mystic Queen, Never let go are strong tunes. While Separation, Curiosity are quite good. I think Slow yourself down is musically strong, but latimer's voice sounds funny. Arubaluba is good in bits but a bit simplistic in ideas. But overall the debut is maybe the greatest debut album I've ever heard.

 

 

'Tosh' as we say in the English home counties. Members of Wilde Flowers and Machine went to Canterbury Grammar School! Robert Wyatt's parent's home in Canterbury became a sanctuary for intinerant artists. Time you read Out Bloody Rageous

 

 

 

 

 

Totally agree. Machine went: Brit 60's soul (vaguely mod I suppose), psychedelia, jazz rock fusion , jazz fusion (i.e. without the obvious rock elements). Alas (said too many times before) whilst PA admits allsorts of dubious bands to this umbrella (actually it is marquee size now) called prog, it is still tight-arsed about labelling bands with a single musical style - what's wrong with sensible tick of boxes to indicate breadth of categories (say attached to the album review section?)?

 

Ditto Hugh Hopper in Stomu mailto:Yamash@ta - Yamash'ta band or with isotope  - the distinctive Hopper bass sound, but nobody /very few would label them Canterbury. The presence of Paul Weller  on Robert Wyatt projects doesn't make his Woking-ness Canterbury (wrong county by 80 miles).

 

Also, when they quoted me, I appear as 'cacho' The good ol' days, haha.

 

Anyway, now that I've acquired more knowledge about the Canterbury Scene, like you Robert, I also think that Camel can be labeled 'Canterbury' to a certain extent, and not because of Richard Sinclair's appearance.

 

As far as I'm concerned, some of the Canterbury keyboardists incline towards jazzy/light organ, something that Peter Bardens is known-of. Well, at least Dave Sinclair, Dave Stewart with Hatfield and Mike Ratledge, of course.

 

Though if I were to tag Camel, it would be border Symphonic and border Jazz Rock, that is if we're talking about their first 5 albums.

 

I know your opinion has nothing to do with Sinclair, I was just saying in general.

 

I don't know if Eclectic fits right at all, but you may have been joking there.

 

I only mentioned as their debut Canterbury-ish, not The Snow Goose.

 

Anyway, it might be just me that I see Peter Bardens as a very jazzy keyboardist thus the relation with some of the Canterbury bands. Like I said last year, I do agree with you about the Santana-sound.

 

What about Rain Dances and Moonmadness?

 

I don't think they have anything in common with those bands with the sole exception of Genesis. Yes, odd maybe, but thanks to Mirage I started appreciating Nursery Cryme and Trespass, somehow. Not sure what was it, though. Also, The Snow Goose reminds me a bit of Trespass.

 

Anyway, yes, they barely have anything in common with those bands. As far as I'm concerned, in Camel there was no classically-trained musician. Of course, you don't have to be classically trained to play Symphonic Prog, but it is an obious factor that made bands like Genesis, Yes and ELP play Symphonic Prog.

 

 

Sorry, my bad, I meant classically-leaned. Wakeman, Keith and not quite sure about Banks, all show their classical influences while playing. Heck, even Time and a Word with Kaye shows a lot of classical leanings due to the orchestra.

 

Camel, on the other hand, is a much jazzier inclined band. The rhythm section is by no means powerful nor really complex, though pretty much "groovier" in a way, and like I've saying multiple times, Peter Bardens' jazzy leanings can't be denied.

 

Never denied that Camel had a relation with Symphonic Prog, they just don't play it in the manner of the ''bigger bands''.

 

Also, mind you all, I'm not proposing Camel for Canterbury by any means.

 

If Genesis is not symphonic, neither is Kansas

 

To Jethro Tull? I've never heard that before. Which albums are you thinking of, Nursery Cryme, Trespass and Foxtrot?

 

To continue expressing our feelings about certain Prog bands, I've always stand that Jethro Tull were not really conceived as a Prog band, and I don't think they intended to be one. However, that doesn't take that their Prog albums, Thick as a Brick, Minstrel and A Passion Play are favorites of mine

 

Though, we're getting off-topic

 

Both have very notable jazz rock influences, even more so than the symphonic ones.

 

However, like I said before, I'm not suggesting to move Camel to Canterbury neither to Jazz Rock.

 

Indeed, a great band, we agree on that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listen to the ending of Lunar Sea or the middle part of Song within a Song, that should remind you of Bundles immediately.

 

Also, the rhythm section is akin to jazz.

 

Of course, not the complex characteristics of jazz rock, but jazz rock doesn't need to be complex, just like prog.

 

It's indeed a flavour, since it is mainly Peter Bardens adding it alone, but what a big and notable flavour it is! It's such a unique essence of Camel's classic albums which make it possible to easy distinguish from Yes, Genesis and ELP.

 

Me too, lol.

 

Wouldn't say similar to A Passion Play, though

 

I don't find it funny, it's undoubtly the best instrumental ever conceived by a band.

 

Just kidding. Don't you have Floating World Live by the Softs? Well, I suppose not, you'd probably have told me so... Well, my point is that Moonmadness and most certainly Rain Dances have their fair amount of jazz rock leanings added to the music.

 

 There still is The Lamb, Trick of the Tail and W&W, those are easily Symphonic Prog albums, right? I would also include Selling England by the Pound, haha.

 

on the rooftops?

 

And agree with Raff, the first two albums are a mix of DP and Santana, with an distict english sound.

 

The Canterbury connection is only with the persons. and except Richard Sinclair, none of the others founding members are notable for his canterbury approach.

 

http://www.rarevinyl.net/canterbury.htm - http://www.rarevinyl.net/canterbury.htm

 

Richard Sinclair

"People say, what is the Canterbury scene? I think you have to come to Canterbury and see it and hear it ! I think Kent has got a particular sound. We've sung it in our schools here, we were all at school in this sort of area. I was part of the Church of England choir : up to the age of sixteen I was singing tonalities that are very English. Over the last three or four hundred years, and even earlier than that, some of the tonalities go back. So they are here, and they are a mixture of European things too. The history is very much that. A very historical centre of activity is Canterbury for the last hundred years. So it's quite an important stepping stone of whatever this thousand years have covered. I think it's not to be mocked because it's a centre of communication here and it's a meeting point - many nations come here to visit the cathedral, so you get a very unique situation happening".

"A lot goes on here, it's quite cosmopolitan, Canterbury, to a degree... But that's because of the tourists, not from the people who actually live here : they are very conservative, not cosmopolitan at all, not particularly worldly, I don't think. The music happens outside, gets written here and taken out. This is the Canterbury scene for me. It doesn't really exist here, but it forms here. Musicians, friends join together and play music together, and then they head off around Europe and play their music and get noted for this type of sound".

taken from: http://calyx.perso.neuf.fr/index/whatis.html - http://calyx.perso.neuf.fr/index/whatis.html