American prog, please help me get over my hangup

David Sancious

stonebeard wrote: MovingPictures07 wrote: Zappa. Enough said. Stretching it. Zappa's great, but I still don't get how he's prog enough to be more than prog-related.

Zappa was more prog in 1 album than most modern bands' entire catalogs put together. Anyone who listens (even a little) to DT, TFK, TMV, or any modern prog band, and jazz-rock fusion should know how much influence he had on these bands and artists, not to mention he was a modern classical composer, writing rock music, you cant necessarily call John Petrucci, or Omar Rodriguez, or whoever, composers, in the same sense as Zappa was.

not to mention, yet again, that you can pretty much trace the roots of progressive rock to Zappa/Mothers' first album Freak Out (1966). To make a long story short, without Freak Out, Paul McCartney would not have been inspired to write Sgt Peppers, which wouldnt have inspired other rock musicians to experiment with the rock form, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

if you knew his entire discography you'd understand why he's one of, if not THE, most progressive artist of the 20th century. Now, you dont HAVE to know his entire discography to know that, but because of his eclectic and absurd variety of albums, you may not have the right ones to gauge your opinion of his progressiveness

stonebeard... dont take what i said too seriously , im not trying to start a big debate, i was just a little surprised to see that statement. I know plenty of people who dont even like Zappa's music, but they cant deny his progressiveness.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: el dingo wrote: ^   Perhaps we should start a poll: Is Frank Zappa Progressive?   Seriously, if FZ isn't progressive, I'm a tortilla. I think that a more difficult question would be: "Did Frank Zappa play Prog Rock". I would say: No. His music was always very progressive, but I'm having a hard time linking it to the iconic Prog Rock bands of the 70s.

some songs off the top of my head

Peaches En Regalia
Inca Roads
Dont Eat The Yellow Snow suite
Little House I Used To Live In
Eat That Question
Revised Music for Guitar and Low-Budget Orchestra
RDNZL
The Black Page Pts 1&2
Punky's Whips
The Ocean Is The Ultimate Solution
The Adventures of Greggery Peccary
Cruisin' for Burgers
Florentine Pogen
Fifty-Fifty
Penquin In Bondage
Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)
Village of the Sun suite
City of Tiny Lites
Drowning Witch
The Blue Light
Waka/Jawaka
Dupree's Paradise

the '60s albums are each like one large piece. Then there's Lather. I say no more...

No sign of the is Zappa prog poll perhaps it's been amended?

Henry Plainview wrote: Yes, but of the ones that I've heard, none of those songs sound anything like the big 5.

Big 5? of the classic bands?

do you honestly think that Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, ELP, and (PF? GG?) sound similar. I hear little to no similarities in any of those bands' sound.

Besides, Zappa was in his own world, and worked on his own terms. He was never lumped into that scene, he didnt give two hoots about the prog rock scene, was making music before the prog rock explosion, and kept making quality music into the late 70s, 80s and 90s.

as a side note, id go as far as saying he made the first steps to jazz-rock/fusion before Gary Burton, Miles Davis and Larry Coryell.

el dingo wrote: ^   Perhaps we should start a poll: Is Frank Zappa Progressive?   Seriously, if FZ isn't progressive, I'm a tortilla.

You're not a tortilla.

He's progressive, but he's by and large not prog. (I haven't had this discussion in ages...)

I have trouble enough with jazz/fusion being grouped with progressive rock. I will offer that Zappa is definitely jazz/fusion on a few albums, but that does not make him prog, though it would be enough to garner a spot in the jazz/fusion genre.

Dorsalia wrote: So, even if the whole "progressive approach/writing music for rock bands and orchestra/experimenting/going beyond the borders of all known music" isn't enough for you. Then shouldn't the "off the wall time signatures/concept albums/usage of non traditional rock instruments to play rock music/20 minute epics/instrumental excess together with a disgusting amount of virtuosity/etc" be enough for you? I mean, if a band's musical similarity (I use the expression loosely) with "the five seventies' giants" or whatever, is the criteria for deciding whether a band is progressive or not, then probably at least half of the bands on this website would have to be removed.  The whole Rio/avant section at least. No to mention Extreme/tech metal, post metal and a lot of electronic prog.

You're still not getting it.

Suppose someone thinks Aphex Twin is really on the vanguard, doing something really different, innovative, etc. We might say he's progressive, but he clearly does not play prog rock music. There's a difference.

I forgot to mention tempo changes and different moods within single pieces of rock music. Zappa did that too.

I think there isn't an album as progressive and groundbreaking as Absolutely free , from start to finish one of the most intense records of all time.

npjnpj wrote: My thoughts on Zappa: There are artists, who intensionally play prog. Then there are artists who deny this but who's music is prog, whether they like it or not. Zappa is unique. He never set out to be one thing or another, he just did his thing. It was stuff not done before, and only half-baked attempts at copying his style were made. So if FZ is considered prog or even prog-related is dependent on whether utter uniqueness on its own is perceived as being prog.

Zappa comes to prog through avant-garde and jazz rock/fusion.  Once you understand that, you will understand why Zappa is prog.