Blues or Jazz (influences on prog)?

The Yardbirds were indeed worthy to the blues listener. Sonny Boy Williamson live with the Yardbirds is quite enjoyble even though Sonny Boy Williamson was coughing up blood along with his health deterioration. A young Eric Clapton plays in a reserved fashion on this one and impresses me to no end. He plays quite intense blues improv on "Five Live Yardbirds". I often hear the opinion that Eric Clapton progressed his most with Cream. I see a reference in progression being hardly debatable at all in this case. The style he prsented in the Yardbirds, especially on 5LY, was an approach within a style of guitar playing that he had mastered to a high degree. He was growing and expanding musically in private and reaching the peak of a style before presenting it to the public. A clean straight through the amp sound with a small portion of reverb. I take him very seriously on this record. He is a young guy with speed and precision along with melodic content. He certainly did not sound this way with Cream. The style of Cream was very diverse but for some reason Clapton unconsciously did not include this style of guitar playing in the band's music.

I also enjoy "Over, Under, Sideways, Down. I don't care for their writing of psychedelic songs except for maybe a few and I focus more to the talents of Jeff Beck. You know the deal.....Jeff's Boogie where he emulates some Les Paul?.......I still can not concieve to this day, as to why Jeff Beck stopped writing?
It seemed that from Blow by Blow all the way up to "Who Else"?....someone else did all of the writing. If you check the writing credits on "Rough and Ready" you will see that he did all of the writing or maybe all but one song. But, he wrote great songs like "Got the Feeling" and "Situation"? Those songs are great and I'm a bit confused.

Jimmy Page I respected much more in the his early days as a session musician and his time spent with the Yardbirds.He went to Art school with Sandy Denny or if not school he knew her well through other circles. Somehow he personally gained interest in the occult and traditional folk guitar tunings of every kind. Possibly through the contact of Sandy Denny as one of the Strawbs members dicussed with me her personal interests with me about 30 years ago. But it is not accurate to say this is all factual. She may have introduced Page to many of the traditional folk guitarists during the early period of Pentangle and Fairport. He seemed to have mastered all possibilities in folk guitar mastery. His ironically ....electric version of "White Summer" from the Yardbirds live at Anderson Theatre shows technique in this area of style.
I was not particularly fond of his electric guitar work in Led Zeppelin. His acoustic work was always top notch with Zep. By Zeppelin II he was no longer blocking strings when he would alternate pick and it came off rather sloppy and amateur. Like a 10 year old student who is impatient and frustrated with the Penatonic scale. If you listen to the underground tapes with Sonny Boy Williamson....much prior to the Yardbirds I believe, you will hear something completely different about Page's electric guitar playing. More straight through the amp and clean and precise. And amazing stuff from a young studio guitarist. So....I've always wondered even as a kid, why all of that had to change? Don't cry me a river but, just to analyse for a moment........He seemed a different or more shooled player back then.

 

I agree it is a structured form. I do find much usage of the pentatonic scale in progressive rock though. For example Frank Bormann (spelling wrong)....from Eloy uses the pentatonic mode. Andy Latimer, David Gilmour, Gary Green and hundreds of others play blues riffs, within the context of a signature riff or Progressive rock composed passage. Steve Hackett and Steve Howe especially. Not UNIVERS ZERO! or Bob Fripp himself.      A large sum of early to mid-70's progressive rock bands incorporated blues signature riffs based off blues scales, sometimes hidden within their composition, sometimes more prevalent. Curved Air especially. And Steve Hillage played blues riffs unintentionaly that turn up in the improvisation of Buddy Guy. It tends to make itself present during a prog piece played in a minor key and switches consistently from minor to major chords. Solaris, Atomic Rooster, Lucifer's Friend, Lucifer Was, Black Widow, Omega, Greenslade and Curved Air are all part of this fancy.  

 

It doesn't suffice to look at Prog Rock overall. Rather, look at the influences on each individual Prog subgenre.

 

Prog started out in the 60's with the use of folk, raga, R&B, soul, jazz, blues, classical and various other genres. Of these, I think R&B accounts for a large part of the development and soul should not be underestimated.