OT: progressive rock

[Scud49]

Pentangle - Hunting Song.

Jacqui McShee providing the haunting lead vocals:

 

[MdStang]

Camel - Ice

 

[Bigboote]

From Wiki: the style was an emergence of psychedelic bands who abandoned standard pop traditions in favour of instrumentation and compositional techniques more frequently associated with jazz, folk, or classical music. Additional elements contributed to its "progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic, technology was harnessed for new sounds, music approached the condition of "art", and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening rather than dancing.

So Yeah, Boston and Styx dabbled in the Prog Rock. They were also considered Arena Rock.

Yeah, and ask ten people what Progressive Rock is and you'll get, well at least 2-3 different answers. I looked up the difference between art rock and prog rock once. They described the characteristics of each, where there was probably 80% overlap, and the differences, which were few. And when they listed bands as examples of each, there was again about 80-90% overlap. The one person I've seen described as Art Rock whom I wouldn't consider progressive rock is Tori Amos (although anyone, including me, is free to post something from her).

I've been surprised in recent years to find that a lot of people consider bands like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report to be prog rock. Since John McLaughlin, Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman, Joe Zawinul, Stanley Clarke, Billy Cobham, all grew up in jazz, I'd always considered them progressive jazz.

But the tent is big, and nobody has a monopoly on what constitutes what, because there isn't a hard-and-fast definition. I've enjoyed everything posted, and learned of a few new bands, whom I'll visit on YT in the coming days. Y'all have beat me to some bands, but I'll post something more from Camel, King Crimson, and maybe ELP or Yes. Keep it coming!

 

[Ozimoto]

This would be on my list of impactful prog rock songs from ELP.

 

[Ozimoto]

I think some early Fleetwood Mac Qualifies.

Oh Well, Parts I and II for instance.

 

[Ozimoto]

You might not think of Santana as progressive rock, but I think this song qualifies.

 

[Scud49]

I think some early Fleetwood Mac Qualifies.

Oh Well, Parts I and II for instance.

Can't agree more.

Songs like Station Man and Hypontized too. Fantastic stuff.

 

[Scud49]

Renaissance's "Trip to the Fair".

Superb piece of music. Annie Haslam is another stunning vocalist.

 

[Shenandoah]

Here’s a band that I first heard in X-Rock 80 when I was stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas. Starcastle, highly influenced by Yes.

 

[Scud49]

King Crimson - great smooth and spacey song by them:

 

[Scud49]

Jade Warrior - Way of the Sun

Beautiful pulsating jazz/rock:

 

[Scud49]

I remember when this one hit the FM airwaves back in the early/mid 70's......my friends (and myself) were saying "Have you heard that new Fleetwood Mac song about dreams and UFO's"...? We were mezmerized.

 

[Hoops66]

Thanks for the clarification BB. Now I'll throw out one of the origionals, I think. Does this ring a bell? Or many bells.

 

[64Zcode]

Underappreciated group from North of the border:
SAGA - Don't Be Late

 

[Bigboote]

Renaissance's "Trip to the Fair".

Superb piece of music. Annie Haslam is another stunning vocalist.

Renaissance is a nice segue to what I was planning on posting next. Their sound (for their four "formative" albums) was entirely built around an orchestra. I got into symphonic metal (a real, recognized genre) when I was reading in the youtube comments of a Renaissance show, "Floor Jansen is the closest thing to Annie Haslam working today." Symphonic metal is really an outgrowth of progressive rock. Great musicians, many of them conservatory-trained, and almost always brilliant female vocals.

Here's one from Floor and After Forever. This is another one from an album that tells a sad story -- it's about an unwanted child, based on the observations of one of the members who taught in public schools.

 

[Bigboote]

Here's one from Ayreon, more a "project" than a band. Arjen Lucassen, tallest man in rock, plays guitars, bass, and keys, has a few musicians he often works with, and a revolving set of vocalists. This album is about someone who's living on Mars when the the Earth annihilates itself in a massive war. He "prevolves" using something like a Holodek, and it this song has emerged at the beginning of the human race.

 

[Bigboote]

Happy the Man were a band of some local repute in the Mid-Atlantic (although I discovered them in Connecticut). They made two albums, then released a third a few years later. Kit Watkins, late of Maryland, now of Vermont, has released loads of previously unreleased stuff in the last couple of decades. This is from their first album. I call it the crescendo piece, as it has probably a dozen false endings, each one with a crescendo.

 

[rvwsleep]

From a live concert in 1977.
Was that really 47 years ago ?

 

[hjoerring]

I would not call myself a Rocker, but I dibble now-and-then in songs send my way. A few months ago my daughter send me 2 names to check out:

MANNEQUIN - An American group from Philadelphia and,
The LAST DINNER PARTY - Brit. group from London

Not sure of the appropriate label, or if one is needed.

 

[Ozimoto]

Here is another from Carlos Santana.

 

[Scud49]

Mannheim Steamroller's Mere Image:

 

[Jackcatscal]

Focus is a Dutch progressive rock band formed in Amsterdam in 1969 by keyboardist, vocalist, and flautist Thijs van Leer, drummer Hans Cleuver, bassist Martijn Dresden, and guitarist Jan Akkerman.

And the Focus focus is on their song Hocus Pocus, from the yodeling subset of Prog Rock. Two important things about the song. It was one of the themes of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. And I was traipsing around Amsterdam when the song was originally popular.

 

[YoDore]

One more from the late 90's-early aughts. From a Dream Theater album about what someone learns from a past-life regression. The album is brutally powerful, and this cut is achingly beautiful. I've literally listened to the album four times in the last couple of days.

I'll never remember where I head this before, but I did, and I really liked it. The haunting vocals in the prelude remind me so much of Leona Lewis, and the music in that section is even vaguely reminiscent of Leona's "Bleeding Love", a Ryan Teddar song.

 

[cullaville]

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=quella+vecchia+locanda

Quella Vecchia Locanda (Italian for "That old inn") or QVL were an Italian progressive rock, symphonic rock or chamber music musical group from Rome formed in 1970. The band released two studio albums, in 1972 and 1974.

Both their studio albums have received favourable reviews.[1][2]

The band's singer (and flautist) was Giorgio Giorgi. According to an interview with Don V. Lax, the violin player of the first album, "I would find some Bach or Brahms or Corelli and weave it into the music so we were making a classical-rock fusion." As for live performances, "playing at Villa Pamphili for 150,000 people was the most memorable, but we also played for other huge outdoor concerts, on television, and at clubs in Rome and on the coast."

 

[cullaville]

From Wiki: the style was an emergence of psychedelic bands who abandoned standard pop traditions in favour of instrumentation and compositional techniques more frequently associated with jazz, folk, or classical music. Additional elements contributed to its "progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic, technology was harnessed for new sounds, music approached the condition of "art", and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening rather than dancing.

So Yeah, Boston and Styx dabbled in the Prog Rock. They were also considered Arena Rock.

and the studio, rather than the stage,

agreed that the studio was the focus of the musivcal but don't sell shi=ort the live performances Of YES, ELP, King Crimson etc.