Caravan - In the Land of Grey and Pink (1971)

Dan:

Caravan was a prototypical prog band from Canterbury, UK. They helped to define the genre in its earliest incarnations. All of my knowledge of Caravan comes from Steve, who has diligently investigated prog bands for decades. The lineage from Caravan to Camel is a connection I was unaware of until he traced it back from my copy of Camel's Breathless (1978).

Caravan's eponymous first album was released in 1969 and offered a thoughtful and clever alternative to the heavier prog bands of the time. Their next four albums took the promising beginning to more imaginative extremes, refining vocal and instrumental prowess despite frequent lineup changes. In the Land of Grey and Pink followed If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You, and stands as one of their greatest achievements on record. 

Side 1 opens with a light-hearted tale of infatuation with a "Golf Girl," followed by "Winter Wine," "Love to Love You," and the title track. All of these songs are delightful fantasies and recollections. 

Side 2 is a suite of ten songs comprising "Nine Feet Underground." It consumes 22:40 minutes and is classic prog at its best. Heard in one sitting, it touches all of the bases: excellent compositions, outstanding playing, coherence, and overall balance. Vocal duties are shared by Pye Hastings and Richard Sinclair. I especially like Sinclair's singing on "Dissociation" toward the end of the suite, which creates a nostalgic and wistful vibe:

And sometimes I think of wine

Songs and laughter flowing free

People talking all the time

And it brings it all back to me

Will the day be warm

And bright, or will it snow?

There are people waiting

Now who really have to know

For me, discovering In the Land of Land of Grey and Pink clarified a lot of prog's later developments. Caravan was a key band whose albums offer up much enjoyment 50 years after their first release. 

Steve:

As mentioned in our post for Soft Machine's Fourth, I bought In the Land of Grey and Pink on the same day as that album, and both albums were my first Canterbury prog albums. However, I do have an earlier memory of Grey and Pink. Dan and I would often shop at Yardbird Records in Coconut Grove (a section of Miami) and I specifically recall this album playing in the store long before I bought the album. It garnered my attention because of Richard Sinclair's singing, which is hard to miss - his presence on Camel's Breathless and Rain Dances is a defining characteristic of those two albums.  

During my junior year of college, the school year after I had bought this album and a few other Canterbury prog albums, my roommate (not much of a music fan, but he tolerated me well) heard this album so much he could sing along with "Golf Girl". I could tell that he was quite amused by the whimsical, goofy lyrics, sing-songy melody, and the innocent charm of Sinclair's voice. Meanwhile, my prog friend Rob (mentioned elsewhere in this blog) and I dug deeper into the more expansive thematic explorations of "Winter Wine" and "Nine Feet Underground". This album has a little something for everyone. "Love to Love You (and Tonight Pigs Will Fly)", sung by guitarist Pye Hastings, even sounds like a potential radio hit.

In the Land of Grey and Pink has rightfully earned the almost unanimous respect of the prog rock fanbase - I've never heard a negative word about it. I would even suggest it as a starting point for curious rock fans as to what this progressive rock thing is all about. Caravan are a very easy band to love.

Yes - The Yes Album (1971)

Dan:

It's tempting to underestimate the music of Yes because it is so familiar now. It was actually a radical departure from conventional song forms, creating long, oddly structured suites that carried vague but often profound meanings. Their albums provide clear examples of what most people consider prog to be as a music genre. The Yes Album was also commercially successful and stands as a major landmark of early prog. 

Departures from convention tend to be risky, if only because audience expectations can't be adjusted beforehand. I'm reminded of the turmoil that Ornette Coleman's music precipitated in the late 1950s. He has later been credited with freeing jazz from some of its self-imposed limitations, thereby expanding the possibilities for expression. Yes's departures are more about changing expectations of the way songs are written. Conventional songwriting would involve a lyric, perhaps some clever rhyming scheme, repeating melodies over a progression of chords (most often based on the blues), and bridges connecting the front and back ends of a song. Yes defied many of these conventions but managed to connect with audiences once they got past their formative stage, which included two earlier albums - Yes (1969) and Time and a Word (1970). 

After a brief acoustic interlude by Howe, "Starship Trooper" closes side 1. It is my favorite Yes song by a wide margin. For one thing, the lyrics actually make sense. I quoted part of them in a published response to some academic criticism I once received. 

All I know can be shown by your acceptance of the facts there shown before you.

Take what I say in a different way and it's easy to say that this is all confusion.

(I restrained myself from including the next line in my response: "As I see a new day in me, I can also show if you and you may follow.) 

"Trooper" is organized as a suite of three songs: "Life Seeker," "Dissolution," and "Würm." "Würm" ends the 9:26 minute opus with an increasingly deep loud repeating phrase, eventually fading out. It reminds me of Abbey Road's "I Want You, She's So Heavy" except for the fadeout.

Yes's next albums, Fragile and Close to the Edge, would take even more risks that worked superbly. Two lesser albums followed (Tales of Topographic Oceans and Relayer), and I felt the band had moved away from its strengths both instrumentally and in the songwriting. Going for the One (1977) restored much of the earlier excellence, only to be followed by Tormato, which I never got into. Yes re-formed in the 1980s for 90125 and Big Generator. I liked 90125 and its hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart," but none of the later albums come close to the majesty The Yes Album. 

Steve:

Because it laid the foundation for the peak albums in the Yes discography, The Yes Album can sometimes be taken for granted. Yet, when I listen to it, I often think it's my favorite album of theirs while it's on. One of the reasons for this is that they still sound human on this album, like a band of mere mortals getting together and just playing some rock and roll. Except this was rock and roll that they composed in the most radical way they could imagine, developing their ideas into long-form musical progressions that held your attention like a 3-minute pop song would. On future albums, their musical sophistication would sound almost otherworldly, but they're still relatively down to earth here. 

"Yours is No Disgrace" is a good example. Although there are solos and instrumental breaks, this is not merely a 3-minute song stretched out to 9 minutes using extended vamps with solos. The song establishes (rather bluntly, so it's impossible to miss) a main theme at the start, introduces a secondary melody once the vocals begin, and then spends the rest of the song playing mutations and variations of these fairly simple musical themes, presenting them in multiple contexts that never sound repetitive. "Perpetual Change" uses a similar approach.

Long-form progressive rock songs often take the form of multi-part suites, and The Yes Album has a couple of these as well. "Starship Trooper" is essentially three songs combined into one, but it uses overlapping musical themes to tie them together - for example, the "speak to me of summer / long winter's longer than time can remember" bridge is used both in the opening "Life Seeker" section and after the 2nd "Disillusion" section. Speaking of "Disillusion", that part (credited wholly to Chris Squire) contains the pungent lyric Dan called out above, and I do recall him calling out that lyric way back in the day as well. Even if it didn't mean much to me at the time, the words just sounded cool together in their rapid delivery during that brisk section. 

Update: As of December 2023, Steven Wilson's remix of The Yes Album became available as part of the Super Deluxe reissue. We auditioned the new mixes and find them a strong improvement over the previous digital versions. 

Traffic - The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (1971)

Dan:

After the breakups of the first versions of Traffic and Blind Faith, Steve Winwood and Rick Grech re-formed Traffic. In place of their psychedelic-flavored early sound, the new Traffic adopted a more sophisticated style that emphasized folk and jazz influences. John Barleycorn Must Die was a huge success in 1970 and was followed in 1971 by The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys. (Welcome to the Canteen was also issued in 1971 as a somewhat tainted "contractual obligation" album that I don't believe I've ever heard.)

The centerpiece of Low Spark is the title track, which occupies 12:10 minutes of side 1. I first heard this song on Traffic's live album, On the Road (1973). I had picked up the double LP just to see what the fuss was about. I was impressed by the long pieces: for example, "Glad" and "Freedom Rider" comprise a medley that takes the full 20+ minutes of side 1. "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" takes up all of Side 4. Long solos by saxophonist Chris Wood and keyboardist Winwood appeared to be the main feature. There was also not much emphasis on guitar; Winwood is credited as the guitarist, but he also plays organ and piano. Obviously, in the live sets he couldn't overdub anything. Rock bands rarely de-emphasize guitars, but Traffic pulls it off. 

"The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" could never be a hit single due to its length, but it is the most memorable song for me in all of the Traffic I've heard. I've investigated the interpretations offered by anonymous posters on websites, and they're all over the place. The song is about drug abuse, record company exploitation, maturation, etc. Most of these interpretations attempt to match the words in the song to a specific meaning. It's never made clear exactly what the song is referring to. For me, that's the test of a great song - it can have different meanings for different people. 

The other songs on Low Spark should not be overlooked. "Many a Mile to Freedom" and "Rainmaker" are Traffic classics now, making the album fare well in comparisons to the folkier John Barleycorn. 

A newer version of "Low Spark" is on Winwood's Greatest Hits Live album from 2017, which Steve (my son, not Winwood) pushed my way a few years ago. I'm grateful because the newer version is more guitar-oriented, and the other hits are all rendered impeccably when performed live. 

Steve:

I gravitated to this album thanks to hearing the title track on the radio several times. The piano-driven chorus with the choppy eighth notes was quite catchy, and the long, drifting instrumental sections somehow never got tedious. It was my first Traffic purchase, though I was already aware of Winwood via the Blind Faith album and his solo hit "While You See a Chance" that was on the radio a lot.  

More so than any other Traffic album, I always find this album tremendously satisfying each time I put it on. Each track is given plenty of room to breathe and takes advantage of this loose atmosphere to create a truly wonderful mood. Sometimes these tracks surprise me. I remember recently walking into my neighborhood record store, and "Light Up or Leave Me Alone" was playing. The instrumental break seemed to fill the room with so much interesting groove that seemed to last for ages, yet the entire track is just shy of 5 minutes long. Each song on this album has the capacity to stretch out time in a similar way.

Jethro Tull - Aqualung (1971)

Dan:

Jethro Tull's follow up to the excellent Benefit album was astonishing for its social commentary and its collection of new compositions by Ian Anderson. It became the band's best-selling album while garnering rave reviews. I imagine that I bought it because of its popularity (not my usual criterion) but I liked its departure from the norm. It takes on serious subject matter, rocks like crazy but also shows a delicate side to Tull. I prefer Benefit and Stand Up for their tunes, but I appreciate Aqualung for its boldness. Because it's so widely known and loved, most people would not need much guidance, so I'll just explain why I like it. 

First, the two songs that open the album are the title piece and "Cross-Eyed Mary." Both portray anti-heroic characters: a homeless man who ogles school children, and a young prostitute. I take the point to be that these people exist and should be reckoned with instead of being loathed or ignored. I occasionally engage with people like Aqualung on my morning walks and find them utterly harmless and often humorous. They give me names (hey Slim) and offer fist bumps or, in one case, a puff of whatever he was smoking (I politely declined). I understand that the Aqualung character was inspired by Ian Anderson's wife who photographed such people on the banks of the Thames.

Second, the album's religious theme laments the plight of God as something that you "wind up on Sundays." For Anderson and many other people, religion is a personal matter and God, if he's anywhere, is "inside you and me." Anderson's songs about God are not irreverent, but they are critical of how God is forced upon people by parents, teachers, and legislators. 

While critics sometimes weave these two themes together to form a (gasp) "concept album," I see the themes as mostly independent. My appreciation of individual songs is based on the music, not their connection to the narrative. For example, I like "Aqualung's" structure, with its almost spoken bridge that contrasts with the snarling opening and closing bars. The closing "Wind Up," is a plaintive appeal for understanding that can both stand alone and serve to summarize a religious theme. 

Then there is "Locomotive Breath." Not to be taken literally, the runaway train signifies the concept of juggernaut, which for me refers to social processes that are impelled forwardly and cannot be reversed, despite their dire consequences. I think of industrial development, religious fervor, political extremism, the proliferation of firearms in the U.S., and overpopulation (Anderson's particular inspiration for the song), all of which are terribly hard to slow down (just like a speeding train). 

Such is the ingenious mind of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull. I'm glad that they, and prog bands in general, focus on more interesting topics than the boy-meets-girl stories that popular music has always relied upon. As one critic said, listeners should focus more on Anderson's songs than his on-stage appearance and antics (referring to his dress and one-footed flute playing). I agree. Listen to this album with the lyric sheet in front of you.

Steve:

Aqualung is the only Jethro Tull album I recall hearing around the house when I was a small child; I was not at all familiar with Stand Up or Benefit until I was well into my high school years. As such, each of the songs from Aqualung triggers nostalgic feelings for me. While "Aqualung" and "Locomotive Breath" are arguably the two most over-exposed songs in their catalog, I have to admit that I've never stopped getting excited when they come on - they're famous for a good reason.  

Dan expressed some skepticism about this album's reputation as a "concept album", and from what I've read, the band felt quite the same way. In fact, legend has it that their next album, Thick as a Brick, was purposely designed as an over-the-top parody of a concept album, as if to say "You want a concept album, eh? Well then here you go... it's all one song, see?" Although Ian Anderson has been accused of being pompous and pretentious in later years, I get the impression that he was not taking himself quite so seriously at this early point in his career.

Although not technically part of the album, some additional material recorded around the same time deserves mention here. Much of it was released on the 1972 compilation album Living in the Past and originates from a 7" 5-song EP that focuses on Anderson's acoustic guitar songs. "Life is a Long Song", "Nursie", "Dr. Bogenbroom", "From Later", and especially "Up the 'Pool" are all mature and majestic songs, and the last might be my favorite Jethro Tull song of all. These and other songs are included on a bonus disc with Steven Wilson's remixed upgrade of Aqualung.

Jack Bruce - Harmony Row (1971)

Steve:

After Led Zeppelin whet my appetite for what is called Classic Rock, one of my favorite new favorite bands in my high school days was Cream. By far, my favorite aspect of Cream was the vocals, songwriting, and overall musicality of bassist/singer Jack Bruce. My admiration of Jack was amplified tenfold one day when I purchased a double LP on Polydor called Jack Bruce at His Best.  Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker had also been honored with similar-looking and similarly titled double LPs; Cream remained extremely popular, even after their premature demise in 1968.  

Eric Clapton was always the main draw of the band, popularity-wise - his tenure in the Bluesbreakers, Derek and the Dominos, and his commercial success as a solo artist kept the interest in Clapton alive well into the 70s, 80s, and 90s. But Jack Bruce? Even as the primary creative force and front man for the Cream juggernaut, he always seemed the underdog to me - a "musician's musician" whom everyone respected but who never had much commercial success on his own. Which brings me back to Jack Bruce at His Best. This double album provided a pretty inclusive summary of Jack's first three solo albums: Songs for a Tailor, Things We Like, and Harmony Row. I was blown away by all of it.  All but one track from Harmony Row was included in this double LP.

To a large extent, Harmony Row is all Jack's work. He wrote all the music (his writing partner Pete Brown handled the lyrics, as always), and played piano, organ, bass, acoustic guitar, and cello. John Marshall, soon to join Soft Machine, played the drums, and session whiz Chris Spedding played electric guitar. A good analog to this album would be Steve Winwood's realization of John Barleycorn Must Die, a similarly eclectic Traffic album on which Winwood handled the lion's share of the instrumental and compositional duties by himself.  

Harmony Row, however, sports even more sharp left turns and just plain odd tracks than Winwood's opus. For the most extreme example, listen to "Post War", with its weird near-ska rhythm and sudden key changes, not to mention the abrupt bridges that sound like they were flown in from a different album. For the most part, though, these eclectic musical decisions only serve to pump up the excitement. "A Letter of Thanks" is an exhilarating piano-fueled rocker whose unpredictable changes in meter successfully build momentum rather than halt it. The closing "The Consul at Sunset" uses a slow jungle beat to frame its spooky portrait of a haunted and doomed man. "Smiles and Grins" uses its length (at nearly 6 minutes, it's the album's longest track) to include jazzy instrumental passages as breathing room between the rapid-fire vocal sections. Finally, "Victoria Sage" might be one of the prettiest ballads I have ever heard, and I'll leave it at that.

All the tracks I cited above comprise side 2 of this fantastic album. I believe it's the best album side in my collection. There, I said it. Side 1 rules too. Don't miss this one.

Dan:

It seems only fair to be scooped by my own son on music from my generation. He's right about Jack Bruce's relative neglect compared to "Slowhand" Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker, Bruce's Cream bandmates. Despite the neglect, I could make the case that Bruce was the best musician in Cream. For evidence, listen to the live sides on Wheels of Fire, paying attention to Bruce's bass lines. "Spoonful," in particular, is transformed from an average blues song into something bordering on the miraculous. The instrumental "Toad" is also filled with great bass playing. Jack Bruce was also Cream's best vocalist.

I have to confess to being unimpressed with Harmony Row the first time I heard it. I was too impatient. I have since revisited the album and now know why it's one of Steve's all-time faves. It's worth the extra investment of time to appreciate each and every track on its own terms. I especially enjoy "The Consul at Sunset" and "Victoria Sage." I'm glad I rediscovered this album. 

Soft Machine - Fourth (1971)

Steve:

Thank goodness for the CD age. As I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I was a Camel fan at a very early age, so when Camel albums first became available on CD, I got a few right off the bat. One of the great things about many CD reissues back then was the liner notes, which gave me some history behind the band and the album that I did not otherwise have the means to learn. This was still pre-Internet, so all I knew about Camel was provided by the LP sleeves and the weak writeup in the Rolling Stone Record Guide. I believe it was in the booklet of The Snow Goose CD on Deram that I first saw mention of "the Canterbury Scene". Camel had a link to this scene by virtue of bassist/vocalist Richard Sinclair, who played with Camel for just two short years but still left an indelible mark on the band's history. The CD booklet went on to mention several other Canterbury Scene bands, including Soft Machine, one of the bands central to the whole "Canterbury" thing.

Armed with this new knowledge, my next record store trips were focused on finding releases by these Canterbury artists. Two of my first purchases (on the same day, as I recall) were In the Land of Grey and Pink by Caravan (featuring the aforementioned Richard Sinclair) and Fourth by Soft Machine. While the Caravan album was very much what I expected and had hoped to hear (helped by Sinclair's presence, no doubt), the Soft Machine album was more of a surprise. Essentially, it is a hardcore progressive electric jazz album - something that was not in my wheelhouse at the time. Elton Dean's free-blowing saxophone dominates several of the pieces, and although Robert Wyatt, the lovably whimsical vocalist I'd heard about, is present, there are no vocals on the album as he sticks to playing drums here. Wyatt would leave the band after this album, and his adventures subsequent to Soft Machine are well worth exploring. 

Despite my initial "huh?", I kept listening to this album, gradually understanding and internalizing it, and within a year or so I had collected all of their first six albums. In retrospect, I think this album may have been the first time a jazz album clicked with me - I know every note on it, and it all makes sense to me. Since then, Soft Machine has become one of my favorite groups of all time (even top 5, dare I say), and this album is where it all started. What's more, I've developed a deep affection for all of the Soft Machine albums, even though the band's direction and personnel were always in constant flux, to the point that by their seventh album, keyboardist Mike Ratledge was the only original member left. I attribute their continuity to an overriding "guiding principle" that seems to hover over the band, no matter who is in it. 

I understand that music like this owes a huge debt to the originators of electric jazz - Miles Davis, Weather Report, etc. But bands like Soft Machine still brought something to the table that those guys didn't or couldn't. Alhough they had developed some pretty good jazz chops, they were in essence a rock band playing jazz, not vice versa. This difference manifests in a bit more of a raw edge to their playing - whether it's a particularly ramshackle drum fill by Wyatt, or Ratledge going for a little extra distortion on his organ freakout, or bassist Hugh Hopper cranking up the fuzz. There's a rock energy here that I really responded to in my rock-centric youth.

Dan:

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Steve had gotten into the Softs because I don't recall ever playing their albums while he was young. I added Third and Fourth to my collection within a few years of their releases (1970 and 1971). I came to them as a jazz lover, having read rave reviews in the jazz press. The early 70s were challenging times for jazz heads like me, but I thought I would "get with the times" and not wait for the resurrection of John Coltrane. I was impressed by this adventurous band of Brits who clearly knew how to play and, as Steve notes, felt like a rock band too. Elton Dean had solid jazz credentials, as demonstrated on two of his jazz albums in my collection: a quartet session (All the Tradition, 1990) and a large band (Newsense,1998). But those jazz albums do not resemble the wonderful world of Soft Machine. 

Emerson Lake & Palmer - Tarkus (1971)

Steve:

Although I was already aware of both Pink Floyd and King Crimson in my high school years, I didn't have any real awareness of "progressive rock" per se. I had a few Genesis albums, but they were all from the post-Steve Hackett period. To me, Floyd and Crimson were just another form of classic rock. However, once a friend introduced me to ELP, it became clear that this was part of a strain of early 70s music that stood apart from classic rock, with different goals. For ELP, the goal was to combine the complexity of classical music with the visceral excitement of rock. At this time in my life, I was studying music theory in college and loved the challenge of following such harmonically and rhythmically complex music while still "getting my rocks off".

Tarkus, the band's second album, is my favorite. While the first album relied mostly on piano and organ for its keyboard arsenal, this second album introduced some crazier synthesizer sounds, while still keeping the album grounded in earthy rock/soul-based textures on the whole. Despite the high-minded conceptual aspirations of the band at this point, they still rocked in a way that might fool you into thinking this is just a band of mates jamming together - much like the concurrent The Yes Album sounds to me. 

The title suite occupies all of side 1, and it remains one of my favorite prog epics to this day. When I first discovered ELP, I recall I was more blown away by their over-the-top later efforts such as "Karn Evil 9" and "Pirates", but the earthier strains of "Tarkus" have aged much better. Besides the more approachable instrumentation, the thematic development in this piece is both felt on a gut level and also reveals its complexity and pithiness upon close theoretical examination. While Greg Lake's vocal sections ("Stones of Years", "Mass", and "Battlefield") provide the suite's most accessible moments, the interstitial keyboard pieces between these songs develop a common musical theme in various meters and modes, giving the entire piece a cohesion that one cannot miss.

A suite this great practically guarantees a great album even if side 2 is garbage, but the flip side holds up well too. "Bitches Crystal", "Infinite Space", and "A Time and a Place" are all excellent tracks. "Are You Ready Eddy?" and "The Only Way" are relatively weaker spots, but nowhere near as terrible as some critics have made them out to be. And even if they were, this would still be ELPs best album, as strong as it is on the whole.

Dan: 

Unlike Steve, I had room for only one ELP album in my collection - the self-titled first album with "Lucky Man" on it. However, I did see them perform in a campus concert in the early 1970s. Three acts performed at the concert: Cactus, Livingston Taylor, and ELP. Cactus was LOUD!!! Almost comically so, I thought. When Taylor took the stage with his acoustic folk-oriented set, the crowd rudely demanded that he play LOUDER!!! I was appalled. Finally, ELP took the stage for one of their grand performances, complete with Keith Emerson's antic of pulling his organ over on top of him. And, yes, they were LOUD!!!

I can't explain why I avoided the later ELP albums, especially since I liked the first one. I am now in a self-guided ELP listening program beginning with Tarkus. I understand Steve's point about its 7-part title suite. The lyrics are nicely obscure - critical but not preachy - and they fit well with the instrumental parts (which seem to me to be the essence of ELP). The other tunes are satisfying too, except for the 1950s-styled closer "Are You Ready Eddy?" which does not fit with the rest of the album. Apparently, it was an in-joke to salute their engineer Eddy Offord. (Why doesn't anybody learn that in-jokes aren't as funny as they imagine?) A better joke is the anti-religious "The Only Way," which is first played in conventional rock mode, followed by Emerson's ironically churchy organ.

I enjoy hearing such a variety of keyboards played by a true virtuoso. From piano to synth to Hammond B-3 to pipe organ, Emerson knew how to deploy keyboards to fit the band's messages. Building a whole band around organ was rarely attempted outside of classical and jazz music, but here it succeeds. Greg Lake's poignant vocals understandably echo his major role in King Crimson. Overall, a winner of an album!

Carla Bley and Paul Haines - Escalator Over the Hill (1971)

Steve:

I first became aware of Escalator Over the Hill via the Rolling Stone Record Guide. This semi-complete guide to record albums released as of the early 1980s was my primary source of new music to seek out during those formative early teen years. I had to learn to make allowances for the publication's questionable tendency to trash bands that were obviously awesome (The Doors, The Moody Blues) but scorned them as too pretentious. I quickly learned that I liked pretentious bands! When I read that something was "self-indulgent", I went right to the store looking for it.  

I noticed an entry for Escalator Over the Hill (the only Carla Bley album reviewed in the book, probably because she's primarily known as a jazz artist) that earned the top rating of five stars and was described in a way that sounded like the most self-indulgent, pretentious album in history. You can be sure I was intrigued. A triple LP avant-jazz-rock-whatever conceptual extravaganza? I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

When I finally did (it wasn't easy), it was everything I had hoped for and more. Dozens of different musicians were used in half a dozen different combinations covering a plethora of musical styles - big band jazz, psychedelic rock, avant garde drones, show tunes, drunken cabaret jazz, and a bewitching musical mode that sounds like what hallucinating in the desert must feel like. All of this provides the backdrop for a thoroughly surreal libretto and plot that doesn't follow a story line as much as it creates disturbing images in the listener's head. These images get progressively more disturbing as the album unfolds, until the album virtually implodes into itself by the end. 

Wow. Highly recommended to the adventurous.

[For my more in-depth review of this album on Progarchives.com, visit  CARLA BLEY Escalator Over the Hill (with Paul Haines) music review by HolyMoly (progarchives.com) ]

Dan: 

I strongly encourage anyone curious about this album to read Steve's full Progarchives review. It's knowledgeable, thorough, and helpful - at least it was to me. I've known about Carla Bley since the 1960s when I obtained Gary Burton's A Genuine Tong Funeral LP (RCA, 1968). Bley composed and arranged the "Dark Opera Without Words," as the subtitle indicated. In many ways Escalator follows logically after Genuine Tong Funeral. The jazz charts on both are novel and off the wall, even for this period of radical experimentation. Obviously, Escalator adds the words missing from Funeral, and that's where many critics shy away from it while others (like Steve) are drawn in. I'm somewhere in the middle: admiring the bravado on display and digging the jazz arrangements while remaining confused about the libretto. I'm not fond of disturbing dreams, especially my own, but artistic license being what it is, I admire artists and fans who understand the point of it better than me.

Carla Bley entered Down Beat's hall of fame in 2021. She is at her best composing and arranging thematic material such as Escalator, her own band's live performances, and all of Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra recordings (especially Ballad of the Fallen). I've written reviews of three of her 1980s albums in my jazz blog: MORE FAVORITES: Reflections on Jazz in the 1980s (jazzinthe80s.blogspot.com). Most recently, she has focused on the trio format featuring her piano, bassist Steve Swallow, and saxophonist Andy Sheppard. Both the large and small group formats are ideal settings for her sublime artistry. 

Fleetwood Mac - Future Games (1971)

Steve:

As a sophomore in college, my interest in prog was ramping up quickly. My friend Rob and I even regularly made time for listening to mind-blowing music at high volume with the lights out while lying down (a listening session we nicknamed "Loud/Reclined/Now", or LRN for short). While our peers jammed out to Michael Jackson's Bad or Guns 'n Roses' Appetite for Destruction, we could be heard blasting early Floyd, Genesis, ELP, Jethro Tull and Steve Hackett. We couldn't have guessed that Fleetwood Mac would soon take their place among these bands. 

A dorm-mate of ours purchased Then Play On (1969), the swan song of the original incarnation of Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green at the helm, and Rob and I both listened with interest. This album quickly became a favorite of ours, and I still consider it one of the finest examples of "progressive blues" out there (along with The Turning Point by John Mayall and Raw Sienna by Savoy Brown). Rob and I became curious about what other great Fleetwood Mac albums might be out there. Soon thereafter, on the same day I bought Kiln House (1970) and he bought Future Games (1971). I was not too happy with Kiln House, with original guitarist Jeremy Spencer dominating the album with songs that were not to my liking. Future Games, however, was a revelation, and we quickly forgot about Kiln House and listened to Future Games regularly for the next couple of years.

Danny Kirwan (guitar, vocals) was comfortably in control - his three long compositions defined the tone of the album, stretching out his folk-rock style into long languid pieces with sweet harmonies and expressive cries of low-key guitar leads - a prog-rock CSN, if you will. Future hitmaker Christine McVie also contributed strong songs with her warm alto voice, and newcomer Bob Welch surprised everybody by upstaging both Kirwan and McVie with the bewitching 8-minute title track, which he would not top until "Hypnotized" two years later. 

Most reviews I've seen of Future Games describe it as boring, weak, or (at best) transitional. These reviews usually follow the narrative that the band was either impatiently waiting for Buckingham and Nicks to show up (fulfilling the band's destiny as classic rock/pop giants) or lamenting the loss of Peter Green (never recovering from the sad decline of their fearless visionary leader). This kind of critical alignment mirrors that seen with Pink Floyd reviewers - either discounting their transitional period in anticipation of the "arrival" of Dark Side of the Moon or whining about how the band died after Syd Barrett went to la-la land. In both cases, I argue strongly that the relatively unheralded middle period, that search for a new identity and a more successful approach, resulted in very interesting music - particularly of interest to fans of progressive rock. Progressive rock was a lot about the "search" anyway, wasn't it?

Dan:

Although memories tend to blur, I believe my first exposure to Fleetwood Mac was on a visit to Germany in 1978. Our work group was hosted by one of its members, who asked what I'd like to hear on his stereo. I noticed a copy of Fleetwood Mac and requested it. It made no impression on me as the conversations drifted to other topics. Within a year or so, I heard Bare Trees (1972), the follow up to Future Games, on the FM. It made a stronger impression. 

After the release of Fleetwood Mac and Rumours, it was hard to escape the cavalcade of hits, and I actually grew to dislike them. "Don't Stop" and "Go Your Own Way" seemed to play constantly, as did "Rhiannon" and "Landslide." I have to admit to never liking Stevie Nicks' vocals very much. Christine McVie struck me as cooler and less mannered.

At some point, my FM source for rock music changed from playing noontime albums to playing compilations. The Fleetwood Mac hour on my cassette proved to be key to a new understanding of the band. Some of the deeper cuts really stood out for me, especially Christine McVie's songs and vocals. Tracks from the maligned Penguin and other earlier albums convinced me that I had judged the hitmakers unfairly. Beneath the overplayed hits lay extraordinary gems like "Emerald Eyes," "Hypnotized," "Child of Mine," and "Spare Me a Little of Your Love." 1970-1973 was the best period of the band for me.

Future Games has no "filler" songs or goofy experiments. My favorite song is "Sands of Time," but all are great for the reasons Steve writes about. I appreciate his loaning me the CD long ago. I later bought the LP and now have a hi-rez download in my digital library.