 Dick Heath wrote:
[QUOTE=mikedevilsfan]
Bye the way Keith Emerson commented that Ed's book was the quitesential book on prog. He has a new ELP book at the publisher as we speak.
Michael
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Is that 'quite essential' or 'quintessential'???? The former is more apt.
No Emerson called it the quintessential on the back cover.
Rocking The Classics is one of the better (or to put it another way: less worst, cf. Jerry Lucky's) books on the subject. Well written, reasonably but not exhaustively researched (bit it does reads like a masters thesis) ,
Or a dissertation. Ed has a PhD in Musicolgy.
it concentrates on 5 albums Macan thinks are 'classic', in developing a number of
Actually its only 4 pieces Firth of Fifth, Close to the Edge, Wish you were here and Tarkus. This is only one chapter in the book, so the whole work is not dedicated to this study. I don't think Ed thiks these are any more "classic' than many others, he just chose to delve a bit deeper into some of the music itself, rhather than just writing about it.
theses about progressive rock, e.g. it is music that came from the S.E. of England for certain reasons..... Being strongly opinionated (at least I grew up directly with early prog), I allow myself to get cross at several things he states, reflecting that incomplete research, the worst being "Allan Holdsworth is a typical Canterbury guitarist".
To be sure. Ed is opinionated and he also grew up with prog. He doesn't see Rush as a prog band and him and I have had quite a few talks. He also doesn't recognize Dream Theater as Prog. I gave him a tape to listen to and he just thought it was metal. Ed is classicaly trained, so his perspective is a bit different than most of us here. When we compare Dream Theater to the Rolling Stones, there is a pretty big gap. But when he compares DT to ELP's adaptation of Ginistera, there is an even bigger gap. As far as Alan Holdsworth, he may not have heard anything but very early stuff. I don't think he is too interested in exploring the aftermath of mid 70's prog. Although he is quite familiar with the big names Crimson, UK, later Yes etc.
I found his e.mail address several years ago, and cheekily begged the Hermetic Science CDs, and Ed very kindly sent me them for radio play. They contain a number of self-composed tunes, and lots of rearranged covers - which indicate a fair degree of musical compedence, although there is a hint of amateurness.
I'm not sure what you mean by amatuer. Very rarely have I seen anything written on this music with anykind of real understanding of what his influences are. Everything you heard on the first CD was originally scored and performed in concert halls as solo pieces. We adapted them to a band format. THey are neo-classical in format and their isn't one repeating bar I don't think on the entire album (with the exception of Mars). American critics were pretty luke warm but Europe pretty much loved it. Bill Bruford called the first album "intricate and interesting", I'm glad he didn't say the drums sucked!
I would say ED is anything but an amateur though. I would say he is in the top five rock vibes players in the country. His Jazz playing is incredible also, as he leads the Jazz orchestra at the college he is the director at.
My favourite is Tarkus (I'm sure ELP is Macan's favourite band and may give a clue to Emerson's regard for the book), transcribed for solo grand piano. Macan recorded this live at a college in CA, and has a cicada accompanying him for part of the piece. The book is worth getting and the album with Tarkus on board.
Yeah it's pretty cool. He played it in Music appreciation the first day of class (not all of it). That's where I met him. And yeah I can tell you first hand that he is an ELP head, as am I.
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