Pat Metheny... Prog?

Dick Heath wrote: Peter wrote: He belongs on a jazz site, not a prog rock one.  If it was up to me (but it's not, thank goodness!), no jazz fusion or metal would be here, because this is the sort of thing it leads to.   And you know my feelings here Peter. Jazz rock dating from  before Soft Machine Volume 2 and Third,  was originally gathered under the prog rock umbrella - I don't remember anybody arguing the toss back then. Keith Emerson did jazz (e.g. his interpretion of Brubeck's Rondo), and used jazz musicians to augment the Nice. How many of those Hammond organ based prog bands of the early 70's  relied on jazz breaks for solos - aspiring Jimmy Smiths??? If rock could be fused with serious music, folk,, world, to give variants of prog rock - why not with jazz? I think the problem is that we've got sloppy, using  the broader and vaguer term 'jazz fusion', which more often as not has little or nothing to do with rock rhythms or whatever.

My only real issue with that, Dick, is the old "where does it all end?" sentiment. Bela Fleck? David Sanborn? Miles' (electric) 80s output? etc, etc....

Peter wrote: Dick Heath wrote: Peter wrote: He belongs on a jazz site, not a prog rock one.  If it was up to me (but it's not, thank goodness!), no jazz fusion or metal would be here, because this is the sort of thing it leads to.   And you know my feelings here Peter. Jazz rock dating from  before Soft Machine Volume 2 and Third,  was originally gathered under the prog rock umbrella - I don't remember anybody arguing the toss back then. Keith Emerson did jazz (e.g. his interpretion of Brubeck's Rondo), and used jazz musicians to augment the Nice. How many of those Hammond organ based prog bands of the early 70's  relied on jazz breaks for solos - aspiring Jimmy Smiths??? If rock could be fused with serious music, folk,, world, to give variants of prog rock - why not with jazz? I think the problem is that we've got sloppy, using  the broader and vaguer term 'jazz fusion', which more often as not has little or nothing to do with rock rhythms or whatever. My only real issue with that, Dick, is the old "where does it all end?" sentiment. Bela Fleck? David Sanborn? Miles' (electric) 80s output? etc, etc....

I'm coming to think there are start and cut off points for some sub-genres of prog, if not all. (I've said somewhere in these archives, that some of Yes's output should be banned from here, simply because it don't progress in any way).

 Krimson's In The Court and the first Renaissance albums were probably seen as the first clear-cut prog rock albums - in truth, we are vaguer about the Moodies' Days Of Future Passed (that inclusion is more hindsight beit from 2 or 3 years). So when Nice went occasionally jazz and Machine  nearly completely jazz, the novelty, convenience and lack of  competition in the prog genre, meant very few would get over-worried/over-heated, as to whether jazz rock should be included. Hence the inclusion of Mahavishnu Orchestra, RTF, (perhaps) Tasavallan Presidentti early on - but is Miles Davis or Tony Williams Lifetime prog rock.....................?. As mainstream prog blossomed - ditto jazz rock - more variants came into play. Jazz rock fusion will have propagated  enough artists and albums, and develop enough musical differences to slowly become separated (to some)from prog.  But by default, if MO, RTF etc. were prog and also jazz rock, then the later jazz rock bands are too- or are they? So it could be surmissed, if Steeley Dan had released several of their classic albums  5 years early, then their jazz rock would have also been absorbed into prog rock.  

But what for instance,  of Bruford and Holdsworth's (even Bruford with Holdsworth's) jazz-based rock (or rock-based jazz) -? Bruford always claimed he brought jazz drumming sensiblities to Yes - as did Mitch Mitchell to Hendrix's blues rock. Bruford did play for Yes and Krimson (even Genesis). The sum of the parts of Bruford (the band),  give some credence to being also prog. Bruford's Earthworks (essentially Bruford  leading  originally, a few former members of the great 80's jazz big band Loose Tubes) have some rock sensibilities - but Bruford post-Crimson, is he now almost a complete jazzman (and not prog at all)? Holdworth - too scary for both jazz and rock purists to claim for their own, and a number of his early bands being called prog - 'Igginbottom (????? but released on a prog label....), Tempest, Soft Machine (????), UK (the last original prog band??), Bruford(???), Lifetime (????). However, such a monster musician needs a home somewhere and jazz-based prog rock may have been convenient....

And brass rock (aka rock jazz) of BST, (early) Chicago, Heaven, Dreams, If, etc. : prog rock or not?

You know Peter, the more I think about, the more I realise the music was a lot simpler to classify in 1972.

Peter wrote: Sometimes I just weary of all the "is this prog?" "who is the best?" type threads -- because of the subjectivity involved, I find them to be basically pointless.

"Who is the best" -the starting point of many a healthy discussion in my local.This is normal behaviour Peter. Why do you think the Guiness Book Of Records sells so many copies?

We have the Booker Prize for Literature over here and it is basically an award for the best novel by a Commonwealth novelist of the last year. MVP, Man Of Steel,Best Pound-for Pound,Best In Show, humans are obsessed with who is the best and the why's and the wherefores are the most enjoyable part of it.

How about "what's the worst example of screaming on an album you've heard this year?"