Early British Prog vs American. Discuss.

Hi,

I always thought that a lot of it was the American Educational System ... the "arts" in America, simply does not have the incredible history that Europe has had for 500 years ... it's like American "arts" are nearly non-existent ... and were intentionally dropped out.

I suppose that in Literature, is the one area that survived very well going back past 200 years, and it has only been in the past 50 years that American Literature has been ignored due to the media fame about selling and such ... pulp garbage has won out since the media is owned by the same people posting the "results" of the sales!

I think, that in the end, this will end up being 2 completely different things ... it's really hard to compare some of the American Spirit (let's say Miles) ... to what the English did, which had a lot of "individuality", however, it was very clearly setup within a compositional design and setup ... and always fell into the usual rock thing of the opening theme returning in some form ... I have to listen to some of the Americans from the 50's that became huge in the 60's, but I don't remember them coming up with a "song" for mat, and specially the jazz at that time, and even a lot of the rock stuff out of SF. It wasn't about the "song" or the "composition" ... it was about the feel and the music ... 

As Jim says ... when the music is over ... and you know that has to be the feel ... or its not worth discussing.

FZ, is another story. I think that him having started as a bit of a satire, but being intelligent enough to recognize and learn music quickly, he was capable and able to do "more" with his material ... but no one says that there was "great music" in his first few albums ... later, there are so many albums that it's hard to determine. I consider FZ an anomaly ... in American music ... and STILL IS ... his work is not taken seriously except a few albums by (obviously!!!) rock fans!

I don't think we ever bothered too much about distinct segregations back then.