BRAIN SALAD SURGERY

I first bought this album when I was about 13 years old. At the age of 48, I approach Brain Salad from a far different point of view. Two things strike me about ELP, the jazz musicianship that seems to be bubbling underneath the surface of every tune, and on this album in particular, Greg Lake's muscianship. I had the opportunity to watch an ELP concert video of their california jam appearance, and I was amazed by Greg Lake's guitar abilities. The riffs that over the years I had assumed were keyboard created by Emerson were in fact being produced by Greg Lake on the guitar, for example TOCCATA, towards the end of this tune Lake adds some fine guitar riffings, not neccessarily on a par with lets say, Robert Fripp, but nonetheless, stylish enough for the music. On Karn Evil number 9 1st impression, it is actually Lake's soloing on the guitar that is out in front in key points of the music, driving the tune. IMPRESSION 2, goes to my theory that ELP had a damn good fusion album in them that never got out, if only they had taken one album off from being a prog band to explore this side of their music, on the California Jam video, towards the end of TAKE A PEBBLE, the band breaks into a great bebop type set, with Lake adding great baselines along with palmer, who I didn't expect could handle this kind of music. It's Emerson's moog playing that actually gets annoying at times, and greg lake's vocals sounding too pompous courtesy of the pete sinfield lyrics. If only they had taken the time to release an album patterned after something like Zappa's SHUTUP AND PLAY YOUR GUITAR. But alas this has never happened. So I recommend when listening to this album pay attention to the guitar riffs that Lake puts out, and the overall underlying jazz influences that are all over this album.