Most underrated bassist in prog

I do think we all get very confused about this. Yes of course you can have any make up of instruments in a band. You can strip it down or add as a is necessary. ELP were quite keen not to have hidden musicians on stage and made a point of it so occasionally Greg would play lead guitar and Keith had to fill in. This could be quite interesting and worked tremendously well on for instance Tarkus (Battlefield section). But really there are no rules here. I don't think anyone is suggesting that bass has to be present or not be present but a lot of great rock music would be less great without the bass. Rush are one my favourite bands and no bass would just not be an option. Freewill would indeed be nothing without it but then Rush would never have written the song with no bass , that would be insane!

I suppose that's fair, but I stand by the importance of both the bass part which is the compositional ground of the piece, and the bass sound which adds dimension and depth tho the music.   Of course there can be parts that don't have or need any bass at all, but that's an exception.   The bass ~ especially in a band with very little guitar ~ is the cake, and everything else is the icing.  

Again, remove the bass from ELP or Floyd or Zeppelin or any other important acts in rock, and you get something that simply doesn't have the sonic potential or depth it would otherwise.

I think this is grossly unfair. The idea was NEVER to have the same instruments and the same sound and the same composition design ... as EVERYONE ELSE ... which is what you are basically stating if I do not mis-understand it.

A bass, or a guitar, or drums, is NEVER a must ... except that your ears are so stuck with one style of music and sound, that you are having a hard time explaining ELP without a bass guitar, or Greg merely filling in here and there to augment things some ... but you certainly can see that ELP was not about a "bass" guitar, or whatever a fan wants to hear ... it was about its own music and its own presentation.

Please, do not "demand" that a band have this or that, and take their individuality out ... "progressive" music was built on this individuality, not on your, or mine, design for music ... but we can't grow out of that top ten thinking and must have this and that instrument ... that is just so sad ... and you are a representative of this board saying something that is NOT "progressive" in my seeing of things.