Clouds/1-2-3

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 Certif1ed wrote:

 Dick Heath wrote:

Cert ,Did you catch the 2nd episode of Jazz Britannia - about 18 months ago - on BBC4? It was argued because the old guard of British jazz musicians would not allow the new guard touch their instruments (esp the piano), the"kids" went and brought in their electric pianos, organs to play live (suggested there as the start of the UK jazz rock movement), e.g. Georgie Fame, Graham Bond (an early pioneer of the Mellotron), Brian Auger - I can only think of a young John McLaughlin being on the scene with a guitar. In addition there were keyboard lead pop/R'n'B bands: Manfred Mann, (Alan Price in) The Animals,  Stevie Winwood in the Spencer Davis Band - Ian Stewart was often called the 6th Rolling Stone and necessary to the band for his keyboard work. So there would have been experimentation from about 1962/3 - so if you are exploring pre-1967, check out some of these band's albums and hear what sort of "album-fillers" were being played. 

Thanks, Dick - these are exactly the avenues I'm exploring, and the stuff about electric pianos was one of the first tid bits that leapt out at me when I perused the course of the birth of the Cool - and the criminally overlooked Lennie Tristano, who should be well-known to all Prog Metal fans not least because of his and Billy Evans' work tutoring Joe Satriani, but mainly because his tightly structured approach to modern jazz has more in common with Prog Rock than Miles'. I followed this in conjunction with BeBop through to Hard Bop before I found rock/jazz crossovers. Sadly I missed the TV programme you mention.

In an earlier post in this thread, I mentioned Graham Bond's Organisation as the first recorded band to use the Mellotron, and the Animals as early keyboard/rock bands - Spencer Davis Group are an old favourite of mine, but that's a good heads up about Ian Stewart though!

I'm really wondering where the improvisation and elaboration started to appear in rock - or whether Floyd and the Softies really were first. 

There are the bands from the US, of course - the Grateful Dead with their tentative "jazz influences", and a band called Fifty Foot Hose, who I'm having a whale of a time exploring. These guys were influenced by jazz for real (early 1967), and also avante garde composers - particularly Varese (as Zappa was), but were so experimental they actually built and modified instruments to get the sounds the wanted.

I recommend their album "Cauldron" for repeated listens in order to "get" why they're so important. The song "Red the Sign Post" is clearly the basis for "Space Trucking" by Deep Purple...

Then there's the fascinating Delia Derbyshire, who set up Unit Delta Plus, and organised a festival of electronic music in Newbury in 1966, and also performed at the million volts light and sound rave at the roundhouse in 1967 - surely Pink Floyd weren't far away?

...none of which has much bearing on 1-2-3, sadly... I'm trying to track down more recordings of them live - it seems odd that there's apparently only one track in existence - you'd think there would be an entire reel or two somewhere from the sound desk of the Marquee, Dunfermline ballroom or other venues.  Regarding early improvisation in rock, there is a book you may already know about called "Wrong Movements a Robert Wyatt History" by Michael King. It is very detailed in its history of the various band members going back to 63 when Allen and Hopper were already doing jazzish type gigs together. The book is very detailed on gigs, recording dates, tours etc. The various members of Soft Machine were into Jazz and Raga from the beginning, so the real question may be "When did people who like to improvise start turning up loud and playing at rock clubs". 

I found it interesting that Soft Machine and Hendrix had the same management in 67 and worked together often: jam sessions, unreleased demos for both the Softies and the Experience, back-ups for other musicians and a tour of the U.S. together. 

One of the first U.S. jazz musicians to turn up loud and hit the rock clubs was Charles Lloyd, Miles borrowed a lot from him including half of his band.

This may have been brought up before, but I believe I once read that John Cale (and friends?) was providing loud dronish background music for Warhol events as early as the mid-60s.

Edited by Easy Money - October 02 2007 at 20:44