What was the first Prog Album?

The Soft Machine's first self titled album is one of the first prog albums in my opinion. (from 1968)
The last 3 songs of side one makes up an Epic Psychedelic Progressive Jazz/Fusion Symphonic masterpiece (the song "A Certain Kind" contains the symphonic stuff).



If this is too long just skip to Climax culminating in "A Certain Kind" (the video below)






Edited by Anirml - July 25 2010 at 07:20

Rolling Stones, Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967).

In other words, the first prog album can be anything that is related to prog between the end of 60's and the beginning of the 70's...Depending on what is your definition of prog and how much prog a record has to have to be consider the first prog album. So, its a question without a definitive answer. But i will go for a real progressive record that i think has been innovative : King Crimson In the Court of...





Edited by rdtprog - July 25 2010 at 11:43

himtroy wrote: I can accept answers like Dave Brubeck-Time Out.  But it's most certainly not the Beatles or King Crimson.  Thats garbage answers (no offense to KC, as they're one of my favorites).  We've provided way to many examples pre-ITCOTCK for people to keep saying thats the first one.

To me Dave Brubeck is not very much stuff related to prog or i have been wrong for 30 years...

I suppose if we're talking a full album, Crimson takes it.  But that first Procol album, if we toss the psychedelia and focus on the key songs and even more particularly on Repent Walpurgis, is pure prog.  Same with what was Side 1 of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.  Days of Future Passed I don't count because even I could and did play the songs on my Hammond.

Logan wrote: himtroy wrote: rdtprog wrote: himtroy wrote: I can accept answers like Dave Brubeck-Time Out.  But it's most certainly not the Beatles or King Crimson.  Thats garbage answers (no offense to KC, as they're one of my favorites).  We've provided way to many examples pre-ITCOTCK for people to keep saying thats the first one. To me Dave Brubeck is not very much stuff related to prog or i have been wrong for 30 years... A jazz album exploring new ideas and odd time signatures is way more progressive than The Beatles, who for some reason keep getting mentioned as having potentially the first prog album and psych album, neither of which is even potentially true. Progressive, sure, but not Prog (i.e. Progressive Rock). Anyway, have a listen to this from Sun Ra's 1956 album, Super-Sonic Jazz:

 

akamaisondufromage wrote: Logan wrote: himtroy wrote: rdtprog wrote: himtroy wrote: I can accept answers like Dave Brubeck-Time Out.  But it's most certainly not the Beatles or King Crimson.  Thats garbage answers (no offense to KC, as they're one of my favorites).  We've provided way to many examples pre-ITCOTCK for people to keep saying thats the first one. To me Dave Brubeck is not very much stuff related to prog or i have been wrong for 30 years... A jazz album exploring new ideas and odd time signatures is way more progressive than The Beatles, who for some reason keep getting mentioned as having potentially the first prog album and psych album, neither of which is even potentially true. Progressive, sure, but not Prog (i.e. Progressive Rock). Anyway, have a listen to this from Sun Ra's 1956 album, Super-Sonic Jazz:   It would still be a Jazz Album though  No matter how many new ideas time sigs etc

I know it is, didn't mean to imply otherwise, and of course new ideas and interesting time signatures are not uncommon to jazz (jazz has been a  very innovative genre and complex rhythms are not uncommon to it.  The best percussionists in Prog, I feel, are informed by jazz). They were less common to rock before progressive rock (particularly varied time sigs/ rhythms).  Jazz had a big effect on Prog, and Prog, of course, incorporated jazz elements.  Prog commonly incorporated ideas from other genres (typically Academic Music and jazz) rather than developed really new ideas (sometimes they stole music -- a lot of Progressive Rock is not really as progressive, in a sense, as people make it out to be since they commonly looked back to other music for ideas/ inspiration, which is not to say that  Prog did not progress the lexicon of rock.  Hybridisation was very important to that.  But Prog is commonly not that originative, and often not that innovative).

Side-note: Of course Progressive Jazz existed as a genre before Progressive Rock, but that had to do with improvisation, experimentation, free-flowing music, dissonance.... blah, blah. Whereas Prog tends to be very structured, even if it has noodly bits --  Western Academic Music informed the structures significantly.

Why I mention that Sun Ra piece, though, is because I think due to the, I think it's a Wurlitzer electric piano, it sounds quite similar to Jazz-Rock Fusion to me.


Edited by Logan - July 25 2010 at 18:45

Logan said: What the first true prog album is really does depend on one's working prog definition. Yes.  As long as we define the first Prog album in terms of In the Court of the Crimson King, it will remain the first Prog album.   Personally, I think Prog goes back to Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Vertutum, but that's just me.

How about Joe Meek and The Men's "I Hear A New World"? It is the first experimental rock album ever. (1959)

The Doors - The Doors simply because of "The Crystal Ship", "Light My Fire" and  "The End"

Edited by Soul Dreamer - July 25 2010 at 21:30