Is In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida the first suite in rock history?

It was recorded on 27 May 1968.

By the word suite I mean those pieces of music that occupy one side of an LP.

Not sure I'd call it a suite. Noodle, Jam, Psych sure.

But let's look at what a suite is:

a) an https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/instrumental" rel="nofollow - instrumental https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/composition" rel="nofollow - composition consisting of several movements in the same https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/key" rel="nofollow - key based on or https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/derive" rel="nofollow - derived from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/dance" rel="nofollow - dance https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/rhythm" rel="nofollow - rhythms , esp in the https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/baroque" rel="nofollow - baroque period

So I'd offer up the following as being more appropriate.

The Nice - Ars Vita Longa Brevis - Symphony For Group And Orchestra (18:20)
- a) Prelude
- b) 1st Movement: Awakenings
- c) 2nd Movement: Realisation
- d) 3rd Movement: Acceptance "Brandenburger"
- e) 4th Movement: Denial
- f) Coda - Extension To The Big Note

But yes , as I just saw Procol Harem's release was in September 1968 in US, BUT Dec. In UK.

Oh, yes, 1967. 

Shall we try to put the suites in order until the end of 1969?

You can't just make up a new meaning for the term suite on the spot. It has existed and has been used as a term in the arts for centuries, and it has an actual, specific meaning.

So Close to the Edge is not a suite, right?

When talking about suites as in a string of songs that go together, it's another Zappa example that comes to mind for me as the earliest: the second side of Absolutely Free, The MOI American Pageant. Even though it's not a single "song" like the Procul example is, it does all go together without breaks and feels a bit incomplete when listening to most parts (except maybe Brown Shoes Don't Make It) on their own.

 

Iron Butterfly. 

Yes, Zappa makes the cut, at least in my book.

Great suggestion! Days of Future Passed is listed as "a suite of songs" on Wikipedia. 

It's a multipart song divided into I. The Solid Time Of Change, II: Total Mass Retain, III. I Get Up, I Get Down and IV: Seasons Of Man. And conciously spliced together while taking insipration from composers such as Sibelius and how he composed symphonies using different sounding "movements". So Close to the Edge is much closer to the meaning of a what a suite means than In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - which is pretty much an extended jam. Whether a song is sidelong or not is obviously beside the point. Seriously don't you see how silly that looks? I can't believe I'm discussing this. Supper's Ready isn't sidelong btw and I guess that automatically disqualifies it from all suite-related discussions - unlike Iron Butterfly's overlong little ditty.

I love our endless subjective debates and nominalistic discussions on the meaning of prog. Keep them coming! 

One of my favourite suites is David Gates' Clouds Suite from his First album, which made him a lot of Bread, probably. 

You know also which other things you really love. 

Music was my first love

And it will be my last

Music of the future

And music of the past

To live without my music

Would be impossible to do

In this world of troubles

My music pulls me through

very interesting question  

Stressed Cheese wrote: I think you're talking about something usually just referred to as a 'side-long song' or something. ...

Hi,

My thoughts tend to think that "song" is not compatible with "suite" at all ... in essence, in most rock music, a "song" has been based on lyrics to tell you a story, whereas a "SUITE" is an instrumental piece of music that also tells a story, but fans today, will not consider it, because they are expecting lyrics and not getting them.

I'm OK with Side Long thing, but not a song, though I think that Bob Dylan will make you squirm when he hears this. If the "voice" is considered an instrument, then a SUITE can have a voice, which did not happen in music history (have to recheck) until the electric rock days of music, with people wanting to do more than just a song ... or in the case of the early psychedelic folks (the real ones, not the radio ones!!!), it was just a means to enjoy a trip ... and yes, that would be a suite for the most part.

Stressed Cheese wrote: ... Close To The Edge is a side-long song, but I don't think it'd be considered a suite, even though the song itself has different named sections. ...

I'm not sure that I want to sit here and suggest that one thing is and the other isn't. The criteria has changed so much, that by 1972 and 1973, it didn't really matter if it had lyrics or not, and it was a complete side of the LP ...

One other harsh element ... in this music history ... it was the limitation of the LP, which made many things "have to fit" the 20/40 minutes necessary for any piece of music, and this was a problem ... I seriously doubt that Beethoven wrote 9 Symphonies to fit exactly on 2 sides of an LP, or Mahler or anyone else, which suggests to my imagination that there is some music that was cut our in the 20th century going back to the first days of the platter, that might have hurt our definition of it all ... music history has hidden that thought, and I think they would be embarrassed to admit to it, and blame the record companies, but if you wanted it recorded you did what you had to do to get it done, and this or that portion was taken out to make it fit.

With the advent of the commercialization of music, and the availability of all music, it is not likely that we will ever see a "complete" 9th that is 55 minutes long, and not 40 minutes long, since most listeners, already damaged from the rock music simplicity, will likely not care for it at all.

A very strange topic ... and a difficult one, because we do not have a clear and concise definition, and on top of it, many a rock band went around that definition on purpose to do their own thing. We haven't quite discussed that yet!

I've been going with The Mothers' 1966 double album, Freak Out, but when can we start including the side-long jazz combo songs? When they started electrifying the bass or using organ? Like Sun Ra's "The Sun Myth" from his 1966 album, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Vol. 2. That is, are we going to leave out side-long jazz albums despite the fact that they are pre-prog, pre-jazz-rock fusion?

Plus, what about the stuff Terry Riley was doing live in Boston venues in the early & mid-60s (which later got recorded as "In C" "A Rainbow in Curved Air" and "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band All Night Flight")

^ Yes, the first question is what kind of music are we talking about? - But the OP talks about Rock history.

Paul, if this topic doesn't interest you, it's easy to stay away. 

Haven't you seen this?

jamesbaldwin wrote: So I asked myself: who was the first to have the courage to fill an entire side of an LP with one song? I called these songs suites. Better to call them side-long songs? OK, let's call them side-long songs.

Thanks a lot, George, this is very interesting.

So, I'm not the first to ask this question.

We or I am are debating on other terms. And to call side-long songs "suites" is completely absurd and 100% wrong. Just as wrong as calling a sonett a limerick or whatever.

Freak out is not a side-long song, Drew.

Sun Ra and Terry Riley: are they in progarchives? I checked: No (Terry Riley's music is considered prog-related)

I'm interested in prog rock or proto-prog albums.

I'm just enjoying the music without wishing to get Entangled in the back and forth debate about what does and doesn't constitute a suite. 

The piece Blend (22 minutes) occupies the first side of the disc.

Edit: I found out that Sandy is a man

BS, Paul

What does that mean? 

 sorry, JamesB.

Read the thread, and then I hope for you that you understand the answer. 

Now, I like even better this thread, as it gets funny too. 

I recently made a list on Rate Your Music called

I think that in this case, it's most fair to look at the whole Rock genre and disregarding the style.

Btw, an interesting title in relation to the Heavy Metal genre.

OK but still Lumpy Gravy came out in 68 whereas these two came out in 67

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/hapshash-and-the-coloured-coat/featuring-the-human-host-and-the-heavy-metal-kids/" rel="nofollow - https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/hapshash-and-the-coloured-coat/featuring-the-human-host-and-the-heavy-metal-kids/

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the-electric-prunes/mass-in-f-minor/" rel="nofollow - https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the-electric-prunes/mass-in-f-minor/

I'm sorry, Lorenzo. My mention of The Mothers' Freak Out was meant to imply this discussion's previous mentions of songs/sides from The Mothers' 1966 album--specifically the mention of "The Return of Son of Monster Magnet" on the band's concept double album.

As to my other mentions, I guess I'm expressing my interest in the impetus for the formation/creation/adaptation of the suite/epic/jam format that eventually became so much associated with progressive rock music--the topic you started. It is a topic that I have been researching for some time now--and which seems to have its roots in classical music forms (symphony, sonata, opera, etc.) but also in the classical Indian music that the West had been exposed to by the extensive touring (and album releases) of Ravi Shankar and Usted Ali Akbar Khan as well as from the minimalist explorations of Terry Riley, Paul Bley,  and others and the influx of African musical traditions as explored and expressed by the jam sessions and teachings of Babatunde Olatunji. 

The influence of Indian and African musical traditions is well accounted for in the notes and interviews of many artists who later wandered into and under the "progressive rock" umbrella--a web that has already been stretched on this site by the inclusion of the likes of 1950s Miles Davis and 1960s Herbie Hancock. The influence of Ravi Shankar's music and John Coltrane's "India" on Roger McGuinn's creation of the first psychout song ever--"Eight Miles High"--is well documented. We know that two of the side-long epics of The Soft Machine's ground-breaking album Third come directly from the influence of Terry Riley and Miles Davis.

     Keith Emerson and Mont Campbell were obviously trying to follow established forms with their Nice Ars Longa Vita Brevis and first Egg albums, respectively.

     Iron Butterfly were undoubtedly inspired to jam while under the influence of a particularly hypnotic groove (probably the Doors' "The End"). 

My point is: It is so very hard to delineate the "start" and the "precursors" of progressive rock music when it doesn't come from rock music, it comes from the melding of many forms and influences. I love the discovery of these influences--of the pioneers' stories of where their ideas came from. So, thanks for starting this thread. I'm sorry if it's become a slog.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the influence of UCLA student trumpeter Don Ellis on others when he and his new fascination with odd time structures (gleaned from his Indian professor Harihar Rao, a student of Ravi Shankar's), and what evolved out of their school band, The Hindustani Jazz Sextet. Don's Orchestra's performance at the 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival is legendary. So many people claim to have been blown away by his band's "show stopping" game-changing performance with its incredibly unusual time signatures and unusual stage presence of three bass players, three drummers, organ, vibes, and vast horn section. The 1967 album "Live" at Monterey Jazz Festival captures some of their performance. Who knows, maybe Frank--or one of his future band members--was there. We know Ralph Humphrey was--and even became a Don Ellis Orchestra drummer after the car accident took teenage drumming phenom Steve Bohannon out of the picture.

While the four jams on 'Live' at Monterey are not side-long, they definitely stretched space allowed on the standard vinyl album: with 39:18, he was definitely pushing the then-known limits of vinyl pressing!

The album by  Electric Prunes dont include a side-long song.

Unitil now I've found:

- Sandy Bull: Blend (1963)

- Hapshash & The Coloured Cat (1967)

- Lumpy Gravy (1968)

- In A Gadda (1968)

- Nice (1968)

- Procol Harum (1968)

- The collectors (1968 - month?)

- Hansson & Karlsson - Rex (1968: month?)

Hi,

Nice listing and for once, it's cool to see it not be determined by "favorites" or "fans" who have not heard the music, and refuse to do so.

I can't even think of an addition, although I might have included THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND on that first list, but poetry in music is such a bitch ... most can not handle it, because it does not tell a regular kid story, and you have to work the words to find something in them. Robin Williamson is adamant about their start as just adding music to the poetry ... and that sometimes things changed a bit so the it seems to sound like a proper song, was likely accidental and a by-product of their work. Some magnificent work, and "EARTH SPAN" is probably as progressive as folk music can be, with some outstanding material.

Mass In F Minor is a religious concept album where all the tracks run together. If different names of the tracks are the criteria then no but in reality side long tracks are really just different tracks stitched together so these distinctions are murky.

I thought this was a rock thread. Did you change it? Sandy Bull isn't rock but folk and American primitivism.

If you are discarding the rock requirements then i think you could find countless suite long albums in Western classical, jazz, Indian ragas and other meditative forms of music long before rock was even a thing.

No months listed for those two albums from 68 so i guess a mystery.

I DID include The Incredible String Band. Look again.

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/secret-origins-the-earliest-examples-of-progressive-rock-progressive-folk-and-jazz-rock-fusion/5/" rel="nofollow - https://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/secret-origins-the-earliest-examples-of-progressive-rock-progressive-folk-and-jazz-rock-fusion/5/

Mass In F Minor is a religious concept album where all the tracks run together. If different names of the tracks are the criteria then no but in reality side long tracks are really just different tracks stitched together so these distinctions are murky.

I thought this was a rock thread. Did you change it? Sandy Bull isn't rock but folk and American primitivism.

--In fact Sandy Bull is lateral to rock. I heard the song Blend, which is also beautiful, all guitar and percussion. It is a folk fusion record, there is jazz and tribalism, there is also rock. I wouldn't know whether to include it or not. In principle, I consider folk part of rock, whereas jazz is a separate thing. As broad categories I have: 1) cultured music 2) rock music (pop) 3) jazz 4) avant-garde music. I know that these boundaries are blurred and can be modulated in many other ways. 

If you are discarding the rock requirements then i think you could find countless suite long albums in Western classical, jazz, Indian ragas and other meditative forms of music long before rock was even a thing.

No months listed for those two albums from 68 so i guess a mystery.

It can be noticed about Lumpy Gravy that it's recorded in 1967:

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/francis-vincent-zappa-and-the-abnuceals-emuukha-electric-symphony-orchestra-and-chorus/lumpy-gravy/

^ i certainly consider Zappa as one of THE most early innovators in the rock music paradigm. Even before the Beatles. Some of these exact dates are mystery because we have no idea when some of those were recorded given their obscurity. Lumpy Gravy says recorded between 1961 and 1967 so perhaps that is the actual first. Personally i would only count release date since that's when it was allowed to hit the public consciousness.

  and interesting

Sandy Bull's "Blend" is indeed quite a beauty and sounds to me being a rather obvious inspiration for The Doors' "The End".

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Coming back to the original Question, I still think Nicolette's excellent suggestion of Days of Future Passed by the Moody Blues was the first genuine prog suite, but I'll have a long list of favourite prog suites coming up here tomorrow, including Question by the Moody Blues.

You're both missing the main point here. Dude is looking for a ONE TRACK / SIDE LONG SUITE, not a bunch of tracks that flow together well. Should be pointed out in the title for sure. I've already scoured every prog / proto-prog release from the entire 60s so unlikely you'll find anything we haven't found but if you do i'd love to discover new moo-zeek! ALways another obscurity lurking in the vaults. Also i would request if you want to discuss FAVORITE prog suites then please start another thread so we don't dilute the intent of this one. I find many of these threads lose their point and meander into unrelated lands. Thx :)

 Right! Show some respect for the OP!

The celebration of the Lizard is a strange case of suite, because it was published in a live record.

Oh, it's wonderful.

But it's not the first suite ever: year 1970 (and it doesnt fill a whole side of a Lp).

yeah, i don't know honestly, I've never had The Doors on vinyl. Just cassettes and CDs. 

Celebration of the Lizard was supposed to be on Waiting for the Sun album, in 1968. It just didn't happen, only the song Not tot Touch the Earth ended up on the album. The whole song and kind of a suite TBH was a live favorite though. 

The b-side of Ennio Morricone's Fistful of Dollars repeats the score presented on the a-side as a 14 minute long suite. The A & B-sides are pretty much identical and contains the same suite with and without pause in between the movements - or parts. The music on this album could be heard in Sergio Leone's first "man with no name" trilogy of spaghetti westerns as early as in 1964. But the album wasn't released until 1967. This is a genuine suite created by a composer who knew what that actually means. With it's "guitar, bass and drums/percussion rock band-fundament", sophisticated complexity, variations and furious intensity - might technically qualify as the first symphonic prog sidelong epic. I can't see any reason as to why it couldn't.

Morricone (like quite a few 1970's soundtrack composers) had plenty of progressive rock hidden in his 1960's-1970's scores that could easily qualify for a number of PA's sub-genres.

That sounds like a rather splendid idea to me. 

fine

siLLy puPPy wrote: ... I DID include The Incredible String Band. Look again. http://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/secret-origins-the-earliest-examples-of-progressive-rock-progressive-folk-and-jazz-rock-fusion/5/" rel="nofollow - https://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/secret-origins-the-earliest-examples-of-progressive-rock-progressive-folk-and-jazz-rock-fusion/5/

Hi,

I was thinking of it within the early listings. When doing poetry, I am not sure that one worries about the length or anything within it ... ask Roy Harper. But Robin has stated that there were times when the poetry did go a bit too long, which suggests that the audience got lost along the way ... with "no song" to carry them along, but that would be a bit different, I think. That's an audience problem, not an issue with the artist, although I have to admit, I might get bored with Laurie Anderson and her endless use of one writer. But poetry and music? Give me more!

One more thing ... music to poetry is not new, and has been on for some time, not just within the rock era, thus, us thinking that it started in the 60's sometime, is probably incorrect since we know that some folk music was kind of "endless" as done by many folks. So the idea of a "first suite" is kinda lost within the research areas, because folks will only look at a few pieces of music that are rock related, and not the artistic concept at all.

I know A Love Supreme. Wonderful album. 

Many classic-rock fans love it.

But there isnt a long-side song, Drew. 

Well, this is a soundtrack, a collage of short pieces of music where the pauses of silence between tracks have been removed. Sometimes the transition from one track to another is also quite abrupt (as in the ending, when the string instruments come in).  I wouldn't consider it a side-long rock song. Although it comes close. Sandy Bull's Blend is certainly much more side-long song than this soundtrack.

The winners are:

to be continued....   

I never knew till this week that the album had been divided into parts: my original vinyl just sounded like one continuous song, with no breaks, and several motifs. Even on the label of Side Two it's listed as "Part 3. Pursuance/Part 4. Psalm" which is different from Side One which lists "Part 1: Acknowledgment" and, as a second and clearly demarcated item, "Part 2: Resolution" -- all of which were recorded on the same day, December 9, 1964.

Plus, encyclopedias say this:

"A Love Supreme is a through-composed suite [sic] in four parts" --which, I thought, according to your OP, was exactly what you were looking for.?!?!?!

Maybe you should update your OP, Lorenzo. 

Something else is, if not keeping strictly to Rock, I think, it'll get impossible. 

O my God....

the winners are invisibile!

1) Sandy Bull: Blend (taken from Fantasias for guitar and banjo, 1963)

2) Hapshash and The Coloured Coat - Featuring The Human Host and the Heavy Metal Kids (1967): Empires of the Sun 

Here the full album:

3) Frank Zappa: Lumpy Gravy, part 1, may 1968

According to LAST FM, Hansson & Karlsson's REX was released January 1st, 1968

Otherwise there is no other info about it.

http://www.last.fm/music/Hansson+&+Karlsson/Rex" rel="nofollow - https://www.last.fm/music/Hansson+&+Karlsson/Rex

Olé (18:17) from Olé Coltrane, released November 1961

in particular, are sidelong masterpieces. The latter was a huge influence for The Doors.

of course Sonny Rollins' sidelong and aptly titled - The Freedom Suite (19:17) was released as early as 1958.

-and before that Ravi Shankar's 28 minute long a-side track Rāga Jog off Music of India: Three Classical Rāgas was released in 1956. It's amazing.

^ folk rock

there are countless jazz, classical and ethnic albums that count as well as electronic music

i didn't make the thread. just telling ya what's been discussed :)

Actually Zappa's Freak Out had the final Son of a Monster Magnet  suite which took up most of side three and all of side four on the debut. That could possibly count. Released 27 June 1966

Not prog but Love had a side long track titled Revelation on the album Da Capo released Nov 1966

Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant had a side long song Alice's Restaurant Massacree released 4 October 1967

jamesbaldwin wrote: Where are the last messages?

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=130787&PID=6074484#6074484" rel="nofollow - PA site has been down for a day.

we should finish the discussion here.... with the definitive results.

Hi,

My thoughts are that the discussion here is limited to too much Anglo-American music, and not enough to the other Europeans and others around the globe.

Both America and England, have committed to a commercial style for music that is less represented by ideas from classical music, than otherwise. We might consider that some jazz things do fit, but when you see jazz in 4 minute segments, as songs, then you wonder where "jazz" really went.

If we include, and look at, a lot of Europeans, it's hard to believe that ANGE, AD2, LE ORME, BANCO and others did not create true "suites" with their music, and them not being mentioned, is kinda sad ... many of these were far more into the ideas involved here than otherwise, but instead, we look at material that was "song" oriented, as so much of the pieces mentioned were.

Iron Butterfly's effort is nice, but I'm not sure that it was quite intended to be a "suite", and it really fit a lot more as a "trip" even though today we look at it as a blues/whatever thing, and not a "trip" ... hearing it today, I'm not sure that today's audience knows how to close their eyes and enjoy the music, instead of cheering out loud for the metal guitar and the gruff voice (or then hear a comment like too much meandering and wondering about nothing -- like metal doesn't!) ... and a "suite" is meant for people that can "fly" and "trip" ... not to suggest that many metalizers can't trip, but I don't find the long things by DT and others anywhere near the definition of a "suite", other than a pair or trio of songs put together as different parts of a thought or two.

I think we need to be more inclusive, if we're going to discuss this ... we're mentioning too many commercially designed and known material to the mix. I would venture to say that even Frank Zappa is one of the few that fits, and he would know what a "suite" is, and give you a lesson with his baton!