What's progressive about 1964?
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Forum Name: Proto-Prog and Prog-Related Lounge
Forum Description: Discuss bands and albums classified as Proto-Prog and Prog-Related
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27495
Printed Date: November 24 2024 at 11:28
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Topic: What's progressive about 1964?
Posted By: earlyprog
Subject: What's progressive about 1964?
Date Posted: August 19 2006 at 12:28
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The purpose of this thread is to discuss changes in the technology (music related) and the society that resulted in 1964’s “progressive music” which led to proto-prog and eventually progressive rock. Generally, changes in the technology relate to changes in (excuse the terminology and lack of finishing touches) · Technique: recording/studio technique, instruments, musicianship, tour equipment (e.g. speakers) · Processes: Lyrics, song structure, recording process, live performances (concerts, tv, radio), drugs (marihuana, LSD etc.), mixing musical genres etc. · Products: Singles, Album characteristics, Live performances (Concerts, TV, Radio), genre of music · Organisation: Management (financial, tour etc.), producer, band organisation (Lennon may have been the leader of The Beatles but…) Generally, changes in society relate to changes in · Market: Competition (e.g. The Beach Boys), Supply & demand (e.g. supply of progressive rock and other genres and demand for pop music), available clubs and concert venues · Assets/capital: financial, physical, natural, political, social/network (partners, contacts), knowledge, human assets · Power: Ownership, Organisations (e.g. the music industry), Legislation · Living conditions and wants-and-needs of the society (music buying customers): access to tv, radio, drugs etc. More specifically, in 1964 the following may have affected the development of progressive rock: Instruments · George Harrison plays 12-string guitar on the album “A Hard Days Night” · Seventh Sons use sitar and other eastern instruments live ("Raga (4 a.m. at Frank's)" was recorded 1964 but released 1968) Musicianship · · For the first time on record, Lennon records guitar feedback on “I feel fine” (used on stage by Harrison and Lennon as early as 1961?) Processes · Lennon, McCartney and Harrison write lyrics that are no longer solely about the fan-lyricist interrelationship (such as “From me to you” and “P.S. I love you”) but about the lyricist alone reflecting more personal needs (driven by psychological needs - esteem and self-actualization - no longer physiological and sociological needs) · The Beatles start taking marihuana which becomes very influential on their development according to Ringo · Song structure…? (need help) · The Beatles mix pop with folk influences Products · Album-oriented music by The Beatles while maintaining an output of singles that are not included on the albums (began with 1963’s “With the Beatles”) · Self-penned album “A Hard Day’s Night” by The Beatles thereby strengthening the musicians’ control over the music · Progressive pop by the Beatles: “I feel fine” (guitar feedback) · Folk influenced pop by The Beatles on “Beatles for · Progressive lyrics by The Beatles (not solely fan-lyricist relationship) · First raga ever performed live and recorded by an electric group, Seventh Sons (but not released until 1968) Power · The Beatles are allowed more freedom in the studio resulting in the self-penned album “A Hard Day’s Night” Living conditions · The Beatles socialize with Bob Dylan and begin taking marihuana Market · Competition between bands (The Beatles and Beach Boys this early?) · Demand for “progressive music”? by customers and clubs? · Larger “supply” of folk and other non-pop genres (genre mixing begin?) And now your suggestions for the changes in the technology (music related) and the society that resulted in 1964’s “progressive music” which led to proto-prog and eventually progressive rock!!!!!! |
Replies:
Posted By: Easy Livin
Date Posted: August 19 2006 at 13:34
Nice one EP, a lot of thought and research has gone into that.
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: August 19 2006 at 14:07
Excellent post
this could be the start of a thread in the blog section if you care to develop more  ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: earlyprog
Date Posted: August 19 2006 at 15:39
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The Beatles released the single "I want to hold your hand" on 29 november 1963 (both UK and US?), but I believe it wasn't until early 1964 it cracked wide open the US chart for other Beatles records and other British gropus to follow? (see "The Beatles: Past Masters vol. one")
The most important event of 1964 and possibly even in the entire history of music. A huge market was open to the "progressive music" of The Beatles and inspired other groups to go "progressive". Also, European music began go mix with American music and genre mixing began.
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Posted By: earlyprog
Date Posted: August 19 2006 at 15:45
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Easy Living and Sean, thanks for your nice comments.
I wish I had more time to develop but I need inspiration/input from other PA members. Feel free to move to other section now or later, whenever appropriate.
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Posted By: earlyprog
Date Posted: August 19 2006 at 15:49
| Depending on the responses the thread receives, identical threads for 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969 are in the pipeline. |
Posted By: earlyprog
Date Posted: August 20 2006 at 06:54
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Roger McGuinn of the Byrds credits Harrison for his own use of a Rickenbacker 12-string. The Byrds, in turn, influenced countless other bands who put the Rick 12 at the center of their own sound.
Directly or indirectly, Harrison shaped the sound of Genesis through Rutherford's use of the 12-string.
Another important event of 1964: February 1964 saw the Beatles' first U.S. visit to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. Improved living conditions allowed millions of people to see the Beatles on tv. A huge opportunity to market the progressive sound of the Beatles.
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Posted By: mystic fred
Date Posted: August 20 2006 at 13:15
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Some very interesting points here - The Beatles were already at the top of their game during 1964 and most of the music industry were following in their wake, though they found kindred spirits in Bob Dylan and The Byrds who they (the Beatles) greatly admired. Indeed for the reasons listed the seeds of prog could well have been sown as early as 1964. Good topic!
ps - more proof here that Harrison's role and influence was greatly underrated during Beatles early years.
also technology played a big part from the musician's point of view, the average playback equipment was extremely primitive, only now can we appreciate the full glory of an early Beatles album, even the very early ones!
-------------  Prog Archives Tour Van 
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Posted By: Sacred 22
Date Posted: August 20 2006 at 19:16
What about these guys???
 THE DAVE CLARK FIVE
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Posted By: Eetu Pellonpaa
Date Posted: August 21 2006 at 08:35
During 1964 there was also lots of fine art music done (jazz & classical), but they along with rock/pop music were still firmly restricted to their own fences. But as you pointed out, the seed of change was already sown! 
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: August 21 2006 at 08:38
I'd love to read this up!  ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
earlyprog wrote:Posted By: Certif1ed
Date Posted: August 21 2006 at 16:55
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Good post!
I have a few to add; 1) Radio Caroline launched, breaking the airwaves monopoly of the BBC and allowing the dissemination of a wider range of new music. 2) Don Buchla and Robert Moog put together their first prototype synthesiser. 3) Computer composer Gottfried Michael Koenig developed PROJECT 1, based on the composer Xenakis' ideas of stochastic music - essentially the forerunner of Tangerine Dream et al, but more precisely defined. Stochastic music was based on, of all things, probability principles. * Xenakis, of course, was a student of one of my favourite composers, Olivier Messaien. 4) Electronics Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen pioneers live performances of electronic works with "Mixtur" and "Mikrophonie I". Song structure's a tricky one - I don't have much in my rock/pop collection that predates 1967 
/edit - just thought, didn't the Skatellites begin recording around 1964? I know that ska/reggae hasn't got much to do with Prog, but it's the whole "Moderns" ethos of listening to new music that seems to be at the heart of Prog Rock that has resonances here, and ska played an important part in this exploratory tendency - so maybe this is related? ------------- The important thing is not to stop questioning. |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: August 21 2006 at 17:05
The first episodes of Star Trek are being shot ... how much more progressive can a year get?
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to: 
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Posted By: Certif1ed
Date Posted: August 22 2006 at 02:34
  ------------- The important thing is not to stop questioning. |
Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: August 22 2006 at 06:14
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Can't ignore the British love affair with black American R'N'B (e.g. Chess with the urban Chicago blues recordings and the earlier delta blues). The Beatles may have had a love affair with Tamla and soul, and Anglicising it but others were developing a harder edge by borrowing and using staighter blues in their pop (so slowly becoming rock), which the Fab 4 borrowed later and turned into their own thing.
In the second part of the excellent BBC 4 documentary last year Jazz Britannia, dealing with the roots of British jazz rock, said a lot about young jazz musicians forced to go electric by their older peers, and appealing to the youth market from the early 60's. Therefore the likes of Graham Bond, Georgie Fame, Alan Price , maybe Zoot Money can't be ignored as providing a forcing ground for musicians who evolved the jazz blues rock, indeed the likes of Alexis Korner and John Mayall for the blue purists.
Ewen McColl seemed to have the UK folk scene in a traditional limbo from the mid 50's to the mid 60's - ditto his brother-in-law Pete Seeger in the USA - until the likes of Davey Graham broke free, taking with him John Renbourne and Bert Jansch (influential on Jimmy Page). The electric work of the young Richard Thompson in Fairport helped to open the split between the traditionalists and the new .
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: August 22 2006 at 07:08
I'd have to agree that a good deal of progressiveness in music in the early to mid-60's came from jazz (that's obvious) but also folk and soon to be folk-rock. ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: August 22 2006 at 10:04
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Sean and all
Now been able to make a few minor changes to typos and additions (which I tried to do a few hours ago without luck - my PC and the PA site lack full compatibility), but I don't think it changes the context to which you were responding.
British trad or dixieland jazz, as well as those glorious patiches of 20's jazz from Temperance Seven (who in part influenced the Bonzos), were regularly charting in the UK - doesn't Acker Bilk still hold the record from the longest period of a single was in the UK charts? However, the then unusual 5:4 of Dave Brubeck Quartet's Take Five single, influenced a lot of young musicians, which meant DBQ's albums were bought and absorbed. As I've said before I hear a few direct roots back from Nice's Ars Longa Vita Brevis to DBQ's Live At Carnegie Hall double album (which oddly has only been issued, remastered on CD by Sony Columbia in the last 3 years).
As to folk and prog - check out an excellent read:
Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival by http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/026-4545389-2034828?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-uk&field-keywords=Colin%20Harper - Colin Harper
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Posted By: Dragon Phoenix
Date Posted: August 23 2006 at 02:13
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The Animals release House of the rising sun, a hit with a dominating organ sound in the instrumentation.
------------- Blog this: http://artrock2006.blogspot.com |
Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: August 23 2006 at 04:52
| I think I mentioned Alan Price in passing - but more the the R'N'B boom in the UK - Stones, Animals, Manfred Mann, Pretty Things etc. later. |
Posted By: Rocktopus
Date Posted: August 23 2006 at 05:14
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Two of my newly purchaced jazz favorites are from '64. Eric Dolphy: Out to Lunch and Herbie Hancock: Empyrean Isles. The complex avantgardejazz especially of the former together with: John Coltrane: A Love Supreme, also from '64, are two of the most influential jazzalbums on progressive rock. ------------- Over land and under ashes In the sunlight, see - it flashes Find a fly and eat his eye But don't believe in me Don't believe in me Don't believe in me |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: August 23 2006 at 05:19
64 >>> A Love Supreme ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: August 23 2006 at 07:36
Forgive me, you use the term "influential" but could you please develop this idea for this particular thread - with these examples who was influenced, where do you see/hear the influence in later music? A Love Supreme is more well documented - e.g. Soft Machine acknowledging Coltrane in their Pop Prom concert notes, Roger McGuinn adopting the stream of notes approach for the original RCA recording of 8 Miles High, later Allan Holdsworth employing the same concept for parts of his instantly identifiable jazz fusion guitar work. As I've said before the polyrhythmic/multi-signatures used by D Brubeck Quartet - driven by drummer Joe Morello - are more obvious in early prog .
BTW Out To Lunch, A Love Supreme and (DBQ's) Time Out featured in Jazzwise's recent One Hundred Influential Jazz Albums poll.
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Posted By: Rocktopus
Date Posted: August 23 2006 at 18:55
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I thought Magma (Zeuhl) and lots of jazz rock in general was influenced by these early avantgarde jazz albums. I'm no expert and can't write in technical terms. I might be wrong, but I'm almost certain I've read and seen these titles mentioned several times as influential on the more experimental side of prog. The thread asks 'What's progressive about 1964?' and I think all three albums qualify. ------------- Over land and under ashes In the sunlight, see - it flashes Find a fly and eat his eye But don't believe in me Don't believe in me Don't believe in me |
Posted By: Arrrghus
Date Posted: August 23 2006 at 18:59
Amazing album! I agree! Extremely progressive, influential, and awe-inspiring. ------------- 
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Posted By: earlyprog
Date Posted: August 24 2006 at 16:37
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Just realised that The Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coupe" from '63 actually is a concept album (the first?) centred round cars. Ofcourse before that their albums focused on surfing - don't know them well enough to call these concept albums also. So a progression in pop music can be traced back earlier than '64.
BB's "All Summer long" from '64 contains "I get around" with a somewhat sophisticated arrangement and the album uses xylophone and horns.
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Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: August 24 2006 at 18:53
I thought Jan & Dean had quite an influence on the BB's about that time, and certainly into dragsters first (one of them even had a very nasty motor accident because of their love of souped up motors and high speed - I think even sung about it in Deadman's Curve). |
Posted By: Epitath
Date Posted: August 25 2006 at 19:36
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This shows us, once again, that beatles were and are the creators of prog! Cheers! ------------- 
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Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: August 26 2006 at 08:56
Comeon I thought there was plenty of evidence provided above to show that no one band was the creator of prog! |
Posted By: Syzygy
Date Posted: August 26 2006 at 09:49
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1964 was the year that Daevid Allen met up with Gilli Smyth and the pair started writing songs together. The previous year Allen had palyed in a trio with Robert Wyatt (whose parents he lodged with at the time) and Hugh Hopper. Hugh Hopper apparently did some experiments with tape loops with Allen in 1964, and also formed the Wilde Flowers with his brother Brian, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers and Richard Sinclair.
All in all, a pivotal year for the Canterbury scene.
On the jazz scene, as well as the release of Coltrane's mighty A Love Supreme (and don't forget his excellent album Crescent from the same year), Herbie Hancock took time out from playing with Miles Davis to record the wonderful Empyrean Isles, and Eric Dolphy released Out To Lunch just before he died.
1964 was also the year that Zappa joined The Soul Giants, shortly to be renamed The Mothers. ------------- 'Like so many of you I've got my doubts about how much to contribute to the already rich among us...' Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: August 26 2006 at 15:33
I think we are reading the same OBR book, chris  ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: chamberry
Date Posted: August 27 2006 at 01:27
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1964 - Terry Riley composes In C wich is concidered to be the first minimalist composition.
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: August 27 2006 at 05:27
yup that is another goodie
Less minimalist but also much more interesting is 68's A Rainbow In Curved Air
------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: August 27 2006 at 16:18
Hate to tell you but I've read some authorative reference,( maybe Groves Music Dictionary), that minimalism can be traced back to the early 40's. If I remember correctly, it was stated that a woman composer wrote the earliest identifiable piece of minimalism in 1943. But then where ever you look for a trustworthy reference, e.g. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_701610421/Minimalism_(music).html they muddy the water more....... Interesting to see the word minimalism is supposed to invented in 1968 - however, we were certainly calling it 'cyclic music', including that heard at the performance of minimalist compositions (e.g. by Riley, Souster) heard in first half of the Pop Proms of 1970, that the Soft Machine performed in the second half. BTW I've asked this many times, but who played in that first set - my memory suggests Tim Souster, Mike Ratledge for sure but did Jon Lord turn up as well? |
Posted By: kebjourman
Date Posted: August 27 2006 at 23:36
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never really thought about 64 as such a progressive year til now
not saying i agree quite yet, but im thinking about it.
verry good points you have though
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Posted By: chamberry
Date Posted: August 28 2006 at 18:29
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Hmmm. That's very interesting to say the least. I hate it when we have to write history again. The same goes for the rumors I've heard about Chinesse discovering America first than Cristobal Colon...
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