zumpoems

Van Der Graaf Generator: Still Life

If ever there was one album in the history of rock to hold up and proclaim, “Even Schubert would praise this work for its seamless blend of music and lyrics,” it has to be this one.

I can only stumble in trying to describe the artfulness of Hammill’s compositions, or how perfectly his music supports his well-crafted lyrics, or how seamlessly the lyrics are part of the music. Released on April 16, 1976, Still Life is the best-recorded Van Der Graaf Generator album up to that point. Hammill’s broad range of vocals is effectively captured, and the organ passages, the bass, and David Jackson’s flute and sax contributions are all clear and distinctly independent elements in the colorful palette of sound.

All five tracks of the original LP are exceptional, but “La Rossa,” the final track of side one, is one of the masterpieces of 20th-century music. The work begins with an evocative organ introduction that contains the seeds of later material. Hammill enters with a matter-of-fact delivery of the first lines:

Lacking sleep and food and vision
Here I am again, encamped upon your floor
Craving sanctuary and nourishment
Encouragement and sanctity and more

The intensity picks up as more lyrics follow:
The streets seem very crowded
I put on my brave disguise
I know you know that I am acting
I can see it in your eyes

And it is at this point that the music shifts into high gear with another verse:

In the harsh light of freedom
I know that I cannot deny that I have wasted time
Have been a little away in idle boasts
Of my freedom and fidelity
When simple words have never profited me most
It isn’t enough in the end when I’m looking for hope

This is followed by the “organ monkey” chorus, performed at moderate intensity, leaving ample runway for the intensity to follow. After two more verses, the chorus returns, intensity further heightened by the percussion imitating the movements of the hopping organ monkey. A reflective bridge-like section intervenes, providing musical pathos to effectively set up new melodic and harmonic material. The percussion and saxophone increase their intensity to transition to a short, active organ/sax instrumental that breaks back into previous melodic material, with vocals at even greater intensity:

All bridges burning behind me
All safety beyond reach
The monkey fears its chains and runs blindly
Only to find himself released

After “released,” new musical material is briefly interjected with the immediate incorporation of earlier melodic material as we proceed to an unbridled coda with sizzling percussion, heavy organ, a soaring saxophone, and a final, no-frills, and uncompromisingly definitive cadence.

Side Two starts with the melodically addictive “My Room” with its unforgettable opening line, “Searching for diamonds in the sulphur mine.” Hammill effectively captures the poignancy and heartbreak of abandonment and isolation through musical pacing, melodic phrasing, and overall mood.

The album ends with the longest track, “Childlike Faith in Childhood’s End,” which neatly ties together the lyrics and music of the first track, “Pilgrims,” with the reflection of life’s purpose expressed in “Still Life,” and reuses, transformed, musical material of the chorus from “La Rossa.” Hammill effectively leverages Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, Childhood’s End, and its theme of humanity transmuting into a collective, cosmic consciousness, and provides a philosophical finale, with the music relentlessly driving towards its transformative climax, the destruction of the individual for the ascension of humanity, the musical cadence taking us to the highest peak, where there is no air left to breathe.

Gentle Giant: Interview

A year before Interview was released in April 1976, Gentle Giant had recorded their seventh studio album, Free Hand, one of the pinnacles of progressive rock, and their most successful album up to that point, released in August of 1975 and soon climbing to the 48th position of the Billboard 200. Gentle Giant finally headlined decent-sized venues and were establishing themselves as a recognizable name in popular music. Two factors would work against them. The first: progressive rock had reached its peak and was now declining in popularity. This was out of their control.

The second factor that worked against them was their eighth studio album. Free Hand had a hard rock edge, was accessible, and was based on an easily relatable concept: reflections on the breakup of a relationship. Specifically, it addressed their breakup with a non-supportive record label, but the lyrics were written with enough ambiguity to effectively apply to romantic breakups. “Just the Same” was about defiance and authenticity, “On Reflection,” with interwoven counterpoint, represented the complexity of looking back at a break-up, and “Free Hand” was about the relief of finally being free, along with lingering bitterness associated with a bad relationship. Like Free Hand, Interview‘s concept and lyrics dealt with the music business, but it lacked a more universal message. Instead, it focused on the mundane elements of an interview with a touring band, highlighting their general dissatisfaction with touring, promotion, and the inane, banal questions of the generally clueless musical press. There was no ambiguity in the lyrics that allowed any other interpretation to a more universally relatable concept, and for those fans who aspired to or envied the fame of a rock band member, an album complaining about the drawbacks of being famous was not naturally resonant.

But if the lyrics fell short of universality, how did the music of Interview fare? Unlike Free Hand, where all tracks were focused, finished, and created a unified musical statement, Interview was their first album since, well, their first album, that lacked musical cohesion. Each track seemed a separate invention, completely independent of the other tracks. In addition, the music was more exploratory than Free Hand, containing the largest number of meandering, though interesting, musical sections since their first album. Where Free Hand had broken the top 50 of the Billboard Chart, Interview never made it past position 137.

And yet, Interview is a masterpiece compared to the three studio albums that would follow. There is cleverness in the music and a range of styles that make it a very engaging listening experience. The first track, the title track, is strong and indicates that here might be another album to rival the previous three in terms of intensity and merit. But the second track, “Give It Back,” takes a detour, mimicking reggae to create a musical parody — effective, but less musically interesting than what the band was capable of. The third track starts as a beautiful ballad, with Minnear on lead vocals. It begins a cappella with the band providing effective backing vocals before breaking into a fragmented, pointillistic display of vocal counterpoint and imaginative percussive counterpoint, ending with a return of the original melodic theme followed by a coda formed from the second theme. Brilliant but far from commercially mainstream.

Side Two starts with “Another Show” about the chaos and financial challenges of touring. The music is exuberant and accurately reflects the tumult of being on the road and playing a string of varying venues. Once again, we have adventurous musical instrumental incursions of high merit and unmistakably pure Gentle Giant, but not instinctively organic. Irresistibly enjoyable, even well-integrated, but not an inevitable outcome of the initial theme. That’s a high bar, but one effectively cleared in their previous five albums.

“Empty City,” the fifth track, is an amazing ballad with a stark contrasting B theme that invokes Gentle Giant’s trademark stride style (see Fifty Year Friday: July 1971 with additional examples mentioned in Fifty Year Friday: July and August 1975, Fifty Year Friday: September 1973, Fifty Year Friday: December 1972, Fifty Year Friday: April 1972, Fifty Year Friday: November 1970.) This is followed by “Timing,” which, like “Another Show” and “Design,” is a strong track with a compelling musical excursion: one with a strong Gary Green guitar solo and some fascinating off-kilter “timing” effects.

The album ends as strongly as it started with “I Lost My Head,” a classic Gentle Giant track that weaves beautiful ballad material with a contrasting heavy rock section. All in all, this album is far above most material from 1976, but for me, back in April 1976 when I bought the album, it failed to meet the expectations set by the previously released “Free Hand” and “Power and the Glory.” I have listened to Interview many times since then, but it still falls short of the greatest classics of progressive rock. It doesn’t comfort me to reflect that even if Gentle Giant had released their best album ever after Free Hand, it wouldn’t have made the difference needed to even momentarily slow the ensuing popularity decline of this musically amazing band or of progressive rock in general.

Klaus Schulze: Moondawn

If you are a fan of Klaus Schulze, the Berlin prog rock electronic school, or, like me, just an easy mark for sequencer-driven bass pulses, Moondawn, released on April 16, 1976, is a rewarding, immersive experience at over 52 minutes on the original LP or over 73 minutes on CD with the inclusion of an alternate version of the first track.

The first track, “Floating,” is aptly named—the music slowly gathers momentum until around the five-minute mark. Here, the crescendoing, from nothing to a fully noticeable isochronal ratcheting (the sequenced ostinato of sub-beats so prevalent in the electronic music of the mid-seventies Berlin school), provides the rhythmic currents to figuratively lift the music airborne. The music gathers intensity slowly, dramatically, immersing the listener until, a little bit after the twenty-six-minute mark, it decrescendos to its gentle conclusion.

Side two of the original LP is also a single track: “Mindphaser.” It begins with the introspective and calming sounds of the sea, interspersed with some hints of stormy weather. It remains uplifting until the second part takes off with drums (Harald Grosskopf) and organ-like droning, culminating in the eventual inclusion of that famously pulsing ostinato, driving it to its conclusion.

Camel: Moon Madness

Camel released one of their finest albums, Moonmadness, on March 26, 1976. Word has it that the label exerted pressure on Camel to produce more commercially accessible material than their previous album. This seemed to have some slight influence, as the album has a bit of a Pink Floyd sound, particularly on “Song Within a Song” and parts of “Another Night.” However, the music is unmistakably Andrew Latimer/Peter Bardens material, whether upbeat and heavily synthesized as with the opening tracks, “Aristillus” and “Chord Change,” or evocative and wistful as with “Song Within a Song,” “Spirit of the Water,” or “Airborne.” Also notable is the closing instrumental track, “Lunar Side,” which starts off wistful but then leans heavily into the synthesizer in its middle section, and then turns into a lively jazz-fusion-influenced piece with a strong guitar solo from Latimer. Though this album was released domestically in the States, it was rare to spot a copy in most record stores, and my first exposure was on the KPFK-FM program “The Import Show.” The show featured a rotating musical intro that once highlighted a section from “Aristillus,” and on a couple of occasions used excerpts from “Song Within a Song” (once the instrumental passage at the 4:25 mark, and another time starting at 3:07)—a perfect opening for a record show dedicated to the best releases in progressive music.

Caravan: Blind Dog at St Dunstans’

This seventh studio album by Caravan is a blend of progressive and quirky pop, but its Canterbury prog-rock roots are unmistakable. With the departure of Dave Sinclair, Pye Hastings does all of the writing for this album, with the exception of one track, which he co-writes. This album often gets overlooked, but it shouldn’t, as it is full of pleasurable, highly enjoyable music with their new keyboardist, Jan Russell Schelhaas, performing admirably. Don’t be dissuaded by the one-and-a-half-star rating at allmusic.com; this is a four-star album.

Woody Shaw: Love Dance

My best guess is that this album was released on the Muse label around April 1976, though not sure. I have it as part of the Mosaic Records set of Woody Shaw’s complete Muse sessions, and it occupies CD 2 of the seven-CD set. As far as I know, the Love Dance album is the only time Billy Harper and Woody Shaw recorded together. That alone would be enough to require one to check out the music; however, the material also establishes itself independently as must-listen modal bop jazz.

“Love Dance,” written as the title track by the album’s pianist, Joe Bonner, is a modal work that would not be stylistically out of place in the catalogue of Coltrane/Tyner, even though written a generation later. Besides Bonner, Harper, and Shaw, the album includes René McLean (Jackie Mac’s son), Steve Turre on trombone (and as a nice treat, particularly on “Sun Bath,” bass trombone), Cecil McBee on bass, Victor Lewis on drums, Guilherme Franco on percussion, and Tony Waters on congas.

Shaw is one of the most amazing trumpeters to listen to. He is an improvisational architect, working through interval and harmonic relationships with a relentless ear for logical connection and abstract melodic appeal. And I love his tone — never wispy or uncertain, but strong, focused, and direct, yet beautifully evocative when appropriate. And I love how Billy Harper understands the musical ethos of a great master like John Coltrane, yet uses that as a starting point and not an end objective. All of this comes together perfectly on my favorite track of the album, “Zoltan,” a tribute to Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly, most famous for his Hary Janos suite compiled from music of his opera of that name. The opening melody of Woody Shaw’s “Zoltan,” which first appeared as the opening track on the classic Larry Young Blue Note Unity album, is derived from the march theme of “Entrance of the Emperor and his Court” from Kodaly’s Hary Janos opera and suite, or maybe more accurately derived from Shaw’s earlier version, as he drops out the direct quote of the march intro from the original Kodaly work, and launches into his abstraction of the main theme. Overall, this version is even more intense, compelling, and musically imaginative than its earlier appearance on the Young album. Listen to both and let me know.

And let me know your thoughts on this album. How does it compare to his previous masterpiece, The Moontrane? Or the two classic albums that follow? How does it compare to contemporary jazz albums of its time?