Category: music

Two Albums By The Nice and Pictures at an Exhibition, part 6

Whatever else I might have to say about ELP’s Pictures at an Exhibition and this exploration of ELP versus The Nice.

Sooo… look. Did I come to a better understanding of what Keith Emerson was all about? Eeehhhh… maybe. I guess I’d say that the most perfect encapsulation of what Keith Emerson’s approach to music is in my opinion quite well represented by the final track on Pictures at an Exhibition, a boogie retelling of bits of the Nutcracker Suite called “Nutrocker,” which was devised by Kim Fowley. It’s what I’ve always thought he was about, to be honest.

It’s that fusion of rock n classical that Emerson seems to have been after. He really never dives all that deeply into either rock or classical music, although it’s clear that he sees that his bread is better buttered in rock n roll grease, and so he puts everything under that umbrella. Across these three records we see snippets of just about every section of the record store — jazz, show tunes, blues, rock, classical, even a little dusting of country music, and across all of it, the unifying element is Emerson’s fingers and the feeling he had that some of what he could do with his fingers on a keyboard was dangerous or even subversive (meh).

What he did with The Nice sometimes transcended that need to push the boundaries of outré attention grabbing. I especially felt that on Elegy which showed a band that might have had some technical limitations, but had all of the ability to think and feel and attempt to make something beautiful. With ELP, it was all about the flash-bang.

So, ELP could be bigger, louder, more exciting, but somehow I think they were slighter on an artistic level.

This is a minority opinion, I’m aware of that. I’m also entirely capable of changing my mind, given a better argument about what’s happening in the grooves of the records or on stage in the video above. The guy who thought he’d made an “instrumental protest song” is clearly operating on the same assumptions in that “I’m stabbing my organ!” bit. I just don’t know what it’s about beyond the prurience of it. Maybe he had a bad piano teacher?

I’m a Yes fan. I will be upfront about thinking that Yes had terrible lyrics, but they had great lyricism. They made some of the most beautiful music I can think of within the rock context. ELP could play anything (they did, they played every style of music, sometimes within the bounds of a single track) but all they ever made me feel was admiration for their musicianship, and a bit of cynicism-tinged excitement over all of the flashiness.

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Two Albums By The Nice and Pictures at an Exhibition, part 5

The cliffhanger is answered: Did Keith make the right choice? Side 1

So we arrive at the final volume of our little trilogy, the most The Nice-like album that ELP ever did, thus inviting a direct comparison. Let’s talk about what I get from the grooves of 3 (at least mostly) live albums recorded as Keith Emerson left The Nice and joined ELP. It’s an interesting journey. I’ll offer the spoiler right now that he really did find a better bassist and singer in Greg Lake. but in my opinion, whether Carl Palmer is a better drummer than Brian Davison is debatable.

I give the nod to Lake here with all due respect to Lee Jackson, who is a fabulous musician. He’s still with us at 83, and is still out there playing music.

And I prefer Brian Davison to Carl Palmer on the issue of pocket. If you haven’t heard that term before, it means finding the place in the rhythm of the music where there’s a gravitic center to the beat. If you can find the pocket, you unlock a feeling of being meshed in with your bandmates in such a way that the feeling of the music gets deeper. In that situation, the synchronicity of the players together feels transcendent. It’s hard to describe if you haven’t been inside it, but it will affect any music you hear. It can draw you in, settle you inside the beat in such a way that your whole body feels like it’s swaddled in groove.

There are microdivisions of the beat, and a range of time within the beat — either slightly forward of it, right on it, or slightly behind — where the feeling of “locking in” can be all-encompassing or it can make you anxious, or it can make the music feel almost robotic. That anxious feeling can be useful to convey a sense of aggression or danger, which some find attractive, but if you’re looking for an expansive, powerful groove, you’ll find that locked-in feeling so much more unifying. The anxious feeling is at the leading edge of that groove, the locked-in feeling comes more from being just the slightest bit past the middle of that range of being “in rhythm.” Brian Davison could find the pocket with ease. Carl Palmer was always at the anxious edge of the beat, anticipating slightly and pushing. So while Palmer would typically pack more strokes into a beat than Davison would, Palmer always felt like he was pushing things, and there’s plenty of evidence of that on Pictures at an Exhibition.

Cover by William Neal, photography by Keith Morris and Nigel Harlow.

On paper, this could almost be an album by The Nice, with the caveat that strong compositional elements come from both Lake and Palmer, as well as Emerson. There’s a song on side one that is a solo acoustic piece from Greg Lake. There wasn’t a piece that was untouched by Keith Emerson as an arranger/composer since the days of Davy O’List, back on the very first album by The Nice. Honestly, Greg Lake is the best singer and songwriter Emerson ever worked with in a band. Still, it’s the same basic approach as the previous band, with the two new components plugged in.

Lake played a Fender Jazz bass, giving a much rounder, fuller tone than Lee Jackson’s plunky hollow body ox teardrop bass, which gives the whole band a smoother, more contemporary tone. He was also a more fluid player. There was less jazz in his sensebility (the model of his bass notwithstanding) and more rock. As discussed above, Palmer was much more kinetic behind the kit. Emerson seems liberated here, though he’s the same player. ELP was more of a well-oiled machine than The Nice, it’s plain…

I’ll have more to say about this album in my next post. Stay tuned.

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Two Albums By The Nice and Pictures At an Exhibition, part 4

Side 2 of Elegy

This album came out a couple of months before Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s Tarkus, the new band’s second album. The breakup was already established, ELP was a going concern, and a final album by The Nice was, it seems, of interest, at least in the British market, where the album charted at number 5. There’s a previous post that talks about side one of this album. You might want to reference that for the “bigger picture.”

The second side of the record consists of Tchaikovsky’s “Third Movement, Pathetíque Sympnony,” which is credited both to the Russian composer and The Nice, and Bernstein and Sondheim’s “America” which is subtitled “2nd Amendment,” in The Nice’s version. Emerson claimed that this was the world’s first instrumental protest song, which I find to be a dubious claim, although I do support the claim that this is a protest song, and does make its point well.

Yes, I found a copy fo the gatefold on eBay…

I said before that side 2 followed the same pattern as side 1, beginning on piano and moving to organ later, but here I am listening again and glory be! the first thing you hear is organ! How did I not remember that? In fact, there’s no piano on this side of the record at all. I apologize for the misinformation. I hadn’t listened to side 2 but the once in preperation for part 3 of this article. Repeat listenings have had me wondering if I should go back and edit that part, but in this case, it’s published and it would feel dishonest to change what you might already have read.

While there are jazz touches, and classical themes are explored in these arrangements, this is first and foremost a rock album. Though all of these songs have appeared on other albums, the band are working from new arrangements. One can look at this release as some sort of afterthought, but I love the warmth of these performances. I feel like this album may be the best justification for the band’s existence, released after the fact, when all of the members had moved on.

I love the instrumental freakout at the end of “America.” It’s very much in the wheelhouse of other early-70s drone at times, but ultimately represents the theme of entropy and destruction that appears to be the point here, and seems to be drafted into being the band’s big goodbye as well. Lee Jackson gets a final word in, playing the bass line a couple of times, as if to say that he’d be willing to continue the project, if only…

Honestly, I feel what Jackson is doing here. There are many points in my life where that whimper of an ending could have been magnificent if it was the beginning of rebirth. But here we are, at the end of something beautiful, falling apart for the lack of will to find the common ground to continue.

Side one of ELP’s Pictures at an Exhibition is next.

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Two Albums by The Nice and Pictures at an Exhibition, part 3

Elegy, side 1

Here we have the very last official release by The Nice. It’s another live/studio mix of things: four tracks, two recorded at the FIllmore East, two recorded at Trident Studios in London.

This gives the lie to something I said about the previous album Five Bridges. I’d claimed that their last studio recording was the final and only studio track on the album, “One of Those People.” I can amend that to say that “One of Those People” was the last original track recorded by the band, since the two studio recordings here are renditions of “My Back Pages” by Dylan and Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetíque Symphony, 3rd Movement.” There’s a different, longer version of the Tchaikovsky piece on Five Bridges.

There are no originals here, everything is material sourced from outside the band. the two live tracks are Tim Hardin’s “Hang On to a Dream” and Bernstein/Sondheim’s “America” from West Side Story. Again, we’re straddling that line between rock and classical, a line pretty much marked off and danced back and forth over by The Nice.

My copy of Elegy.

The cover is again by Hipgnosis. This photo session was more expensive, as the photography was done in the Sahara Desert. It definitely has that surreal Hipgnosis feel to it. There is, evidently, a gatefold version of this cover. My copy is in a standard jacket.

Side 1 is the two folk-derived tracks. “Hang On To a Dream” is a jazz/blues take, with a lot of piano soloing, and then a middle section that feels a bit more trancy and features something that sounds like Emerson reaching inside the piano and plucking the strings directly. I like the acoustic feel of the track. There’s no organ and the bass has a flat sound that feels like a hollow body played through a very clean amp — almost like stand-up, but it penetrates a bit better than a double bass would in this context. All of the flash comes from Emerson, although both members of the rhythm section add bits of flair here and there.

I’m doing this series of posts based on things I’ve read saying that Keith Emerson left the Nice because they didn’t measure up musically, but in general, my sense is that Jackson and Davison don’t seem like liabilities. I won’t say that about Jackson’s voice. His voice is flat and nondescript. I’m sure that’s not meeting the standard, but what do I know? Keith Emerson isn’t here to tell me. I have to say that I wish he had a little bit more edge, a little bit more fullness, but it also seems like he has that smooth jazz voice that was the style at the time.

Then on “My Back Pages,” I hear the limitations more. Jackson is almost croaking here, when he pushes. Emerson starts on piano, then switches to organ and sounds a bit more like the ELP guy, though the feeling is less the early-seventies “electric” thing than a more amped-up jazz feel. It’s got some rock edge to it, but we’re definitely keeping to a more human feel. Even though it’s a studio track, it still seems very live.

I’ll post about side 2 in a bit.

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Two Albums by The Nice and Pictures at an Exhibition, part 2

Five Bridges Side 2

Side 2 is three cover versions from the same bunch of shows as Side 1, plus a studio recording of a final song. This would be the final time that The Nice would go into the studio before Emerson left the band. The first track was composed by Sibelius and the second is by Tchaikovsky. The third is a medley, the first half by Dylan and the second half by Bach.

This is the back cover, which is much better on many levels than the front cover, even though it’s the same image.

They were really leaning in to the whole classical/rock fusion thingie, since many of us had music teachers who would proclaim that rock music would never be as great as the classics and wanted to know music that proved those supercilous teachers wrong.

Keith Emerson really was a hero to that kid, the one with the snooty music teacher. Emerson obviously knew that was a big part of his appeal. It was the point of prog in those days. PRO(ve you wron)G. I was that kid, but I never really “got” Keith Emerson.

But lately, I’ve been trying to figure it out – what the attraction is, can I manage to at least understand the mindset.

I found I had a similar problem with Genesis, which I addressed by repeatedly listening to some of their early records. I love Genesis now, up to about their 10th album. Still not a Phil Collins fan, and they were definitely better as a 5-piece, but I do like everything up to Duke.

So where’s that gonna land me with ELP? Especially if I treat them as a continuation of The Nice, which… to be honest, I think they are.

In the end, I have to say that I think Greg Lake does a better job doing the same things Lee Jackson did, and for me, the jury is still out on Brian Davison v. Carl Palmer. In general, I think The Nice had better pocket than ELP, and I guess I’ll lay that at Palmer’s feet. He may be more technically profidient than Davison (though that’s at least somewhat debatable) but that guy never met a groove he couldn’t push.

My sense is that Emerson was already deeply dissatisfied with The Nice by the time of this record, but that the band was still a very good representation of what I think of as the central idea — a keyboard-led power trio with a high rate of musical proficiency and a real penchant for mixing classical music with rock.

I’ll tackle Elegy next…

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