The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #126

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    I've always liked Greg Lake's acoustic guitar playing, and decades later (after learning both songs in the early 80s, as a teenager), I will on occasion, out of the blue, play "Still You Turn Me On" on my 12-string acoustic, or "From The Beginning" on my 6-string acoustic.





    The live version of "The Sage" (from back in 1970) is also pretty cool.


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  3. #127

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    Saw the Works Vol. 2 tour in Portland Or. They had speakers that were each about 3x6 foot front surface, all identical. Sound volume went from very quiet on Lake's acoustic set to very loud in places.

    The cleanest, clearest sound I'd heard for a rock performance.

    And the performance was awesome, special effects on the pirates piece cool. The way they worked light and staging to focus your attention here while major changes... like a piano arising out of the stage 3 feet from Lake in a spotlight, and you never noticed it until Emerson played a chord to start the next song.

    Saw them again in the early 2000's or so. Still wonderful performers.

    Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

  4. #128

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    Keith's tech must've had a tough time keeping his organ playable



  5. #129

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    Quote Originally Posted by wintermoon
    Keith's tech must've had a tough time keeping his organ playable
    That's what she said...

    Setting up his Moog and hauling around and fixing his piano and organ (no pun intended) must have been one of the hardest roadie jobs in the business. Well, next to setting up the Dead's Wall of Sound...

    Listened to the live album Welcome Back My Friends yesterday...Keith's piano improv is really something else. He was too talented to be a rock musician. I mean, his speed and breadth of styles was phenomenal. From Bartok to Tchaikovsky to Meade Lewis and Scott Joplin...he played them all effortlessly.



    Check out the triplets he's playing in 5/4 about 2:40 in...crazy left hand technique.

  6. #130

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    IMHO, more than any other rock music, Tarkus stands the test of time. The sheer amount of melodic invention is staggering. It's one of the few albums I could listen to anytime.
    I don't know about their other albums, but Tarkus is just great music from beginning to end.

    The respect that other great keyboard players still have for Keith is incredible.
    Dave Stewart (of the Canterbury bands) wrote an essay about meeting Keith at a club. He was literally shaking with awe.
    Bob Bruno played on the same bill as the Nice, and told me in an email that he just stood there looking at Keith's setup when The Nice were on a break with reverence.

  7. #131

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    I really think Keith was on another plane regarding keyboard technique and virtuosity. And his breadth of styles…

    There are a lot of GREAT keyboardists out there, Rick Wakeman a close second in my pantheon, but Keith is like the Art Tatum of rock keyboardists. A singular talent.

    I listened to Tarkus yesterday. Yes still fresh. How they could play that stuff live, more or less flawlessly, is a wonder. I never saw them live, but saw a concert movie of theirs when I was in high school, which was “almost” as good.

    Brief digression: when I was a senior or so, my buddies and I made the obligatory visit (after a couple of six-pack, of course) to the only Adult Cinema in Chattanooga—still in operation as of last month! This was prevideo, so about the only place to see some real skin on film. It was a pretty gross place—turns out it was a big gay pickup place, who knew!—and we never went back (at least I didn’t) but I remember sitting in a small dingy theater well away from the other dozen patrons, several male-female couples btw—doing their thing while the actors onstage were doing their thing. The soundtrack was Karn Evil 9! LOL…the irony…

  8. #132

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    Going down the rabbit hole of ‘70’s prog has inevitably led to Rick Wakeman. I admit I haven’t listened to him much lately, except as part of Yes, though once he was one of the 5 Patriarchs in my universe—ELP, Yes, King Crimson, Genesis and Wakeman solo. Oh yeah, there was Todd Rundgren, a minor prophet.

    But Wakeman was as bombastic as any of them, and with the exception of Keith Emerson, with more “classical” influence. If Emerson was Barton or Prokofiev, Wakeman was Mozart and Beethoven. And of course Brahms.

    Anyway, I have been reading some fairly recent interviews with him, and he is quite an interesting fellow, with a thoughtful (and fairly cynical) view of the music business.

    Rick Wakeman Interview: Yes History, Reunion Odds, David Bowie - Rolling Stone

    Apparently he is also known in England as quite a wit and a bit of a comedian. Here is his acceptance speech for Yes for the RARHOF in 2017, and I think it’s safe to say there hasn’t been a speech quite like this one.


  9. #133

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    Here is his performance of Space Oddity, recorded after his friend David Bowie’s death, for a charity record.


  10. #134

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    Keith Emerson with Oscar Peterson…INCREDIBLE left hand technique.



    I like how’s there’s a bit of a cutting contest when they play together. NOBODY beats Oscar, though. His touch is inimitable.

  11. #135

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    No idea why Keith chose to play a boogie woogie on Oscar's show, or why ELP were referred to as a "pop" group. Anyway, to this day ELP's musicianship on pieces like Karn Evil 9 is nothing short of outstanding.

  12. #136

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter C
    No idea why Keith chose to play a boogie woogie on Oscar's show, or why ELP were referred to as a "pop" group. Anyway, to this day ELP's musicianship on pieces like Karn Evil 9 is nothing short of outstanding.
    He has always played boogie woogie, one of his big influences. He played the Meade Lewis piece and one he wrote himself on Works Vol. 2.

    They kind of flirted with pop, and then with Love Beach made a bad decision to go full-on pop. Reading the history of the group is disheartening. It seems they ran out of steam in the late ‘70’s and could never recapture that energy or enthusiasm.

  13. #137

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    Yeah, I wouldn't have paid much attention to the woogie stuff. They too ventured into pop like Banks, Rutherford and Collins (sounds like an Apollo mission crew)? See what I mean that it was all over by '75?

    I woke up again sometime in the early 80s to the joyful sounds of Level 42, for example. Now that was good pop.

  14. #138

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter C
    No idea why Keith chose to play a boogie woogie on Oscar's show, or why ELP were referred to as a "pop" group. Anyway, to this day ELP's musicianship on pieces like Karn Evil 9 is nothing short of outstanding.
    It is my understanding many jazz musician have only 3 category of music; jazz, classical, and pop.

    As for that boogie woogie: yea, I was disappointed. To me that is pop music.

  15. #139

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    I'm just wondering why none of you guys (as far as a I remember) who posted on the recent prog-related threads mentioned at least this song from the aforementioned band. Maybe because they're from the current century? Definitely going to spend some time researching these guys. My kind of music. Everything plus the kitchen sink.


  16. #140

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    Hmm, lots of their tracks are very heavy guitar riff based...still listening

  17. #141

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    Like the demos - this is good stuff. Well done!

  18. #142

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    Demos? I would't have the recording gear or sax/vocal chops to ....

    Edit: You must be talking about my little demos, so thanks. I often forget that they always appear at the bottom of my posts. I do what I can with available time and resources.
    Last edited by Peter C; 12-10-2021 at 05:01 PM.

  19. #143

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    All the prog threads that I saw were dinosaur 70s stuff

    lots of great stuff from the 90s & 00s - Mr Bungle / Fantomas, Tool, Opeth, Enslaved, Aggaloch etc

    dont dig the buttrock vocals on the track in the OP though

  20. #144

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    Let us not forget Animals As Leaders:


  21. #145

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    BWV, please feel free to post recommended tracks from "Mr Bungle / Fantomas, Tool, Opeth, Enslaved, Aggaloch etc". I suppose the vocals in the Thank You Scientist track were actually a weak point. I was probably too busy listening to everything else.

    As I insinuated above, I prefer heavy git in small doses, and it does seem to be a predominant feature of modern prog. The arrangement in the Animals as Leaders track was great, however.

  22. #146

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    OK, it’s generally heavier stuff though










  23. #147

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    Yeah, rather guitar heavy for me perhaps, but thanks for posting the links.

    Getting back to Thank You Scientist, they're all fantastic musicians and the arrangements are off the charts, to the extent that I'm continually rewinding to figure what I just heard. It's true that the singer has the kind of voice you'd hear in a Kids' TV show theme song BUT, he sings his ass off in the live performances I've been watching and I kind of respect that. Definitely a discovery for me.

  24. #148

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgcim
    IMHO, more than any other rock music, Tarkus stands the test of time. The sheer amount of melodic invention is staggering. It's one of the few albums I could listen to anytime.
    I don't know about their other albums, but Tarkus is just great music from beginning to end.

    The respect that other great keyboard players still have for Keith is incredible.
    Dave Stewart (of the Canterbury bands) wrote an essay about meeting Keith at a club. He was literally shaking with awe.
    Bob Bruno played on the same bill as the Nice, and told me in an email that he just stood there looking at Keith's setup when The Nice were on a break with reverence.
    Tarkus really is special; one of Prog’s definitive epics.


  25. #149

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    Keith swings like a mofo on "Stones of Years"! I spent hours copying his organ solos.
    I've listened so many times to that first side of the album, the 20 minutes goes by in a flash.
    I played it for one of my students, and the kid's life changed in 20 minutes.

    The amount of work Keith did to get to the point where he could write and play music like that is astounding. With The Nice, he made and played keyboard reductions of Mussorgsky, Copland, Bernstein, Ginastera, and on and on. No wonder he blew his brains out when he couldn't play anymore.

    Guys want to hear jazz guitarists that compose their own music. Fine, but are they really expecting to bring what KE brought to his music, by listening to a few classical records, and copying their 'guitar heroes'' music?

  26. #150

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgcim
    Keith swings like a mofo on "Stones of Years"! I spent hours copying his organ solos.
    I've listened so many times to that first side of the album, the 20 minutes goes by in a flash.
    I played it for one of my students, and the kid's life changed in 20 minutes.

    The amount of work Keith did to get to the point where he could write and play music like that is astounding. With The Nice, he made and played keyboard reductions of Mussorgsky, Copland, Bernstein, Ginastera, and on and on. No wonder he blew his brains out when he couldn't play anymore.

    Guys want to hear jazz guitarists that compose their own music. Fine, but are they really expecting to bring what KE brought to his music, by listening to a few classical records, and copying their 'guitar heroes'' music?
    From what I understand it's a complicated thing. He did have a history of depression and substance abuse. He had had problems with carpal tunnel and focal dystonia, which were eventually greatly improved, but he was getting bad arthritis in the hands. He was supposed to do a concert tour of Japan, and was concerned he wouldn't be able to play at the level that he and his fans were expecting.

    That said, suicide almost never has a single cause. Even when there is an obvious predisposition, many if not most times the EXACT trigger for the event is a mystery. I had a college classmate and 2 close friends whose wives committed suicide, and in each case it was a total shock and surprise to the family when it happened.