ETTORE SALATI

This month's Artist in Spotlight is Ettore Salati from Italy. Ettore is a sought after session guitarist by many prog musicians not just in Italy but all around the world. He started playing piano at a very young age (mostly classical music) but when he became a teenager and discovered the world of Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Genesis and 70's rock in general, he was immediately fascinated by guitar... more

KAT EPPLE (Emerald Web)

KAT EPPLE, flautist and composer, is our interview guest this month. She has won 8 Emmy awards, was nominated for a Grammy and she has released 18 albums internationally. Most of you know her as the other half of the legendary ambient/new age duo EMERALD WEB. She has a very large collection (over 200) of flutes that she gathered from all around the world during her travels. Kat composes original New Age/Jazz/World/orchestral music and has produced film scores and television soundtracks for National Geographic, Nova, CNN, Carl Sagan, Another World, The Travel Channel, Turner Broadcasting System, History Channel, HGN, The Guiding Light, PBS, and NASA among others, and was Music Director for the feature-length film, Captiva Island. She also owns a record company and works on both sides of the music industry as a musician and as a business woman... more

New Grass Revival / On The Boulevard

New Grass Revival are one of the pioneers of progressive bluegrass. Formed in 1971 by Sam Bush (mandolin/vocals), Curtis Burch (guitar), Ebo Walker (bass) and Courtney Johnson (banjo), they immediately got the attention from the industry both in a good and bad way. First of all, they were often told that their music was not bluegrass, and they knew it wasn’t “bluegrass” in its traditional sense, and it wasn’t what they were trying to achieve anyways. They were blending rock, soul and blues rhythms with the traditional bluegrass music. They were not wearing suites, but instead they had a more casual style along with long hair... more

Emerson Lake & Palmer

self-titled / 1970

This debut release from the now legendary trio is a solid and strange little EP. After recording King Crimson’s iconic debut In The Court of The Crimson King as a founding member, guitarist/bassist/vocalist Greg Lake departed the band and met up with keyboardist Keith Emerson and drummer Carl Palmer. This trio would go on to firmly place themselves in the hierarchy of the relatively new musical genre known as prog-some would say defining or even embodying it. This EP reveals Emerson, Lake and Palmer in their natural element-strange time signatures, jazzy keyboard phrasings and unique vocal phrasings.

Offering only six tunes, it is still easy to see how this debut by ELP stamps itself into the musical collective consciousness-especially of the early 1970’s. The first track The Barbarian reveals all the bravado of 21st Century Schizoid Man the first track from Lake’s previous band’s debut In The Court of The Crimson King. This tune is a raucous mid-tempo stomper complete with heavy-handed organ, thumping bass and frenetic drumming and features a piano interlude. Although this is definitely a rock tune, the jazz influences are rife and they show up in many other places on this EP.

The second track Take A Pebble clocks in at over twelve minutes and unfolds as an introspective journey. Here it most apparent that keyboardist Keith Emerson’s composing shows equal parts influence of jazz and classical-at least for the first three and a half minutes. The song then quiets in order to return featuring a two minute acoustic guitar interlude-part peaceful, part groovin’ with handclaps to boot. The jazzy/classically oriented piano returns for the rest of the tune to usher in the return the passionate vocals and moody lyrics of Lake.

Knife-Edge steps forward boldly as ELP’s first groovy, most rock-oriented track. Starting as a bass-low, slow groove and featuring a moody vocal proclaiming “Just a step-cried the sad man, take a look down at the mad man…” and building into a frenetic display of keyboard wizardry and biting drumming.

The Three Fates rises up dramatically after the sudden drop-ending of Knife-Edge. A three part tune subtitled Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, keyboardist Emerson shines here like in no other tune on this EP. Beginning dramatically with Clotho on traditional organ with sweeping pronouncements, Lachesis comes in with a classical/light jazz/pop piano and descends beautifully into Atropos, a more straight forward, if very raucous, heady jazz piano piece.

Tank is the album’s thumpy jazz extravaganza. Not a hint of classical influence here as jazz meets rock to bring forth a rousing keyboard and drum fest.

Not least is the album’s last song Lucky Man. Penned by Lake, this is the song that we all hear when we listen to our ‘70’s rock radio station. This is more of a straightforward acoustic rock song with the dreamy and droning vocals of Lake. Hearing such a straightforward and peaceful song right at the end of thumping rockers and classical piano interludes may not be everyone’s cup of tea. In all, however, it’s easy to see from this debut by ELP how they so confidently move from obscurity into the annals of prog rock history. A seemingly schizophrenic collection of songs for a debut is risky but listeners saw the potential of this super group even from such an initial foray and it sure paid off. This surely is the stuff that prog is made of.

Nelson LEE