What, why, who?

Now, even though I do have my favorites in rock, jazz and classical music, my daily musical ration comes from the realm of progressive rock. Prog rock essentially pushes the boundaries of classic rock, usually by incorporating classical music, jazz or folk elements into the standard paradigm of classic rock. Musicianship is often pushed to the limit - and, indeed, many of the top figures in prog rock have had classical training. This music is tight, challenging, inspiring, and it rocks! Next, let's look at some representatives.

Styles and Bands

There are a few styles floating around. I won't mention a couple of the boring ones so let's get busy with the good stuff.

Symphonic prog draws from classical music, with lush soundscapes provided, at their best, by mellotrons or Hammond organs. There are a few killer 70's classics, such as Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant and Van der Graaf Generator from UK and Banco and PFM from Italy. Recently several fabulous bands have emerged, such as After Crying from Hungary, DFA from Italy and Anglagard from Sweden.

The Neoprogressive style is sometimes viewed as an extension of the classic Genesis sound, often less intricate and sharp. I will only mention here one band, (the old) Marillion - but what a band!

Fusion is a more explorative (and rockier!) type of jazz-rock. Some giants: National Health, Hatfield and the North (sometimes classified as Canterbury style bands) and Mahavishnu Orchestra from UK, Area and Deus Ex Machina from Italy. These two italian bands, coincidentally, feature maybe the best vocalists in prog rock (Area's Demetrios Stratos is absolute top, in my opinion).

Zeuhl. Imagine a dark rock version of Orff's Carmina Burana (I think I'm citing this from somewhere...). The stupendous Magma from France single-handedly started off this genre. A very talented new zeuhl band from Japan is the high-energy Koenjihyakkei. Those guys kill.

RIO (Rock In Opposition) - one of my favourite styles lately. Very disonant chamber-type style of rock, admittedly hard to get into. Again, some giants: Univers Zero and Present (Belgium), Moving Gelatine Plates (France), Picchio dal Pozzo (Italy), Samla Mammas Manna (Sweden), and, more recently, Thinking Plague (US) and Miriodor (Canada).

I've had the luck and the priviledge to see about half of the above bands in concert (the other half are unfortunately defunct now) at Nearfest - arguably the best progressive rock festival in the world. These bands are all ultimate music machines - with both brains and soul. If you are new to prog but willing to try, my recommendation is to start with the styles in the order I listed them.

More info on progressive rock, filling in the many details I left out can be obtained online from the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock or from Gnosis 2000 and the links therein. An essential book on progressive rock is Edward Macan's "Rocking the Classics".