Scott Henderson Discussion

[muddytrane]

Scott,

Just got finished reading the thread of some of your favorite concert experiences as a fan and they are great choices! Gentle Giant seems to come up a lot when you discuss prog rock and virtuosity and I was wondering if you can recommend some of their albums to me. Other than a few concert clips of them I never really checked them out that much. I did see a short documentary on them while flipping through my local cable access channel the other day and that tweaked my curiosity about them and finding the whole documentary. Fill me with info! Thanks as always.

[Scott Henderson]

Go get these albums - right now!

Three Friends
Octopus
Acquiring the Taste
The Power and the Glory (my favorite)
In A Glass House
Free Hand
Interview

[Thelonious Beck]

[muddytrane]

Thank you Scott for turning me on to Gentle Giant! I feel like such a knucklehead for not checking them out sooner. For someone that has an enormous music collection and listens to most all types of music, it's hard to believe I hadn't listened to or bought any of their stuff before now. I can't seem to stop listening to The Power And The Glory. I've listened to it all the way through at least five times now and hear something different each time. After hearing Proclamation the first time I was not only hooked but I said to myself "Did I just hear funk from these guys?" What musicianship this band had! As TB said above they were definitely before their time. Acquiring The Taste and Octopus are also fantastic (others I've listened to so far) I've still got to get to a couple of the others (I bought them all!) so I'll be back soon with more opinion. A friend of mine also gave me a couple of radio concerts they did around the time of Power And Glory and Octopus and WOW! Now I hear what you meant about what a live experience they were. I also saw an Italian documentary/concert and amazing how they changed instruments during a song while they played. Again, what musicianship!

Thelonious Beck, yes Soft Machine's Bundles is a great album. I've also heard live shows from the Bundles tour with Allan Holdsworth and he played his arse off!

[Scott Henderson]

I'm glad you like them! The Power and the Glory is such an amazing record, and it really changed my life. It was the first record I heard by them and it's still my favorite. I didn't hear any of their live recordings before seeing them in person, so that made the concert an even more jaw-dropping experience - still to this day one of the best shows I've ever seen.

What's unbelievable to me (and sad) is that Kerry Minnear isn't as widely respected as other modern composers like Bartok, Debussy, Ravel, etc. Maybe it's because he's associated with rock music and for purists that disqualifies him as a serious classical composer, but nothing could be further from the truth. He's every bit the genius they were, and history will get it right. Zawinul and Shorter are known as jazz musicians and also overlooked as genius composers by the classical purists - what the fuck do they know?

[peter_heijnen]

[muddytrane]

After listening to the rest of the albums you suggested Scott, all I can say is that you can find a new favorite "old" band. I have always been a huge fan of Yes (especially older up until late '70's) and ELP. In Gentle Giant I hear a lot of older Yes and some aspects of ELP (mostly keyboard instrumentation) but GG takes it another step further with the composition and song structure. I agree with you Scott concerning Kerry Minnear not being recognized for his composing talents, along with Wayne and Joe, but you have to remember that rock/jazz musicians in general are overlooked by classical composers/purists because they are not one of them. I found that out first hand many years ago when I started out playing violin early in life and when I even mentioned jazz or rock to my classical teachers they almost wanted to give me a musical exorcism! It's usually not until after they die (look at Zappa for instance) that they in the classical community even start to give any credit for their composing talents. In my book all that matters is what the musicians that really know their stuff think about another musician's composing talents. As you know being a musician/composer that most really only care about what the fans and other musicians think of their music because that's who it's made for. I really like what another great Blues guitarist, Tab Benoit said once when I saw him live when he was announcing the next tune. He said that the next tune was off of one of his albums but he wasn't sure which one because he doesn't listen to them, that's for his fans to do! Remember the purists can't look down from the clouds long enough to hear genius anyway because they are still looking back at composers from the 18th and 19th centuries! I can't thank you enough for turning me into another Gentle Giant fan except for the fact that I can't go see them live and experience what you got the chance to. All I can do is watch concerts (like Peter_Heijnen's link, thanks Peter as this was the one I mentioned earlier that I saw on local cable!) and enjoy the great music that they created. As was proved by myself being ignorant to their music, Gentle Giant is an under appreciated, overlooked gem of a band!