Inspired by YouTube I just got a couple of Gentle Giant DVD’s. I am SO pumped.
I’ve been a fan of Gentle Giant for 30 years or so. I first got Power and the Glory just because I liked the cover. I couldn’t stand the music. A year or so later I talked to a guy on the school bus who loved them and he suggested Free Hand, which was new at that point. I listened to it, liked it a little bit, and went back and listened to Power and the Glory. I still didn’t get it, but listened to it (and I mean listened) almost daily in, uhmm, an enhanced state. I started appreciating it more and more, as I did Free Hand. I got all their US releases in the next year (Three Friends, Octopus, Playing the Fool, Interview) and absolutely loved them. I was able to score a couple of imports as well as their other new releases over the next five years. The imports misteriously disappeared the night I had a fellow fan and record collector over.
Gentle Giant were, as a friend said after seeing them in concert, artists. They weren’t just another prog rock band with a mellotron. They didn’t have a gimmick, they had tons of gimmicks. They were founded by the Shulman brothers, all graduates of the Royal Conservatory. They recruited “keyboard wizard” Kerry Minnear as well as an excellent drummer and an excellent guitarist (John Weathers and Gary Green). I’d never seen them in concert, so this has been an incredible treat.
Their music is incredibly complex. I’ve been listening it since 20 years before I was married, so my wife never really got properly exposed to it, that is, she never sat down and gave it her complete attention. After watching 3 hours of footage over the last couple of nights, she said their music can’t really be appreciated till you give it your full attention. They’ll be doing incredible hard rock one minute, and the next singing a capella a four or five part counterpoint. You really have to be on your feet or know the music really well.
But more than anything else, from the videos I am impressed with their musicianship. I remember my high-school friend saying that there were points when they were all playing acoustic guitars, and there was a point when they were all seated at a 30-foot-long marimba. In the concerts on the video, there are a few points at which four of them are playing recorders, four of them playing guitars, and one point at which they’re all playing drums and then toy xylophones. And the toy xylophones aren’t a gimmick, they’re making real music with them. The bass player (I think Derrick Schulman) also plays violin, trumpet, recorder, and guitar. The guitarist also plays recorder, the drummer plays recorder and vibes, etc. Kerry Minnear is an absolute wizard. He is flat-out the best keyboardist I’ve seen – amazing on the clavinet, synth, piano, everything, but also on the vibes, and he plays recorder and cello as well as being the second lead vocalist. And my gushing over him should take nothing away from the other musicians, all of whom are absolutely top-notch.
The DVD’s are actually a pretty good deal – they have CD’s in them too. Anyone who likes art-rock really oughta buy them.
). When I was a teenager of open mind and in need of cerebral enrichment, I plopped on some of my brothers records and marvelled at the syncopations and complex arrangements. It was all fairly odd, but fun to figure out.
