***King Crimson Corner***

[sgcim]

RIP, Ian. His flute solo on I Talk to the Wind was beautiful, and his role as master producer of ITCOTCK made the album the great work of art it still is, 50 years later.

It was too bad he and Dennis Elliot got involved with Foreigner,

[Hardbopjazz]

RIP, Ian. 

[felser]

I especially love the "McDonald and Giles" album.

[sgcim]

2 hours ago, felser said:

I especially love the "McDonald and Giles" album.

I was listening to that album yesterday, and it reminded me how great a drummer Giles was, The light touch, the crisp sound, the creativity in his fills, he's got to be one of my fave drummers of all time. They get into some great uptempo grooves on that album, and Stevie Winwood plays keyboards on the first tune.

I looked back at Chris Albertson's review of ITCOTCK, and he gave it five stars in DB. He had been handed a press kit, and Ian said that his two biggest influences on sax were John Handy and Eric Dolphy.Then  Chris went to the Fillmore East (my tone deaf B-I-L was also at that show), and he caught KC opening for Joe Cocker and another big British band. He said that KC blew Cocker and the other band away. The show was completely different than the first album. Albertson said it was like Ian was leading a free jazz group with McDonald taking most of the solos on sax, He said they added improvisation to every tune they played from the first KC album they played.

I also agreed with Albert's assessment of "Moonchild" being the weakest track on the album, with that twelve minute long free section being pure BS. However, the rest of the album was largely Ian's compositions- ITTW was recorded on the Giles, Giles and Fripp album, with Judy Dyble doing lead vocals, but everything else basically the same as Ian's arrangement on the KC album, and the middle section of 20th Century Schizoid Man was composed by McDonald when he was in the British Army. His woodwind writing and playing and Lake's great vocals were the best part of "Epitaph". Of course, Fripp will take credit for all of it, because he survived both of them...

[felser]

3 minutes ago, sgcim said:

 

I also agreed with Albert's assessment of "Moonchild" being the weakest track on the album, with that twelve minute long free section being pure BS. 

Me too.  They could have fit another song or teo on just by editing out that section, which would have made it a basically perfect album.  But those were the times...

[romualdo]

1 hour ago, sgcim said:

I was listening to that album yesterday, and it reminded me how great a drummer Giles was, The light touch, the crisp sound, the creativity in his fills, he's got to be one of my fave drummers of all time.

I also love Michael Giles drumming, especially on McDonald & Giles. "Light & Crisp" expresses it perfectly. Been a KC aficionado since the early 70s. My fav LPs are "Lark's Tongues" with Jamie Muir & The sparse metalish "Red" trio (Ian McDonald actually guests on alto).

Even though I listen to/have a huge amount of avant/free jazz I still have trouble listening to the free section of Moonchild

[sgcim]

Here's what the first band with Ian on alto sax were like in 1969:

 

[sgcim]

I don't even remember what I posted above that is now unavailable on YT, but someone put up the "Epitaph, Live 1969" recordings, and I finally got a chance to hear Ian McDonald' sax playing, and just like Chris Albertson's DB review said back in 1970, IM, indeed does sound like a John Handy/Eric Dolphy- influenced player. Not only that, but he sounds fantastic!

This explains why Fripp started crying when Michael Giles and IM told him in SF that they were quitting the band, and Fripp's offer to quit the band if they would stay in the band! This was verified by two commenters on the YT video I'm about to post, who said that the public version of why IM quit the band (hated touring) was not the real reason why he quit KC; it was Fripp's playing that was driving him insane! IM said that he wanted to play happier sounding music than the deafening, dark music that Fripp wanted to push the band to play. This was verified by a documentary on KC in which IM made those comments. Whether Giles felt the same way, is unknown, but he had the same hatred of touring that IM said he had. If IM hated touring so much, why did he help form the horrible Foreigner soon afterwards? They toured even more than KC. The obvious reason was for the money.

All of that doesn't explain why Ian never played jazz alto on any sideman record dates that I'm aware of. Unlike Dick Morrissey, who played in IF and The Morrissey/ Mullen Band, DM still played a ton of jazz dates also. But when I look at Ian's sideman credits on All-Music, they're all for fusion and or rock bands, none for jazz groups. Even when he released his only album as a leader, "Drivers Eyes" there was none of the incredible alto playing that he did on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi8x9OsJnEY&list=PLXhfRoiJBIisO5XAgsF3Ah9BXbJbsr-yk 

They do a full blown jazz performance on cut #13 of the concert, with Lake walking and doing his own version of 'jazz' singing on the song, and the next cut "A Man, A City". 

I'm going to check out Judy Dyble's "Harpsong" from "Talking With Strangers", and see what he did with The 21st Cetury Schizoid Band", to see if he did anything other than I Talk To the Wind on flute. If you can think of any other recordings he did on alto sax, please let me know!

 

[AndreyHenkin]

Closest thing to jazz would be Centipede's Septober Energy but that is too sprawling to have any chance of hearing him, even at the end of side three where he listed as a featured soloist.

[sgcim]

7 hours ago, AndreyHenkin said:

Closest thing to jazz would be Centipede's Septober Energy but that is too sprawling to have any chance of hearing him, even at the end of side three where he listed as a featured soloist.

Yeah, that's a fifty piece ensemble! I checked out a live concert on YT of the 21st Century Schizoid Band in Japan. and that seems to be the only place where he wrote arrangements where he and Mel Collins could play jazz sax solos on a few of their songs that lent themselves to jazz improvisation. His playing is fine, but it lacks the spontaneous feeling of the 1969 concerts. Mel really impressed me with his playing on a couple of his features. Michael Giles was the real instrumental star of the show with his constant fills. They couldn't capture the crisp sound of his snare drum that he had on the first KC album, which was a shame, but I don't know whose fault that was.

Although the 21st CSB can degenerate into nostalgia, it's probably the only place you can hear Ian on alto playing jazz. The only other choice is to go searching through the 26 CD(!) Box set of KC, when Ian still saw himself as primarily a jazz sax and flute player, influenced by John Handy and Eric Dolphy, as he said in his press kit. They feature interviews with each member of the band on the YT 21stCSB Japan concert,, and Ian says that he sees himself more as a record producer than anything else, and I guess that sums up why he never pursued any semblance of a jazz career.

Thanks for replying!

[felser]

BTW, that McDonald & Giles album is quite wonderful and substantial.