Musical Analysis/Reaction of Gentle Giant - Funny Ways (Live 1974)
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- Опубликовано: 25 фев 2021
- #gentlegiant #reactionvideo #reaction #analysis
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Crazy how tight this band is, some serious dynamics going on here. I need to get listening to more of these guys. Great video John, really enjoyed this.
Thanks man! 👍
Check Bruno Samppa's page - he's remastered a lot of the live videos.
@@e.lectrochef295 thanks for posting this, looks like that channel is a real goldmine!
That is the best vibraphone solo imaginable. Kerry Minnear is an amazing musician!
No musician ever underrated this band.
Good point. I know several musicians personally who recognise them as one of the best bands ever. And I agree.
Funny story. I went into my gig at Epcot one afternoon. I put on some Gentle Giant in our break room. We had a young substitute keyboardist in that day. He was a Jazz Major in Central Florida. Upon hearing Gentle Giant…probably his first time…he dryly said “ IS THAT LEGIT MUSIC!?” “WHY DO YOU HAVE THAT ON YOUR IPOD? DO YOU LISTEN TO THAT IN YOUR CAR!?” Funny eh?
The guy you were amazed most by is Kerry Minnear - their main composer, graduated from London Royal Academy Of Music with PhD in composition. So... yes, he's incredible!
Fascinating superhuman performance!
I have to admit, I immediately skipped ahead to see your reaction to Kerry's solo. You did not disappoint. Love these guys!
Saw them live in 75. Amazing Have all their albums and love them still.
I agree. ‘Criminally underrated’.
They where way ahead in musical development! And these tunes is not made anymore, sad to say! Masterpiece! 😉👍
Saw these guys in Columbus, Ohio in ‘73. I was too busy being amazed to applaud solos. Love GG.
Were they at the Agora?
@@e.lectrochef295 when I was in college, the Agora was a great place to see big shows up close. About $3.50 for the tickets. Wishbone Ash, King Crimson, Gentle Giant…
Also had a balcony seat for Costello in ‘79(?). Armed Forces tour. The Agora was pretty good. Lousy, rubbery pizza, though. ✌️
@@RobertERensch 😉 Back then, High Street had plenty of places to eat (and DRINK) before a show!! I babysat for the wonderful man who managed the Agora for the better part of two decades. Once I was 18, I could get into any show for free (often going with his wife!). Although this seems like a great perk, I have no ticket stubs for all the amazing shows I saw. I can't even remember them all! Iggy Pop (w/David Bowie!), Todd Rundgren, Hall and Oates, Pat Benatar, Patti Smith, on and on!!
@@e.lectrochef295 that’s the place.
More Gentle Giant reactions please!
I'm quite used to Derek's voice, having heard it for decades now, but I will also admit it took some getting used to. I guess listening to "I Lost My Head" quite a few times helped a lot.
A weak link if there is one. He always leaves me thinking he's not gonna hit that next note! haha. And he is so awkward and goofy on stage live.
Back in the day we applauded at the end of the song.
Those opening guitar chords are so pretty.
More GG reaction plz! Great input on your end
Thank you. 😊
Amazing reaction. Please, react to Excerpts from Octopus. Its amazing.
Thanks Juliano. I shall put it on my list! Don't forget to subscribe so you get the notification when I do it. Thanks!
For me, this band is an example when a summmary is bigger than ingredients
You’re right about Derek, he’s a hard front man to get with. I appreciate your candor. Subbed.
The applause after every solo in the earlier 70s was not so much a thing, it people acted more like it was a classical performance and wait for the end of the piece to applaud. Sometime after the mid-70s people would start clapping it almost anything rather than just listen to the rest of the piece. The exception was in jazz where people where band members what each take a piece normally and the crowd would applaud politely after each piece.
That would make sense. It felt odd to me - the silence afterwards - in this kind of setting. I'm well used to in the Classical world. God forbid someone claps between movements in a Piano Sonata. The scornful looks will be burning the back of their head.
Thanks for that Richie G - I was going to say exactly the same. Being a little (okay...a lot! 😄) older than JW, that would have been the way back then.
I think the problem with the people over there was as far as I know, that the TV show it was filmed for, usually broadcasted classical music or so... The audience had had no real idea of what the band was like.
They just watched the equivalent of Hendrix on the vibraphone and........silence, maybe they were stunned at what they were watching?
Loved this, and that "James Bond" bit was very helpful. As many, I'm trying to map sonic ideas.
I think these kind of observations are invaluable. There is so much to pickup from artists like Gentle Giant, Ayreon, or Blotted Science ... Any bit of insight is worth it.
Also that comment breaking down the harmony is pure gold.
Genesis, in their early days when they were respectable, was noted for playing to crowds that shushed completely till the last note was over. The Musical Box from Genesis Live is a great example. :)
One of my favorite bands - a shame that this video has so little audience!
1. Yes, the solo was improvised - the trouble with Kerry's vibes solos (like this one) is that because he wasn't as virtuosic as he thought he was you can hear a lot of "wrong" notes and chords - i.e: not the kind of dissonances we're used to in jazz ('cause there are some Monk-type outside-chords in there), but the other kind, which can only be interpreted as misstrikes
2. I'm surprised by the comment about Derek's voice - I always thought his voice was the most "ordinary" element of the band's sound. In the earliest recordings he retained a lot of blues/soul mannerisms, but even after that, whenever he wasn't obligated to sound "pure" (e.g when contributing to the On Reflection/Knots type stuff), his tone and his ornamentations were very trad-rock.
3. Kerry was the only classically trained one (he'd been to either the Royal Academy or Royal College). Ray, and Phil when present, were multi-insturmental virtuosi but they only achieved that through a combination of parentally-imposed and self-imposed backbreaking training-regimes. And re: parentally-imposed, the impression I get from odd comments in interviews and from the band bio is that we could add the Shulmans to the Jacksons and the Gibbs in the oppressive-"showbiz-family" hall-of-shame.
Thanks for taking the time to relay that information about the band. I was impressed by the vibraphone solo. I don't have a deep theoretical knowledge of jazz harmony like I would do with more traditional rock and with classical music. But it still sounded in control, to my ears, at least. As for Derek's voice, your comment about it being "ordinary" is another way of confirming why I probably struggled with it at first. The rest of the band, in what they're achieving sonically, feels more "extraordinary" to me, and the vocal didn't strike me as up to par with the rest. But I have since come to love it, as I described in the video. You also make some interesting points on their upbringing and musical training. Thanks!
I doubt very much that Kerry Minnear regarded himself as a virtuoso vibes player. Also, I'd absolutely love to hear a Shulman brothers response to the oppressive showbiz family claim. As I understand, their Dad was a musician and so they naturally took up the playing of instruments. I would also say they weren't virtuoso and wouldn't have regarded themselves as such.
I've listened to this solo maybe 50 times and have no idea what "mistakes" or wrong notes and chords you are referring too. Not the kind of dissonance we are used too so that makes them wrong? Sorry but I completely disagree. He moves flawlessly between the major, minor and dissonance and he's doing it is 64th notes at times. I've listened to it in 0.5 speed and it's just as amazing. This is absolutely a virtuoso solo and the fact that it's on the vibes makes all the more amazing.
@@radgator1 How can you play a "wrong" note when the music isn't scripted?? I've heard a lot of comments about Ray's trumpet sounding off.....but the song is called "Funny Ways" - and is about how we're all peculiar in our own way.🙃 Has anybody even considered that the oh-so-slight flat trumpet was an intentional sound??
Octopus is in my top 10 all time best prog album, this band is very literally a Gentle Giant!
It was a german tv-broadcast - recorded in Belgium - in a format of just "traditional" classic music at Sundays. So GG were the only current musicians of the time finding their way into this broadcast with their compositions. And sure enough the only musicians you could call a rock band. It was a somewhat bold and surprising move to confront the usual viewer of this format with rock music. After all they recognized the serious talent of the band. This may explain the strange reaction i.e. non-reaction of the audience, although I think they really had absolutely no idea who these guys were - and what their music was about.
Hope I am right: Kerry Minnear (Keys, Piano, Cello, Vibraphone) and Ray Shulman (Bass, Violin, Flute, trumpet) are classically educated and the rest had to follow them ;-)
Derek Shulman (Lead vocals, Sax, bass) is a beast. All of them are beasts!
Fan since 1972. My brother brought the album back to college and actually bought it because he liked the cover. The album was Three Friends and they're still in my top 3 or 4 bands of all time. As far as Derek's voice is concerned, I've liked it from the start. He's got great range and strength.. strangely.. I liked him a bit less after seeing him live. I'm wondering if his parading around the stage was somehow influenced by Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. They toured with Tull somewhere around that 72-74 time period and it seems like it's kind of a best try at playing the role of the lead singer in a rock band at the time. Considering what the other guys were doing onstage I found it distracting.
Hard to say who's flexing their chops the most here but think the guy on the vibraphone defintly wins here :-)
Absolutely unreal, mate. That solo was from another world.
@@JWSoundworks2 came across these guys recently on a podcast. Vocalist kinda reminds me of Mikael Åkerfeldt bit. Interesting guys for sure, on the list to check out when I have a bit more time to ot down appreciate them.
Nice to hear some Gentle Giant again. Saw them live a couple of times in the early 70s. Not many bands could match their musicianship, but, as you stated, that seemed to put some people off. Even amongst my circle of friends back in the day, some were reluctant to come to their gigs, saying they were "a bit much"! I liked them, but I'll be honest, a little went a long way!
I had a similar experience with them when recommending them to people who I thought would love them. They nearly all just, for whatever reason, couldn't get into them!
The pop music of today is always the classical music of tomorrow. I mean that you always tend to look back and think 'Nobody can do that now!' - and perhaps they can't. At the time, given they were surrounded by the classically trained hordes of prog, they may have seemed less remarkable. That system has been, if not delegitimized, then certainly dismantled as a chart force. Maybe it's seen as elitist.
Interesting points, Alex. I definitely think that appreciation tends to grow the more distance in time is created between the past and present (for things like music/film/art etc. in particular). Good job we have audio/visual records of these things from the last century. I often wonder how Chopin or Beethoven sounded when they played piano - and I'll never know.
Yeah, opening for Black Sabbath was not a good idea. But they did.
This is not improvise. They are amazing musicians.
My favourite band in my youth, they were so under appreciated at the time. There were originally 3 brothers who formed the band, but one dropped out after the 4th album. The whole band were superb multi-instrumentalists and all sang too. (FUN FACT - a young Elton John joined as keyboard player for short while, but was dropped when Kerry Minnear joined after finishing his classical training). That intro is a bar each of Emadd9 - Cmaj7/E - C#m7b5/E - Cmaj7/E, it does feel like Bond has monopolised that shifting motif, but it's common enough in lots of other music too to create suspense. The pattern also reappears for Kerry Minnear to play his vibraphone solo break, they only used that additional chord progression in the live versions not on the original debut album track. The original song began where you said, 'Woh, wasn't expecting that...' I think it's a bar of the Emadd9 then single strums for Fmaj7+11 - Cmaj7 -Asus2. Not really sure that is an electric violin as such, maybe a standard one with an add-on mic or pickup fitted. The cello and violin must have been a nightmare to avoid feedback. Hats off to the sound engineers and roadies, they must have been one of the most challenging bands to accommodate. This is 1974 after all, the technology for amplifying acoustic instruments in a live rock band setting had some way to go yet, and, yes, as you said, they were always harsher sounding, but that meant they could cut through and it was never about subtlety, only when featuring some soloing did it's limitations start showing. You need to hear the studio album version to hear the sweetness of Ray's violin playing. Believe me in real concert hall gigs Kerry's vibraphone solos got an insane reaction, the stage lights went down and twinkling fairy lights came on, fans knew they were in for a treat. This is a sterile TV studio, with a sterile German audience, maybe not even fans, but a weekly show where they probably didn't even know what band was going to be on. They were probably instructed not to make any noise during filming until each song had finished, but then imagine experiencing GG for the first time and having heard nothing like it before, (or since for that matter)
Thanks for your comment. Had no idea regarding Elton John and the band. That chord progression, as you said, is used a lot in various songs. Bond seems the most famous I can think of. Although I think the E remains the pedal note over the progression. Must check out the album version! I watched a full concert they filmed for the BBC and I can say it's one of the best live performance concerts I've ever watched.
@@JWSoundworks2 I saw them on every tour they did of the UK, the first time they were bottom of the bill below 'Groundhogs' and the headliners 'Ten Years After', the main acts must have regretted the booking because they paled in comparison to their opening act. The 1978 Beeb show is totally the best live footage I think, if that's the one you meant, and a very good range of songs. The BBC 'Sight & Sound' one though isn't great in my opinion, they all look very nervous, and there were technical sound issues which John Weathers, the drummer, had to cover with some cringe worthy banter, my heart sank for them. It was memorable only because of the rare novelty of seeing them on a British TV program, that and it was also what they called a simulcast with BBC radio, so we could experience simultaneous stereo sound through the radio whilst watching the mono TV with it's sound off. At that point GG were beginning to put a toe into moving away from their prog roots, but it wasn't really working, they lost fans like myself and didn't gain a new audience. Their last 2 albums were a sad ending, a very mixed bag with only vague glimmers of their past glory.
@@JWSoundworks2 Derek Shulman, the lead vocalist, went on to great success behind the scenes in the record business in the U.S., and was responsible for signing Jon Bon Jovi, Tears for Fears, Kingdom Come, Nickelback, Pantera and Slipknot, amongst many other artists.
@@MrDiddyDee Yeah, I thought that was really interesting! I heard a podcast with D Shulman as the guest, a year or two ago, and that's when I heard about his role in the record business post-GG.
Nice react but iki you should narrow it down ur toughts a bit.
PAS DE SOUS TITRES .....DOMMAGE
Thanks for listening to Gentle Giant, my favourite Rockband!. But please don't talk so much into the song, ... just listen first! After that you can always say something about it. I'm sorry, but you definitely interrupt too much, it destroys all the attention for this song.
Every time I attempted to let the music run for longer RUclips would block my upload. So I was forced to listen in smaller segments to avoid having the video blocked.
I did not enjoy your comments.
I think that makes us even then.
You interrupted the video every 10 to 20 seconds. I guess that speaks to your attention span.
When I first started doing these videos, for a lot of them, if the music played for longer than 30 seconds at a time then RUclips's copyright algorithms picked up the recording and blocked the video. A workaround was to pause more frequently to bypass the blocking. Your guess was wrong. I appreciate the passive aggressive efforts, though. Nice one.
Dude, less talk.
Click the link to the original performance if you don't want talking. The point of this video is giving my opinions on the song. My telepathic skills aren't up to much.
@@JWSoundworks2 He wasn't able to reach the vinegar stroke with all that talking.
@@Hellrun some would pay a premium for that kind of filth talk. 😂
@@JWSoundworks2 Maybe it's time for you to start an OnlyFans! Lol