CD Review: Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Live at Montreux 1997

CD Review: Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Live at Montreux 1997
Eagle Rock Entertainment
All Access Rating: B+

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Live at
Montreux 1997 2015

Directionless and not at all compelling, Black Moon is hardly memorable, a mere footnote in the remarkable career of progressive-rock supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer. And its successor, 1994's In The Hot Seat, was an even bigger farce.

The result of an early '90s reunion, these two albums pale in comparison to the inspired genius and audacious virtuosity of seminal prog works Brain Salad Surgery and their self-titled debut, when they concocted a dynamic blend of heavy riffs and classical influences that defied logic and actually made commercial sense.

It's little wonder then that nothing from Black Moon or In The Hot Seat made the set list for ELP's dazzling and edgy, if utterly self-indulgent and irritatingly dissonant, Montreux performance on July 7, 1997. Eagle Rock Entertainment has seen fit to issue an audio-only release of the show on 2CD and digital formats for the first time as a companion piece to the DVD made available in the past. From a lovely reading of the eternally wistful "Lucky Man" and the soft, melodic – if somewhat off-kilter – drift of "Take A Pebble" to the swirling, exuberant camp of "Karn Evil" and the mad energy, rolling propulsion and arty ambition of a 20:50 "Medley: Tarkus/Pictures At An Exhibition," Live at Montreux 1997 showcases the elegance, the barely controlled chaos and insanely epic showmanship of a trio that always possessed incredible instrumental chops.

Rollicking piano and dancing organ salvos firing from the fingers of Keith Emerson abound, but it's the energetic rarity "Creole Dance" – a piece never available on an Emerson, Lake & Palmer studio release – that's the most stunning here, as his sheer speed furiously builds a beautiful nest of notes. The triumphant synthesizers, building drama and flashes of brilliance of "Fanfare for the Common Man" kick off a rousing closing medley of that work along with " ... Rondo / Carmina Burana / Carl Palmer's Drum Solo / Toccata in D Minor" that brings the house down. Montreux seemed to bring out the best in them.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Carl Palmer - Working Live - Volume 3

CD Review: Carl Palmer - Working Live - Volume 3
Eagle Records
All Access Review: A-

Virtuoso drummer Carl Palmer pulls out all the stops on the third installment of his Working Live series, taking on some of the most complex pieces his old band, the classical-rock adventurers Emerson, Lake and Palmer, ever attempted.

Never ones to shy away from a challenge, ELP was, perhaps, the most daring threesome of all the brainy, hyper-ambitious 1970s progressive-rock expeditions, King Crimson included. And though they revered the works of such musical geniuses as Prokofiev and Mussorgsky, Palmer and company didn’t see it as their mission to simply regurgitate their works in those halcyon days. With their imaginations working overtime, they wanted to do them their own way and in the process, make them palatable to audiences whose ears were more attuned to The Beatles than Bach. And if the moment called for it, ELP committed sublime violations that would make classical-music purists squirm – as evidenced by keyboardist Keith Emerson famously stabbing knives into his organs to generate blood-curdling howls from his instruments. Still, ELP won their grudging respect.

Such theatrics, shockingly funny and irreverent as they were at the time, aren’t revived in Palmer’s latest project, another trio that finds Palmer now collaborating with lead guitarist Paul Bielatowicz and bass guitarist Stuart Clayton. A concert album of inspired musicianship and envelope-pushing reinvention, Working – Volume 3 is Palmer and crew at their most ambitious, tackling such touchstones as Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” as a brazen ELP once did.

Less whimsical than ELP’s original version, but more dynamic and heavy, the centerpiece of the six-track Volume 3 has to be the lengthy “Pictures at an Exhibition.” There’s nothing cautious about how Palmer and company approach this, or any other, composition. It’s sinister and disturbing in parts, with Bielatowicz’s frenzied guitar work going off in unpredictably wild directions but never veering off course and Clayton providing thoughtful and flexible melodic support. Heads will spin at all the directional shifts and changes in mood that occur, and the three handle them all with the utmost skill and feel. It almost sounds like free jazz. And at the heart of it all is the controlled chaos of Palmer’s thrilling stick work, the action reaching a free-for-all around the 16:30 mark.

Naturally, with Emerson’s keyboards replaced by electric guitars, everything sounds more modern and edgy. This time around, Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn,” as fun as ever, is propulsive, psychedelic and throbbing with mind-fucking kaleidoscopic color and raw energy, the kind usually found in garage rock. “Romeo and Juliet” has a deep, menacing groove and occasionally, there’s a Hendrix-like schizophrenia that seeps into the track’s carefully plotted action and messes with the chemistry in wonderful ways. And while their take on Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” is riddled with clichés, the stop-on-a-dime tempo changes and crazed fury of the Emerson and Lake original “Bitches Crystal” more than makes up for the momentary lapse of reason, as does Palmer’s inventive and intricate drum work on “In a Moroccan Market.”

Working – Volume 3 shows that Palmer remains restlessly creative and unafraid of challenging himself and his band. In the liner notes, he says, “Playing in a trio is his passion.” And if nothing else, this set of live renderings of old ELP numbers indicates that “3” is, indeed, Palmer’s lucky number.

Peter Lindblad

DVD Review: Emerson, Lake & Palmer "Pictures at an Exhibition" (Special Edition)

DVD Review: Emerson, Lake & Palmer "Pictures at an Exhibition" (Special Edition) 
Eagle Vision
All Access Review:  B+

Leaving themselves wide open for a hailstorm of criticism from all corners of the music world, the absurdly ambitious Emerson, Lake & Palmer resurrected, in 1970, Mussorgsky’s tour de force “Pictures at an Exhibition” in a live setting for the great unwashed – i.e., the brutish masses that had turned on to rock and roll and had long ago turned off classical music – at London’s Lyceum.

Eager to bridge the ever-widening gulf that separated these two warring factions and somehow negotiate a truce, or even initiate a greater understanding of each other’s points of view, ELP, only together for almost a year by the grand unveiling of this extraordinary undertaking, went for the jugular in this triumphant showcase of their musical virtuosity and uninhibited, almost Barnum & Bailey-like showmanship. If the Stones had their “Rock and Roll Circus,” this was ELP’s Cirque du Soleil, and this colorful, vintage concert DVD of that show captures the band in full, majestic splendor.

With an armada of keyboards at his disposal, Keith Emerson, in particular, plays to the crowd, heaving an organ to and fro to coax strange, tortured sounds from its mechanized soul. His fingers flying across the keys, Emerson makes you wonder if Robert Johnson wasn’t the only musician’s soul the devil has in his back pocket. But his playing is dazzling, frantic and fluid, as is Carl Palmer’s intricate, preternatural feel as a drummer and Greg Lake’s transformation from a gentle, expressive acoustic folkie to galloping, swinging bassist. And the cameras, with a variety of well-framed close-ups and revealing shots from odd angles, display, in fantastic detail, what adventurous, supremely confident and playful players all three are, especially on “Blues Variation” and the fiery opening twin salvo of “Promenade” and “The Gnome.” There is a kind of chemistry between them that cannot be understood by any kind of science, but it’s palpable and it blazes with energy as they leave the closer “The Great Gates of Kiev” in wondrous ruins.

Mussorgsky is said to have composed “Pictures at an Exhibition” to re-create, musically, a stroll through an art museum. There is nothing in ELP’s version that would suggest an easy, carefree walk while studying lines, use of color and all those other elements that make great art. Lively, grandiose and vibrant, ELP’s take is gutsy, at times dangerous and funny, and not at all respectful, which is what you want from an art-rock combo that always walked a tightrope without a net.

Closing the Lyceum performance with ELP classics “Take A Pebble,” “Knife Edge” and “Rondo,” the trio draw a lineage from their classical influences and in their capable hands, “Pictures at an Exhibition” was a rousing critical success, just as their 1972 live “Pictures at an Exhibition” LP actually won the day commercially as well. This DVD is an essential document of how the classical rockers and their sometimes dark and scary art-rock proclivities, as self-indulgent as they were, absolutely destroyed anything that smacked of convention.

Watch the bonus 1971 Pop Shop performance also included on this DVD, even with its inane, throwaway interview footage, to see how ELP was just as wild and unpredictable with its own material, Emerson’s multiple stabbings of that old organ of his with a set of knives being just one of the sensational, over-the-top moments that made you either giggle or gasp. Either way, ELP never, as this incredible concert film shows, played it safe, and for that, they should always be lionized.

-         - Peter Lindblad