30 Brit Prog III, The Canterbury Scene

Some more Brit Prog, and we have got to the Canterbury Scene, a group of bands that formed in or around Canterbury with interchanging sets of musicians.  Caravan are the best known, and have already had a show of their own.  Some quotes about the scene

‘In the very best Canterbury music…the musically silly and the musically serious are juxtaposed in an amusing and endearing way.’

‘But the Canterbury school seems to me uniquely capable of making purely musical jokes without parody, without insult to other musicians or listeners, without vitiating musical or intellectual ideals.’
‘A tendency towards instrumental improvisation, and the way they sing – a uniquely English lyrical and vocal content’
We will take a chronological walk through the scene, beginning with the ur-group, the one that started it all.  This was The Wilde Flowers, active from 1964-69, whose members would go on to form Caravan and Soft Machine, both bands that were both successful and influential, and go on to other bands as well.

Of the Wilde Flowers, Richard Coughlan once said ‘We only had a few tunes, so how do you make them last a bit longer?  What do jazz musicians do?  Ah, I know, they improvise….    So a simple tune becomes a 10 minute event….’

Preshow

The Show

Postshow