Long before “Dust In The Wind” blew across the musical horizon,
\nthere was a different Kansas. That Kansas was for all purposes, a
\ncompletely different band except for the founder, Kerry Livgren.
\nThe earlier version of Kansas formed in 1971 and disbanded in 1973.
\nThey also left a recorded legacy which was never released until
\nrecently. The Kansas you know carried only a passing similarity to
\nits predecessor. The famous version played arenas and went
\nmulti-platinum. The other played crappy bars for free beer, and
\nplayed unbridled, experimental progressive rock.<\/p>\n
Recently, the old tapes that early version Kansas recorded were
\nremastered and released under the name Proto-Kaw. The results are a
\nfascinating look at the early work of a composer whose later songs
\nwould become fixtures of classic rock radio. Often, these sort of
\nreleases are more of the vanity kind, and cater to the sycophantic
\ndiehard fans who can’t live without every b-side and studio fart.
\nThis is definitely not the case, as this disc easily stands on its
\nown as a cohesive collection of original music.<\/p>\n
In stark contract to the more mainstream work of Kansas, these
\nrecordings delve into long-form prog-rock fantasies, free-form
\njazz\/fusion, psychedelia and epic visions that should make any fan
\nof early ELP, Genesis or King Crimson prick up their ears. The
\namazing thing about this, is that very few people had ever heard
\nthese recordings, and that they went unreleased and virtually
\nunknown for over 30 years. Amazing to me, because of the quality of
\nthe music. I was expecting some able players backing up Livgrens’
\nwell-known talents, but that was not the case. Musically, these
\nguys are more than able to crank out some stellar progressive jams.
\nI was amazed at the quality of the musicianship. Every man stands
\non his own here and supports the cohesiveness of the band. Singer
\nLynne Meredith has an excellent range, transitioning from a soft
\ncroon to menacing growl. Liberal use of woodwinds greatly enhances
\nthe ensemble sound, and sets this apart from a lot of other music
\nof the genre, and of the time. John Bolton plays sax in an
\naggressive, some might say brutal style. His powerful chops propel
\nthe driving “Nactolos 21,” and the live track “Skont,” (my favorite
\ntrack) which also features a killer Hammond organ solo by Dan
\nWright, that sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before.<\/p>\n
True to the genre of early progressive rock, the track titles
\nare full of fantastic imagery in themselves. “Reunion In The
\nMountains of Sarne,” “Nactolos 21,” “Totus Nemesis ” and “Greek
\nStructure Sunbeam” are some examples. The songs stay mostly within
\nexpected progressive realms, but often venture into instrumental
\nexperimentation. Often compelling, often collapsing into atonal
\nchaos, the juxtaposition of highly structured sections and totally
\nunstructured instrumental jams ultimately add a perfect touch to
\nmusic that was meant to be extremely experimental and fresh. This
\nis an amazingly strong album, very typical of the prog-rock
\nsensibilities of the early 70s. The influence of ELP and King
\nCrimson will be apparent. What will be less apparent, unless you
\ndabble in some of the more obscure progressive rock from that era,
\nis the even stronger influence of some lesser known bands of the
\ntime. Specifically, Touch, Gentle Giant, Van Der Graaf Generator
\nand Soft Machine.<\/p>\n
Two songs here would eventually appear on the first two Kansas
\nalbums, “Belexes” and “Imcommudro.” They appear here in a similar
\nform as their eventual Kansas recordings, but with a more rough and
\nexperimental feel. Listening to both gives an interesting view into
\nhow those two songs evolved. The remainder of the album flows along
\nsimilar lines. The highlight for me is the two live tracks that
\nclose the disc.<\/p>\n
Recently, I was privileged to hear Proto-Kaw play live in Kansas
\nCity. All the original members save keyboardist Don Montre, who has
\npassed away, were on hand to celebrate the release of a new CD
\nfeaturing all new Proto-Kaw material. After 30 plus years, these
\nguys haven’t lost one bit of the shine that graces this disc. I got
\nto hear three of the new tracks, and they sounded simply amazing.
\nHopefully I will be able to review that release as well. In the
\nmeantime, this CD would be a welcome addition to any collection,
\nalongside the early progressive giants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":26590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6965],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37836","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-proto-kaw","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37836"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37836"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}