Gentle Giant (1970-80) were a progressive rock band renowned for their complex and eclectic musical style, which involved a blending of rock, pop, jazz, classics and the occasional foray into medieval music. Between them the five band members could play a staggering array of instruments, and their ability to harmonise, often using complex multipart harmonies, gave them a quite distinctive edge. Just listen to the interlinking harmonies on the track ‘On Reflection,’ a song about a failed relationship. After a chamber orchestra intro of recorder, violin and cello, the drums and bass play in 6/4 time while the vocals become a five part fugue, sung in 7/4 time, which sounds absolutely amazing if listened to via headphones, with the clarity and separation of voices quite remarkable.
Playing The fool was originally released in 1977, and this is an extended, remastered update with four tracks not included on the original release, plus also a two minute violin rendition of ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ .. yes, that one .. and it really is a super album, featuring tracks taken from albums recorded during their classic period, 1970-76, such as In A Glass House, Octopus, Power & the Glory and Interview.
After the intro music, they open with ‘Just The Same,’ which merges into ‘Proclamation’. Right from the outset, the standard of musicianship is awesomely good, with the band rotating instruments in a way few other bands could. Big shout out goes to Ray Shulman and John Weathers, bass and drum respectively, as they had to contend with some fiendishly tricky time signatures, as probably no other prog band went quite so far ‘out there’ in terms of musicianship and unexplored territory in the seventies. The sum total of musicianship inside the Giant was almost without parallel inside prog. At the present time, probably only Dream Theatre could come close in terms of musical dexterity.
The medley of tracks from Glass House and Octopus are particularly good. ‘The Runaway’ and ‘Experience,’ from Glass House, proved that Giant could also rock, with superb bass work from Ray Shulman and Gary Green letting rip on guitar. So Sincere, from the same album, featured every band member joining together on a drum solo, before they all switch over to play small xylophones which, when you see it onstage, features a darkened hall with small fairy lights circling around the amps. ‘Excerpts From Octopus’ merges tracks from the album in one piece, which included ‘Boys In The Band’ and ‘The Advent of Panurge’. ‘Timing,’ from Interview, sees Ray Shulman playing a six minute violin solo which, being honest, would have been more effective had it been a lot shorter. Curved Air do it so much better. They also perform the title track from Interview, alongside Free Hand from the eponymous album which, by Gentle Giant standards, is quite a straightforward piece.
In a sense, ‘Fool was the end of Giant’s imperial prog phase as subsequent albums like Giant For A Day veered towards a more commercial pop oriented approach, but nonetheless this really is one of the strongest prog ‘live’ albums as Giant demonstrate they weren’t just a studio band, they could reproduce it onstage as well.
Interest Declared: The vinyl release of Playing The Fool contains a map of where the band played on this tour, and one of the dates was Warwick University, May 1976, where this scribe was in the audience!
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