The inevitability of it all...

Playlist

Brad Mehldau - 10 Years Solo Live

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Four Last Things

Deep Purple - Burn

Kevin Ayers - June 1, 1974

Jon Anderson - Change We Must

Clifford Jordan - Clifford Jordan

Miles Davis - Miles Davis at Newport: 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4

Pet Shop Boys - Alternative

Beethoven - Complete Piano Sonatas

New Order - Brotherhood

Various - California Dreaming

New Order - Movement

Various - This is Trojan

Louis Smith - Here Comes Louis Smith

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

Gentle Giant - Pretentious

Gordon Lightfoot - Don Quixote

Harmonia - Musik Von Harmonia

The Church - Quick Smoke At Spot's

Khachaturian - Spartacus, Masquerade & Gayaneh Suites

Genesis - Foxtrot

Leonard Cohen - The Best Of

Joy Division - Still

Jimmy Smith - Midnight Special

Keith Emerson - Emerson Plays Emerson

Genesis - And Then There Were Three

Ijahman Levi - Island Presents: Roots

Matthew Florianz - Wasteland Signals

Vanilla Fudge - Then And Now

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Greatest Hits

Various - Craig Charles Funk & Soul Classics

Various - The Best Of Hallyday, Rivers, Mitchell, Anthony & Vartan 

Ornette Coleman - To Whom Who Keeps a Record

Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Seven Days of Falling

Brett Garsed - Big Sky

Liquid Tension Experiment - Liquid Tension Experiment

Michael Gibbs - Tanglewood 63

Van Nostrand - Voyage in a White Building I

Boccherini - Boccherini: String Quartets Op. 32

Various Composers - Pour Deux Clavecins

Nikolaus Harnoncourt - Die Macht der Musik

Van Der Graaf Generator - First Generation (1969-1971)

Emerson Lake & Palmer - Epic ELP

Not much to report today, I thought - the usual fruitless walk to the East End for a salad and a purchaseless mooch around Fopp...

In the early evening, a visit to my mum with Anne - still on the mend but still not getting home...

And an Indian takeaway on the way home (veggie jalfrezie, in an attempt not to offset all the salads this week)...

Upstairs and ticking things off a list of things and enjoying a coffee...

...while listening to the selections for next Thursday's podcast...

And then...

On 30 March 1974, I bought an amazing LP, featuring music which was, for a 15 year old boy, out of this world...

"Brain Salad Surgery"...

Other than Focus' "Moving Waves", acquired the summer before, off the back of the hit singles "Hocus Pocus" and "Sylvia", this was my first album of, what is now known as, Progressive Rock...

I had the single of "Jerusalem" bought just before Xmas '73 and the NME flexi-disc taster for the LP...

But they hadn't really prepared me for "Karn Evil 9"...

It wasn't called "Progressive Rock" at the time - it was just amazing music (which reached number 2 on the album charts - imagine - the music of Alberto Ginastera at the top of the charts) - and I really had no idea how three people could make such a wonderful sound...

I stuck with ELP through the years - I even think "Love Beach", generally portrayed as their nadir, is good - "In the Hot Seat" their final album, perhaps not so much but it's still pretty good - and, in 2010, Dr Prog and I made a kind of pilgrimage to London to see them perform, what is now, definitely, their last ever gig...

The news tonight of Keith Emerson's suicide at the age of 71, yet another blow...

OK, I know he was unlikely to produce any new music at this stage which would eclipse his glory days (the fate of most musicians) but it's the ending which is hard to take...

Brings it home that Alice Cooper, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and all my other "heroes" are going to join Chris Squire, David Bowie and Keith Emerson not too long from now...

And, of course, inevitably, we'll all join them too...

Having to die is a complete bastard...

Highlight of the Day : Enjoying the music of Keith Emerson...