| Five Bridges | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by The Nice | ||||
| Released | June, 1970 | |||
| Recorded | October 17, 1969 | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock | |||
| Length | 45:20 | |||
| Label | UK: Charisma US: Mercury France, Germany: Philips |
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| Producer | The Nice[1] | |||
| The Nice chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [2] |
| Discogs | (4.3/5) [1] |
| TopTenReviews | [3] |
The Five Bridges Suite is a modern piece of music, written in the 1960s, combining classical music and jazz. Written about the UK city of Newcastle upon Tyne, it was released as an album by The Nice which achieved the number two position in the UK album charts.[4] In the Q & Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came #29 in its list of "40 Cosmic Rock Albums".[5]
Contents |
The work was commissioned for the Newcastle Arts Festival and premiered with a full orchestra conducted by Joseph Eger on October 10, 1969 (the recorded version is from October 17 in Croydon's Fairfield Halls). The title refers to the city's five bridges spanning the River Tyne (two more have since been built over the river), and the album cover features an image of the Tyne Bridge.
The five movements are:
The most elaborate orchestral writing is the Fantasia, but even this is fairly rudimentary, which is understandable as it was Emerson's first foray into this medium. Emerson credits Friedrich Gulda for inspiring the High Level Fugue, which uses jazz figures in the strict classical form. The suite was recorded at a concert performance.
Also included on the Five Bridges album were live performances from the same Fairfield Hall concert of the Sibelius Intermezzo and a movement from Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony. Both involved the orchestra playing the "straight" music juxtaposed with the trio's interpretations. Newly discovered material from this concert was later issued as part of a 3-CD set entitled Here Come The Nice.
The Five Bridges album also included a blending of Bob Dylan's "Country Pie" with Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 6" (with a quote of Coleman Hawkins' jazz line "Rifftide" as well) and a studio recording of the original "One of Those People".
The CD reissue has 5 bonus tracks. These are:
The original album is tracks 1 to 8. The bonus tracks are tracks 9 to 13. The "Five Bridges Suite" track numbers bear no relation to the music, and the sleeve notes bear no relation to the CD tracks.
Sleeve Notes
CD Tracks
Actual Music
This means that Track 3 is actually the 2nd Bridge and Track 4 contains 3rd Bridge, 4th Bridge (at 3.32) and 5th Bridge.
With:
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