Why You Should Care About Gentle Giant

Sometimes I wonder what will be in the music history books say, 100 years from now after we’re all gone. What will they think about us and the music we listened to? Will the popular stuff continue to endure? Or will the unknown and the under appreciated actually have their day in the sun? After all, Mozart died with zero fan base and practically destitute, right? Yet today, he’s world renowned. Now, I’m not insinuating that anything released during the pop era will ever have the staying power of say, “The Magic Flute” but I sometimes wonder if the overlooked and the underrated of the here and now will ever get their due.

Bands being formed during the late sixties and early seventies were attempting to stay true to their muse, with the emphasis on experimentation, individualism and the belief that musically, anything was possible. More diverse types of instrumentation, played within more adventurous time signatures with less emphasis on the finished piece being under three minutes long was becoming more and more the norm.

Many of these acts were wildly popular. King Crimson, Genesis, Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and many others were some of the marquee names of the day. Others would toil in relative obscurity, ignored despite being incredibly prolific and in some cases, more experimental than their peers. Gentle Giant were one of those bands.

Ray, Phil and Derek Shulman were siblings , raised in Portsmouth , England. Their father, a jazz trumpet player encouraged his sons growing up to learn to play as many different types of instruments as possible. Youngest brother Ray Shulman recalls "a house full of musicians and instruments.. I started learning trumpet when I was five just because it was there and then took up violin when I was seven. We were made to practice for an hour a day at least, when we really wanted to go out and play. I suppose it was a good thing we were really, and eventually I wanted to do it anyway... I wasn't formally taught at all." By the time they were teenagers, all three brothers were proficient players of all types of diverse instruments from trumpet to flute to violin.

Their initial foray into the music business was a late sixties soul/pop outfit called Simon Dupree and the Big Sound. After producing several underwhelming singles their management and record company pushed them to record something psychedelic. This nudge yielded a top ten hit for the band but the Shulman brothers were less than satisfied. They felt that this change of style was disingenuous. Successive failures of many follow up singles would follow and by 1969, The Shulman brothers scrapped the band in order to start over from scratch, with an aim towards a more complex direction.

Ray Shulman, looking back on that time stated "We knew we couldn't continue with the musicians we'd had before. We weren't interested in the other musicians in the band — they couldn't contribute anything. We had to teach them what to do. It got rather heavy when we could play drums better than the drummer, and even on record we were doing more and more of it with overdubs. It got stupid having a band like (that). The first thing was to get some musicians of a higher standard."

In 1970 , two other musicians were added in Gary Green and Kerry Minnear. Both were also able to play multiple instruments. They along with drummer Martin Smith comprised the first line up of the band now known as Gentle Giant. Green could play guitar,mandolin and recorder and Minnear, a classicaly trained pianist could also play vibrophone and cello. All of them except for the drummer could also sing. This allowed the band to write and perform extremely complicated vocal parts.

The band released three records between 1970 and 1972. The second LP, “Acquiring The Taste” included within the liner notes this declaration of principles.

"Acquiring the taste is the second phase of sensory pleasure. If you've gorged yourself on our first album, then relish the finer flavours (we hope) of this, our second offering. It is our goal to expand the frontiers of contemporary music at the risk of being very unpopular. We have recorded each composition with the one thought - that it should be unique, adventurous and fascinating. It has taken every shred of our combined musical and technical knowledge to achieve this. From the outset we have abandoned all preconceived thoughts on blatant commercialism. Instead we hope to give you something far more substantial and fulfilling. All you need to do is sit back, and acquire the taste."

After their third LP “Three Friends”, John Weathers became the bands third drummer, culminating in what would be their classic line up. The first record released by this version of the band was “Octopus”, released in the UK on 12/1/72, and in the US the following February. The title was an oblique pun referring to the album having eight tracks (octo-opus). Arguably the bands high watermark, it features one of the widest pallate of soundscapes ever attempted in the pop vein. These guys had the 64 pack of Crayolas with free sharpener on the back, and they were hell bent on using each and every crayon in the set.

The LP’s opener, “The Advent Of Panurge” goes from quiet to loud and back to quiet again all the while swirling with complex two part vocal harmonies that interweave throughout the piece. Brass and piano punctuate the bridge section before lurching back into the songs main structure. It is as musically sophisticated and original an album opener as any ever attempted.

“Raconteur, Troubadour”, the second track starts off as a type of Middle Ages madrigal , almost reminiscent of the type of approach Ian Anderson would employ a few years later with Jethro Tull during his “Minstrel In The Gallery” period. That comparison ends however, after the initial theme gives way to a second section that resembles a type of church procession. This eventually gives way to a trumpet solo, followed by a fiddle solo, finally swirling into a purposely dissonant piano riff that comes crashing back to the verse. At 3:59 in length, it is another mind blowing journey of sound.

“A Cry For Everyone” may be the closest thing to a straight out rocker here, but by employing multiple time signatures, some of which actually overlap each other, the tune goes off in many complex directions. The tune climaxes with a baffling increase in speed before settling down to a close.

“Knots” is the piece de’ resistence on “Octopus”. The last track on side 1, it is at first an acapella piece with no less than three distinct vocal parts sung into , around and through each other, and that’s just the first verse. The second verse brings in even more vocal parts, followed by the main chorus that lurches into a xylophone solo that comes across like a drunken soundtrack to a nursery rhyme. This is then obliterated by the “heavy” section, which goes into yet ANOTHER set of vocal harmonies commencing in an orgasm of sound. It simply has to be heard to be believed.

Side Two begins with the sound of a coin spinning on a tabletop, then immediately into the record’s lone instrumental, “The Boys In The Band”. “A Dog’s Life” starts off as a string ensemble piece, then goes off into another direction with voices chanting in some kind of choral structure before coming back to the beginning for another verse with strings and a singular vocal track.

“Think Of Me With Kindness” is a lovely sentimental ballad built around a piano figure that may be the prettiest thing the band ever did. Even this track however, has multiple musical themes and sections that on the surface don’t seem like they belong, but are so skillfully joined together you can’t imagine them not being there.

I almost feel like the album’s closer “River” is a little out of place when compared to the rest of the LP. It’s a bit more jarring rhythmically, and the sections don’t fit together as seamlessly as some of the experiments that take place elsewhere on the record. In the end though, it does belong specifically because it IS so challenging and on some days when I listen to it it’s the record’s best track.

To those who have heard the record, the above description is hopefully a spot on reminder of it's greatness. The fact remains though, that the vast majority of folks have never heard “Octopus” so to them the above is nothing more than a jumbled mess of fan boy ramblings creaming over some obscure LP by an even more obscure group.

In the spring of 1980, I was fortunate enough to see Gentle Giant at a club in New Haven, CT. Phil, the eldest of the Shulman brothers had left the group by this time and the group had abandoned their earlier statement of principles, with their last few albums attempting to garner some type of commercial response. By this time though, the band had run it’s course and the 1980 “Civilian” tour would be their last ever.

About midway through the set they would play what everybody came to see, the infamous “Octopus Medley”. Comprised of the various themes and songs off the “Octopus” album, this is where we got to see the multiple virtuosities of these gifted musicians on display. It was nothing less than a veritable fire drill of musicianship, with different band members switching off between assorted brass, woodwind, percussion and string instruments. To this day I have still yet to witness anything else that even musically comes close to this moment.

Throughout the seventies, they would release a dozen or so records that would garner various degrees of ambivelance. Some were good, a few were great, and others not as good. Nothing however, would match the greatness of “Octopus”. In fairness though, “Octopus” is the type of record that comes along once in a lifetime and is nearly impossible to match, both in inventiveness and sheer aural brilliance.