ELP Cal Jam Available on CD

[Quad Linda]

On December 11th, ELP released an official CD of their Cal Jam performance:

From ABC News Radio:

An album capturing Emerson, Lake & Palmer's performance at the historic 1974 California Jam festival will arrive in stores on December 11. Live in California, 1974 marks the first time the British prog-rock trio's set at the landmark event will officially be released. California Jam took place on April 6, 1974, at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California, and was attended by an estimated quarter-of-a-million people.

ELP appeared at Cal Jam during the height of its popularity, when the band was touring in support of its classic 1973 record Brain Salad Surgery. Among the songs they performed were "Lucky Man," "Still…You Turn Me On" and an epic rendition of the Modest Mussorgsky piece "Pictures at an Exhibition."

In the album's liner notes, frontman Greg Lake says of ELP's set, "The band was at the very pinnacle of their performing powers, the event was of biblical proportions and the performance itself was almost flawless."

Adds drummer Carl Palmer, "This was a monumental moment in the history of ELP, and will always be remembered by myself with great pride."

Live in California is part of an ongoing series of archival ELP recordings that the Shout! Factory label is issuing. Here is the album's full track list:

"Toccata"
"Still…You Turn Me On"
"Lucky Man"
"Piano Improvisations" (including "Fugue" and "Little Rock Getaway")
"Take a Pebble"
"Karn Evil 9, First Impression Part 2"
"Karn Evil 9, Third Impression"
"Pictures at an Exhibition"

 

[user 1679]

I got my copy the day before leaving on our x-mas trip and gave it a quick spin to check the quality. I'll try do a side by side with the "then and now" version of the show but my initial impression was that the sound was a little bit better, but not by a lot. It's packaged and sold like an official bootleg so I don't have any real complaints about it....no false advertising.

What made me by it was the inclusion of Pictures as that's been missing from the other releases, with the exception of the short bit on the dvd (spinning piano section and last bit of Gates of Kiev). The version here fades in during the last moments of Baba Yaga and then goes in Great Gates of Kiev, basically just as the broadcast originally did so it's not the complete/abbreviated Pictures they played on the tour, but it's more than we had in the past so I'll take it!

 

[ssully]

Release the video and audio in 'Deep Purple at Cal Jam' quality and stop teasing us, dammit!

 

[user 1679]

Release the video and audio in 'Deep Purple at Cal Jam' quality and stop teasing us, dammit!

Even if they did find the tapes it would still be not quite as good as the DP set since Blackmore trashed one of the cameras.

 

[timbre4]

Saw a review on Amazon where a guy must've had no knowledge of the original ABC TV broadcast where the band was faded in to fit their commercial breaks. Then a clever reply below the review straightened him out on all that reality. [TV, cost of tape, rights, etc]

Having said that, isn't it odd that a band that supposedly was recording shows in 1974 with 24 track machines somehow forgot to insist on recording the "band at the height of it's powers?" Live ELP for the most part is a dodgy proposition. Understand I do love PAAE, warts, edits and all, the quality of the rest of the live material is a little hard to understand. We are not well served on this point so far.

 

[Quad Linda]

I agree. I've bought all of the "live bootleg" boxes and most of the individual releases. Mar y Sol is the only '70's one that comes to mind as pretty good. The boxes range from fair to absolutely awful.

...isn't it odd that a band that supposedly was recording shows in 1974 with 24 track machines somehow forgot to insist on recording the "band at the height of it's powers?" Live ELP for the most part is a dodgy proposition. Understand I do love PAAE, warts, edits and all, the quality of the rest of the live material is a little hard to understand. We are not well served on this point so far.

 

[timbre4]

Yes, Mar Y Sol is pretty good all things considered. Sadly, the Manticore Vaults are floor scrapings for the most part.

Bless bands like King Crimson for taking better care of it's legacy live material.

Back on topic: I remember using existing telephone wires to get FM stereo from my room to headphones in the living room TV area for California Jam!

 

[user 1679]

Well, the Manticore boxes are all just "official" versions of the bootlegs that have been around for years, so the quality of those was no surprise to me. But yeah, they really did seem to blow it on the 73/74 tour as far as official recordings go - like they put all their eggs in one basket for the live album instead of recording several shows. Really, how many great board tapes and properly mixed shows have we got from King Crimson from 1974, and they certainly didn't have the budget/scale that ELP did at the time...missed opportunity for sure.

 

[bevergerner]

Hello
It's a few moons since the last post, but I have a question:
Is it quadrophony so sq or qs material ??
Thanks for the answer

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Hello
It's a few moons since the last post, but I have a question:
Is it quadrophony so sq or qs material ??
Thanks for the answer

Since the original post was made under the "Music Matters (Non-Surround)" topic and no mention in following posts of surround sound, consider it stereo.

 

[bevergerner]

Thank you for the info / enlightenment.
Sorry I had the department that Topic ignored ...
I will be older ..