Carl Palmer is an icon in the world of Progressive Rock having contributed to the overall success of both, but not limited to, Asia and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. His drumming style is often described as unique in the way that he incorporates speed, finesse, and maintains an aura of sophistication. On Friday night, fans from across the continental US filled South Orange Performing Arts Center in musical celebration of Palmer’s tribute to the late Keith Emerson, Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy. Our own Katie N. briefly spoke to the legendary musician shortly after the performance.
PiercingMetal: Emerson, Lake and Palmer is notorious for their use of keyboards. In your band, you omit them. How does that change the musical dynamic?
Carl Palmer: We use two guitars. Paul Bielatowicz on the lead guitar and there is Simon Fitzpatrick who plays the Chapman Stick, which is a 10 stringed instrument. He also plays the 6-stringed bass. It’s the three of us- what you would consider to be a power trio I suppose. It’s completely different because we’re using stringed instruments as opposed to synthesizers. Some of the dynamic changes in such a way where it can be more exciting in certain areas, and there are certain areas where the music might not be quite as strong, or possibly stronger in a different way. It’s difficult to explain. Music is very difficult to talk about. It’s better to listen to it and hear it. But I didn’t really want to have keyboards in the group. I wanted to present music in a different way using guitar and just show how versatile the music is and how great the players are today because they can properly represent this music on guitars which probably wouldn’t have happened years ago because the players weren’t good enough.
Continue reading PiercingMetal Talks To Carl Palmer (11/11/2016)
