Aaron Copeland but better

The genesis of great music is solid composition, and creative interpretations. Pick up the music and make it your own. Keith Emerson presents a master class.

One of my favorite pieces music was written by an iconic American composer. Aaron Copeland composed music with a distinctive American flair, using themes and motifs that are as comforting and identifiable as Baseball and Apple Pie.

One piece of his that I can listen to over and over without any ear fatigue is “Fanfare for the Common Man”. I first heard it on the ELP album Brain Salad Surgery. As a 11 year old boy, finding out that was the name of an album was … wicked.

But the Fanfare was an arrangement by the incomparable Keith Emerson, and I was absolutely positive that I wanted to learn to play piano so I could then move to synthesizers.

That never worked out, but I have a pile of ELP albums.

Here is a video of ELP playing in an empty arena in Montreal (and you can see the snow, it must have been a wee bit chilly).

Of course, there are plenty of others of this, I think I shared this one that has Keith and Carl, but augmented with Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, and Joe Walsh on guitar plus John Entwistle.

Finally, here it is in its original form:

All good stuff. Hope you enjoy!

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