| Track | Album |
|---|---|
| The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack | Autumn ’67 – Spring ’68 |
| America | Autumn ’67 – Spring ’68 |
| Intermezzo ‘Karelia Suite’ | Five Bridges |
| Ars Longa Vita Brevis | Ars Longa Vita Brevis |
| Azrael Revisited | Nice |
| Hang On To A Dream (Live) | Elegy |
| Rondo ’69 (Live) | Nice |
| She Belongs To Me | Live Fillmore East December 1969 |
| The Five Bridges Suite | Five Bridges |
| Pathetique (Symphony No. 6, 3rd Movement) | Elegy (Expanded Ed. 2009) |
“Won’t you welcome please, a most distinguished group from England …The Nice!” – Fillmore East, New York City, April 1969
When the Nice – consisting of Keith Emerson, Lee Jackson and Brian Davison – were at the height of their popularity in the autumn of 1969 (guitarist and vocalist Davy O’List was no longer a member of the band by that point), I was a mere toddler just starting primary school. It would be another 14 years before I discovered their music by which time they had long been defunct. When I did start to explore their back catalogue after a school mate gave me the Five Bridges album it was a case of working backwards from Keith Emerson’s other, perhaps better known, band ELP of which I was already a fan.
It’s fair to say in their short career of just under three years, the band’s output was something of a mixed bag. A pioneering blend of rock, jazz and classical music that sometimes worked and on other occasions didn’t quite hit the mark. Nevertheless, I’ve chosen ten tracks which show the band at their very best.
1. THE THOUGHTS OF EMERLIST DAVJACK: The title track and first single from the band’s debut album. A song at times upbeat and then reflective written by Keith Emerson and Davy O’List with the latter handling lead vocals. My favourite version is the longer performance on the 1972 compilation Autumn ˈ67 – Spring ˈ68.
2. AMERICA: At the time of its release (June 1968) this instrumental adaptation of Sondheim & Bernstein’s song from the musical West Side Story was a standalone single. It became the band’s only bona fide hit, reaching No.21 in the charts. Perhaps its more enduring legacy is the fact that when the Nice performed the piece at the Royal Albert Hall that same month, both Keith Emerson and Lee Jackson (bass) defaced/burnt a makeshift US flag onstage. The RAH promptly slapped a ban on the group from ever appearing at the venue again.
The version of the song that I’m picking appeared on the above-mentioned compilation. This video is from BBC TV’s short-lived 1968 music series How It Is, occasionally hosted by John Peel, and described as “a weekly programme by the young for the young in heart. It treats its audience as reasonably intelligent and aware people instead of as suburban suet puddings.”
3. INTERMEZZO FROM THE KARELIA SUITE (Live): By the time the band’s second album, Ars Longa Vita Brevis (loose translation – Art is eternal, life is short) was released in November 1968, Davy O’List had been sacked for increasingly erratic/unreliable behaviour and the band became a trio. It became clear at this point that Emerson was the undoubted driving force of the Nice’s musical direction. One of the results of that direction was this arrangement of the classical piece by Sibelius. Listeners of a certain age (like me!) will perhaps remember a current affairs programme on British TV in the 60s and 70s that used the same piece of music as its theme tune.
By all accounts it was singer/songwriter Roy Harper who encouraged The Nice to record their own version. The best version by the group in my opinion is this live performance on the Five Bridges album. Recorded at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon in October 1969, it captures an amazing rendition – including an unintentional break of a few seconds in the music when the power is accidentally cut to Keith’s Hammond organ during his solo spot – where he manages to make the keyboard sound like a cross between an alien death ray, a speeding racing car and a taxiing piston-engined aircraft! Sadly, by the time the LP was released in June 1970 the band had broken up.
4. ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS: As mentioned above this was the title of the Nice’s second album and it also fills the whole of side two on the original LP. It’s an interesting listen and shows where Keith Emerson’s thinking was leading him at the time: the increasing integration of rock music with the classical world. Drummer Brian (Blinky) Davison is given a chance to shine with a percussion/drum solo during the 1st Movement – Awakening. The suite also includes the 3rd Movement – Acceptance, that when edited would become a single: Brandenburger. An adaptation of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G Major don’t you know!
Here’s the Nice performing Brandenburger on TV in 1969:
5. AZRAEL REVISITED: The opening track on the Nice’s third album imaginatively titled Nice released in August 1969. The revisited part refers to the fact that this is a reworking of the B-side to their first single from nearly two years before. The thing it highlights is the fact that Lee Jackson’s singing voice is the weak link in the band’s armoury. If you’re a fan of the Nice the one thing you have to get your head around early on is Lee’s technique which runs the gamut between whispering, spoken word and plain old yelling. If you can’t get past that fact you’re gonna struggle with much of their work! Despite that, it’s a strong song with which to open an album.
6. HANG ON TO A DREAM (Live): Originally from ‘Nice’ (1969) is this cover of a Tim Hardin song. It was released as a non-UK single. This actually contains one of Lee Jackson’s better vocal performances. However, my favourite is this performance from ‘Elegy’, a studio/live compilation that came out in April 1971 a year after the group had disbanded. The instrumental middle section is a real joy to listen to.
7. RONDO ’69 (Live): Again from the Nice LP. In some ways during his time with the Nice and even later with ELP and beyond, this track came to define Keith Emerson. I’m sure it must have felt like a millstone around his neck at times, having to perform it at practically every concert appearance. Having said that, this is a great version. Quicker than the slightly plodding recording on the debut album and full of fire, this is from a gig at the Fillmore East in April 1969.
8. SHE BELONGS TO ME (Live): A song that runs through the group’s existence from 1967 right up until the end in early 1970. A Bob Dylan cover that the band completely rearrange for their own purposes. Again, Lee’s vocals are the weak point but the enjoyment comes from what the players do with the song. This is from the archival release Live At The Fillmore East December 1969 which didn’t see the light of day until 2009. It’s a fantastic document of what a whole Nice concert would’ve been like rather than the odds and sods that had previously existed.
9. THE FIVE BRIDGES SUITE: A five-part composition originally commissioned for the Newcastle Arts Festival, this recording is from 17th October 1969 at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon. It was released on the Five Bridges LP eight months later in June 1970. A blend of classical and rock with jazz leanings, the whole thing is the Nice in microcosm really.
10. PATHETIQUE (SYMPHONY No.6, 3rd MOVEMENT): My final selection is from the expanded edition of Elegy released in 2009. A live session recorded for the BBC in April 1970, almost certainly one of, if not the last things the band did. It perhaps illustrates what the Nice did best; taking well known classics and giving them the rock treatment. They’d already performed this piece during the Five Bridges concerts with an orchestra but for this session it was just the group. At the end, DJ Brian Matthew bids the band a final farewell.
It wasn’t quite the end though. Thirty-two years later, Keith Emerson reformed the Nice and during 2002-2003 they performed a series of concerts in the UK. I was lucky enough to see two of those concerts in London. One show in Glasgow was recorded for posterity and released on a CD, Vivacitas.
Sadly, Brian Davison passed away in 2008 and Keith Emerson took his own life in 2016. But when these two great musicians, alongside Lee Jackson and, originally, Davy O’List were in full flight, they were simply breathtaking. As their old longtime roadie Bazz Ward once commented, “When they were flying, which was often, there was no one to touch them.”
“America is pregnant with promise and anticipation, but is murdered by the hand of the inevitable.”
The Nice appreciation website (with comprehensive discography)
Official Facebook Page for Keith Emerson
The Nice – Five Bridges Documentary (YouTube)
Royal Festival Hall 2002 – full reunion concert (YouTube audio)
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Andrew Holloway is semi-retired. As a younger man, he played drums in a covers band for just over 10 years. He still enjoys listening to music and reading, especially history. You can follow him on Bluesky.
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John Farnham
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