Product Code Database
The Canterbury scene (or Canterbury sound) is a musical scene that originated in the city of Canterbury, Kent, England during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Associated with progressive rock, the term describes a loosely defined, style that blended elements of jazz, rock music, and psychedelia.
These musicians played together in numerous bands, with ever-changing and overlapping personnel, creating some similarities in their musical output. Many prominent British Avant-garde jazz or Jazz fusion musicians began their career in Canterbury bands, including Hugh Hopper, Steve Hillage, Dave Stewart, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Richard Sinclair, Tony Coe, Daevid Allen, and Mike Ratledge.
There is variation within the scene, for example from pop/rock like early Soft Machine and much Caravan to avant-garde composed pieces as with early National Health to improvised jazz as with later Soft Machine or In Cahoots. Didier Malherbe (of Gong) has defined the scene as having "certain chord changes, in particular the use of minor second chords, certain harmonic combinations, and a great clarity in the aesthetics, and a way of improvising that is very different from what is done in jazz."
There is debate about the existence and definition of the scene. Dave Stewart has complained at the nomenclature as he and many other musicians identified with the Canterbury scene never had anything to do with Canterbury, the place. The former Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper, who lived in Whitstable, near Canterbury, said: "I think it's a rather artificial label, a journalistic thing... I don't mind it, but people like
In the 21st century, the Canterbury group Syd Arthur have been seen as latter-day practitioners.
|
|
