Perhaps I’m a little slow on the uptake, but I just heard about this…
Emerson, Lake, Palmer – and Hendrix?
How would that have sounded? They were such a precise, technical band. Hendrix was a bit more free-spirited. I can’t imagine something like Carn Evil 9 or Tarkus with Jimi soloing throughout. I can’t imagine Jimi singing Jeruselem. It boggles my mind.
And while we’re at it, is there any truth to the rumor that there was to be a band with Gil, Miles, and Jimi? That sounds more like someone’s wet dream than an actual workable idea.
It would never have lasted. The ego trips and power struggles among E, L & P were already notoriously volatile; add an established superstar to the brew and it would have fallen apart at the earliest opportunity; probably before they ever set foot in a studio. As for what it would have sounded like, it might have been a bit like the original four-man version of the Nice. The trio version of the Nice was obviously a prototype for ELP, but on their first album David O’List was smearing psychedelic guitar parts all over the place, not entirely unlike a bargain-basement Hendrix.
You’re probably right. I know little about Hendrix, but always figured he was pretty humble. I bet I’m dead wrong about that.
And had they actually produced some music, I’m sure it would have been far different from what ELP became. I’m guessing there would have been epic solos, though.
If you are talking about what I think you are talking about, then in theory yeah there is. Bitches Brew (the first fusion album) was supposed to feature Jimi before he died. He died and John McLaughlin played instead, but it was supposed to be Jimi. No cite, I am going off of memory a lecture on Miles by a Jazz prof from my college days.
I think the Jimi-Miles and Jimi-Gil Evans projects were two separate things, neither of which ever got past the proposal stage. Gil Evans did eventually arrange and record an album of Hendrix’s music, many years later.
But my prof said that Gil Evans was going to be part of it as well.