Representative Albums: "Nice," "Here Come the Nice: The Immediate Anthology 3 CD Set," "Essential Collection"
Representative Songs: "The Thoughts of Emerlist Davj," "America: I) America/II) Secon," "Hang on to a Dream"
Biography
The Nice only existed for three years, and in that time they went through many a false start as well as some membership and directional changes -- but in the process, they helped bridge the gap between the pop-psychedelia of 1967 and the more ambitious (and, ultimately, pretentious) brand of music known variously as art rock or progressive rock. They never sold many records in their own time, until near the end of their history as a band, but they were among the 1960s groups that had some of the greatest influence on the music of the early '70s. In the beginning, they were just supposed to provide backup, à la Booker T. & the MG's, for American-born soul singer P.P. Arnold, an ex-member of the Ikettes who producer/manager/music mogul Andrew Oldham believed he could make into the next Tina Turner. Keyboard player Keith Emerson had previously played in Gary Farr & the T-Bones, and the new group's rhythm section was filled by T-Bones alumni Lee Jackson on bass and Ian Hague on drums, while former Attack guitarist Davy O'List filled the fourth spot. They got together in May of 1967 and proved so powerful an ensemble on-stage, backing Arnold, that they soon earned billing on their own at the National Jazz and Blues Festival that summer, and by that fall had a recording contract of their own with Oldham's Immediate Records. Hague, however, proved a weak link in their lineup, in part owing to his devotion to the use of various controlled substances, and by the time they were ready to formally begin recording, he was replaced by O'List's onetime Attack bandmate Brian Davison.
They were an amazingly freewheeling outfit, in keeping with the times. Although Jackson handled most of the singing, O'List also took a lead vocal on occasion, and even Emerson would end up on the microphone. They played a strange mix of psychedelic blues, heavily laced with cadenza-like solos on the piano or organ, and dressed up in ornate, flashy guitar, reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix -- amid the pop flourishes and heavy piano and guitar riffs, one could hear influences of classical, soul, and jazz. Their debut album was ready for release early in 1968 but was delayed getting into stores until much later in the year, at which point they had released a single to support it -- their chosen track was a driving, flashy, instantly memorable instrumental rendition of the song "America" from West Side Story that got them lots of airplay and bade fair to get them on the U.K. charts, until objections to a very tasteless picture-sleeve design, coupled with the complaint of co-author Leonard Bernstein that he'd never given the group permission to revamp his piece -- which led to their inability to get the single issued in America -- took the wind out of their sails. Their year's worth of work had begun to build the group, and especially the extrovert personality of Emerson, a following in England. The organist player would jam knives into his keyboards, set fire to various objects on-stage (including, at least once, at Royal Albert Hall, the American flag, creating a potential diplomatic incident for the government), and simulate sex with his instrument -- by 1968, he was known as the Jimi Hendrix of the keyboard. But amid the controversy over the single, the quartet's debut album, The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack -- which actually sounded very different from the single, and already very dated, died a withering death on record shop shelves during the summer of 1968.
In truth, the debut LP was probably held up too long and released too late anyway, its cheery psychedelia being a little old-fashioned by the summer of 1968. There was a distinctly unusual undercurrent to the music, however, beneath the trippy pop tunes and spaced-out lyrics, that could have saved the record. The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack sounded different from virtually anything else in music at the time -- spook-house organ solos and slashing guitar attacks that ran together and clashed, and heavily veiled quotations from Dave Brubeck, among other sources; "Rondo" was nothing less than a large-scale psychedelic rock adaptation of "Blue Rondo a la Turk."
The band soldiered on, performing constantly and preparing to record a second album, when their second personnel problem reared its head, in the growing instability of guitarist Davy O'List; to add to the problems caused by his erratic behavior, it also became clear as the work on the second album progressed that O'List and Emerson were each trying to take center stage in their sound and music -- the first album had several tracks that featured their dueling, but it wasn't clear that their future lay in that direction. He left the group in the early fall of 1968, and wasn't replaced -- instead, the Nice became a trio of keyboards, bass (with a guitar added occasionally as needed, by Jackson or a guest support player), and drums. Their sound tightened and also evolved in a new direction -- although their second album, Ars Longa Vita Brevis, featured several striking songs and some clever lyrics, the center piece was the title suite, a rock/classical amalgam for band and orchestra that took up the whole second side -- that piece, which freely quoted from the Bach Brandenburg concertos, and a band rendition of the intermezzo from the Karelia Suite by composer Jean Sibelius, seemed to dominate the record and point the way to their future. Released in November of 1968, just four months after their debut album, Ars Longa Vita Brevis garnered sterling reviews -- praise that most acts only dream of receiving -- but it died a death in stores, without a single to help people grab hold of the album.
By this time, the bandmembers were beginning to wonder if they were star-crossed. They had a huge concert following in England and a growing reputation in continental Europe, with America just waiting for their next visit, but they'd sold very few records. Additionally, the group and their manager, Tony Stratton-Smith, were wary of the financial underpinnings of their label; Immediate Records always seemed to have someone demanding payment for some long overdue invoice or other, and lots of people hanging around trying to spend the company's money. Additionally, while a lot of recording always seemed to be going on, there wasn't a lot of chart action for the label -- with the exception of the Small Faces, whose sales made them Immediate's resident cash cow, few of the acts around them, good as some of them were (and many would say the Nice were the best of them), were earning money with their records, for themselves or the label.
Still, they went ahead with plans for a third LP, which initially was to have been a live album recorded at the Fillmore East during their spring 1969 tour of the United States. The Nice had dazzled audiences along that tour (even managing to make an appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic), especially at those Fillmore shows, not just with Emerson's flashy stage presence but their ability to deconstruct songs by Bob Dylan and Tim Hardin and rebuild them completely in the group's image, yet leave enough that was familiar so that people could follow; and their accompanying ability to deconstruct familiar classical pieces in the same manner, and to meld rock, pop, jazz, and even soundtrack material coherently, and keep a crowd riveted by their work. In the end, the group's third album, variously titled Nice or Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It (or, later, Nice #3), was a mix of live and studio performances that showcased the group working from strength to strength, and evolving even on the record itself. Gone were the psychedelic flourishes of the first two albums -- instead, they were intense and concentrated in their focus on jazz and classical elements, a lean music machine that surged and pounded away at their material, yet who were subtle enough to work in delightful little embellishments, and playful and clever as well. The record peaked at number three on the British charts, and suddenly the Nice were ranked among the top bands in the country.
It was just then that Immediate finally declared bankruptcy, owing a massive amount of royalties to the Nice (and a lot of other bands, including the Small Faces). Having a major hit record and no money to show for it, the group was forced to maintain a ferocious touring schedule to keep itself solvent -- Nice had been the LP they'd been looking for, but it had come to nothing, in terms of moving the group to the next level, where they could tour less and write and record more.
The band might have gotten past this debacle. Tony Stratton-Smith, in his wisdom, had held onto the live tapes from the Fillmore East that hadn't gone onto the third album, as well as the live recording of the group's most ambitious orchestral work yet, "The Five Bridges Suite," and enough shorter studio sides that were close enough to being finished that there were at least two whole LPs that could be released -- that body of music represented not only breathing room and revenue, but also some of the Nice's best work. "The Five Bridges Suite," despite some flaws in its recording, would only enhance their image, and once people heard Emerson's performance on the live version of "Hang On to a Dream," his reputation from touring would be documented. As it was, the group had already provided the inspiration for one very important Dutch band, Ekseption, formed by Rick Van Der Linden out of admiration for the Nice -- what Stratton-Smith had in his possession would allow the Nice themselves to benefit from their work.
It was not to be, mostly because Emerson had other plans. He'd always felt that the group's weak link was its vocals. Jackson was a limited singer and Emerson scarcely one at all (that's him singing lead on "Happy Freuds" from their second album) -- Emerson had even approached Duncan Browne, Immediate's resident singer/songwriter, who had worked with the band, about joining as a singer, but before that could happen one way or the other, he'd crossed paths with another, newer band called King Crimson and had been impressed by their lead vocalist/bassist, Greg Lake. Lake had grown increasingly unhappy as a member of the group since early 1969, and felt creatively constrained by guitar/co-founder Robert Fripp. Following the group's American tour in late 1969, he contacted Emerson and agreed to join up with him -- thus, Emerson was already set to leave the band by the end of that winter, though the decision wasn't announced publicly until the spring. Emerson, Lake & Palmer debuted that summer and went onto the kind of press coverage and record sales that the Nice never got anywhere near.
Meanwhile, Stratton-Smith released the album Five Bridges on his own, newly founded Charisma Records label, and it sold well enough to justify a follow-up, Elegy, which showed audiences just how much the music community had lost when the Nice split up. Ironically, in order to market those records more effectively in America, where the Nice had never enjoyed more than a cult following, U.S. licensee Mercury Records was compelled to repackage them into a double-LP set called Keith Emerson With the Nice, using an ELP-era photo of Emerson at his keyboard on-stage on its jacket. Emerson objected to the release of these albums, on artistic grounds, but a lawsuit failed to keep them off the market. In 1973, Stratton-Smith issued as third LP, known variously as Autumn to Spring or Autumn 1967 - Spring 1968, consisting of alternate takes and mixes of material from the group's first two LPs. In the decades since, thanks to Emerson's fame as a member of ELP and the Immediate bankruptcy, which placed its library in the hands of a succession of receivers who knew or cared little about music -- and the intentions of well-meaning producers who did care about the music -- the music on the Nice's three Immediate LPs turned up in various forms on vinyl, beginning with a fine series of albums from the Canadian Daffodil label and declining from there, and later on CD, some of the early examples of the latter horrendous sounding. In the 1990s, starting with Sony Music's reissue of their material, the quality of the group's masters has consistently been upgraded and enhanced, so that the current reissues, since the late '90s, are the best representation the group has ever had on record.
Jackson and Davison went on to various projects that never succeeded, and in 1973 tried to get a second bite of the apple by forming Refugee with keyboard player Patrick Moraz, but there was little interest in their sound or records. By the end of the 1970s, with a change in public taste, even ELP had overstayed their welcome, amid their bombast and pretentiousness, and came to a halt. In 1999, as a one-off event on a personal occasion, Emerson, Jackson, and Davison played together for the first time in 29 years, at a party. Their work from decades earlier continues to dazzle new listeners in the 21st century, with each new reissue. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
The Nice consisted initially of keyboardistKeith Emerson, bassist/vocalist Lee Jackson, drummer Brian Davison, and guitarist David O'List, more commonly known as "Davy". The band took their name from a suggestion made by jazz singer P. P. Arnold, who suggested that the band be called "P.P. Arnold and her Naz" as the band were essentially her backing group; the name was then shortened to "The Nice".
The band was formed in May 1967 by Andrew Loog Oldham to back soul singer P.P. Arnold, a performer who reached a far higher level of popularity in Britain than her native America. After performing with Arnold through the summer, The Nice soon gained a reputation of their own. In August, former Mark Leeman Five and Habits drummer Davison replaced the Arnold's original drummer, Ian Hague.[1] The first album by The Nice was recorded throughout the autumn of 1967, and in October of that year they recorded their first session for John Peel's Top Gear. Early work tended toward the psychedelia but more ambitious elements soon came to the fore. The classical and jazz influences manifested themselves both in short quotes from Janacek (Sinfonietta) and in more elaborate renditions of Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk" which The Nice called simply "Rondo", changing the meter from the original 9/8 to 4/4 in the process.
For their second single, The Nice created an arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's "America" which Emerson described as the first ever instrumental protest song. It not only uses the Bernstein piece (from West Side Story) but also includes fragments of Dvořák's New World Symphony. The single concludes with a child (who, according to Emerson's biography, is P. P. Arnold's three-year old son) speaking the lines "America is pregnant with promises and anticipation, but is murdered by the hand of the inevitable." The new arrangement was released under the title "America (Second Amendment)" as a pointed reference to the U.S. Bill of Rights provision for the bearing of arms.
O'List left the group during the recording of their second album. The Nice briefly considered looking for a replacement but, (according to sources such as Mojo magazine) they followed the example set by 1-2-3 (later Clouds), and decided to continue as a rock organ trio. With O'List gone, Emerson's control over the band's direction became greater, resulting in more complex music. The absence of a guitar in the band and Emerson's redefining of the role of keyboard instruments in rock set The Nice apart from so many of its contemporaries.
The earlier work of French pianist Jacques Loussier and the more-or-less contemporary Charles Lloyd Quartet (featuring Keith Jarrett) can be seen as influences. Loussier took classical works, notably by Bach, and arranged them for jazz piano trio. The Charles Lloyd band was bridging the jazz and rock spheres and Jarrett's performances (which included playing inside the piano) received much attention. The Nice performed two pieces from the Lloyd repertoire: "Sombrero Sam" and "Sorcery". Part of the musical approach of The Nice was transferring the innovations of these jazz artists into an electric medium, one that was influenced by The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and The Beatles. Another influence was Bob Dylan, whose songs were common currency at the time and The Nice interpreted several.
The band's second LP Ars Longa Vita Brevis featured an arrangement of the Intermezzo from the Karelia Suite by Jean Sibelius and the album's second side was a suite which included an arrangement of a movement from J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. The group used an orchestra for the first time on some parts of the suite.
Perhaps as a foil for the highbrow aspects of their music, the stage performances were bold and violent, with Emerson incorporating feedback and distortion. He manhandled his Hammond L-100 organ, wrestling it and attacking it with daggers (which he used to hold down keys and sustain notes during these escapades). This was inspired by Jimi Hendrix and Don Shin, an obscure English organist, as well as earlier figures such as pianist Jerry Lee Lewis. Motörhead frontman Lemmy was a roadie for The Nice in their early days, and gave Keith Emerson his trademark knife that he uses to sustain organ keys.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times (January 4, 1970), Don Heckman pointed out this dichotomy.
"One might assume, in the face of such a visual display, that the Nice is a mediocre group that compensates for musical failings with a pop-rock version of the theater of violence. Far from it. The Nice is as musically proficient a group as one will hear anywhere on the pop scene. Their most attractive quality is the genuine spirit of improvisational invention and surging jazz rhythm which permeates their work [...]"
During the long and wildly popular tour that followed the release of their second album, the group spawned controversy when Emerson burned an American flag onstage during a performance of "America".
The third album, titled Nice in the UK and Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It in the US, featured one side recorded on their American tour and one side of studio material.
The pinnacle of the band's artistic success was probably the Five Bridges suite, commissioned for the Newcastle Arts Festival, which was premiered with a full orchestra conducted by Joseph Eger on October 10, 1969 (the recorded version is from October 17 in Croydon's Fairfield Hall). The title refers to the city's five bridges spanning the River Tyne (two more have since been built).
One of the final appearances by the group was in collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Zubin Mehta. This was broadcast in March 1970 on American television as part of the "Switched-On Symphony" program. Following standard television procedure of the day, The Nice's contribution (a version of "America") was recorded ahead of time and the band mimed for the cameras.
Post-Nice
By 1970, Emerson and the other band members were frustrated with their lack of mainstream success and they soon broke up. They played their last concert on March 30, 1970 in Berlin, Germany (Sportpalast). Emerson formed a band with Greg Lake (of King Crimson) and Carl Palmer (of Atomic Rooster) — Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Superstardom followed.
A posthumous Nice release Elegy included different versions of already familiar tracks, two being studio versions and two live from the 1969 U.S. tour.
Lee Jackson formed Jackson Heights which released five albums between 1970 and 1973. Brian Davison formed "Every Which Way" which released an album in 1970. Both Jackson and Davison formed Refugee with Patrick Moraz in 1974, but were bitterly disappointed when for a second time a keyboard phenomenon left them for greener pastures - Moraz joined Yes to replace Rick Wakeman.
The Nice reunion
After over three decades, The Nice reformed in 2002 for a series of live concerts. By this time Jackson's voice (which, while always distinctive, was never his forte) had deteriorated and his part on "Hang on to a Dream" was dropped by a full octave, resulting in a near-croak. A three-CD set Vivacitas was released, with the third CD being an interview with Keith Emerson[2] The band featured Dave Kilminster on guitar.
Guitarist Davy O'List has recently re-emerged to play again in England, and a substantial amount of information can be found on his website. He has re-embraced the Nice's musical heritage with a new group of musicians and recordings.
Everything As Nice As Mother Makes It is the U.S. version of Nice after Immediate's distribution changed from Columbia to Capitol. Nice had been initially released in the U.S. with a slightly longer version of Rondo 69 not available on the UK or on the Capitol distributed U.S. versions. The first U.S. version of Nice was briefly reissued in 1973 by Columbia Special Products. Both Five Bridges and Elegy were released in the U.S. by Mercury and in Germany by Phillips. Both albums were reissued as a two record set in both the U.S. and Germany in 1972 as Keith Emerson and The Nice (see compilations). On the U.S. reissues of Five Bridges from the 1980s, "One Of Those People" features a noticeably different mono mix in place of the stereo mix on the original issue.
Singles
"Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack"/"Azrael (Angel Of Death)" (Immediate, November 1967)
"America"/"Diamond Hard Blue Apples Of The Moon" (Immediate, 1968)
"Brandenburger"/"Happy Freuds" (Immediate, 1968)
"Diary Of An Empty Day"/"Hang On To A Dream" (Immediate, 1969)
"Country Pie/Brandenburg Concerto #6"/"One Of Those People" (Charisma, 1969)
The singles listed here are the original releases. Many of the singles were re-released throughout the 1970s with different B-sides.
Compilations
The Best of The Nice (EMI/Immediate, 1971)
Keith Emerson with The Nice (Mercury, 1972)
In Memoriam (Immediate, 1973)
Autumn '67 to Spring '68 (Charisma, 1972, UK), released as Autumn to Spring (Charisma, 1973, USA)
Hang On To A Dream (EMIDisc, 1974)
The Immediate Years (2-LP set) (Sire, 1975)
Amoeni Redivivi (NEMS/Immediate, 1976)
Greatest Hits (NEMS/Immediate, 1977)
Greatest Hits (Big Time, 1988)
The Immediate Years (3-CD Boxed Set) (Charly, 1995)
Here Come The Nice - The Immediate Anthology (3-CD Boxed Set) (Castle Communications, 2002)
Keith Emerson with The Nice was reissued on CD in 1990 as a single disc, eliminating "Country Pie/Brandenburg Conc.#6" and "One Of Those People" from Five Bridges and "Pathetique" from Elegy. The Immediate Collection contains all three albums and all the singles originally released by Immediate records along with several unreleased recordings. Some of the compilations listed (namely Autumn to Spring, Hang On To A Dream and In Memoriam) feature slightly different mixes than originally released on the albums. Due to Immediate Records' dissolution in 1970, the recordings of The Nice (along with other artists on the Immediate label) were leased out to many record companies, resulting in a high number of compilation albums (many of which are not listed here) with different packaging, but similar track listings.
