| Ars Longa Vita Brevis | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | The Nice |
| Cover: | The Nice - Ars Longa Vita Brevis.jpg |
| Released: | November 1968 |
| Recorded: | October 1968 |
| Genre: | Psychedelic rock, progressive rock |
| Length: | 40:13 |
| Label: | Immediate |
| Producer: | The Nice |
| Prev Title: | The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack |
| Prev Year: | 1968 |
| Next Title: | Nice |
| Next Year: | 1969 |
Ars Longa Vita Brevis is the second album by the English progressive rock group the Nice.
In the summer of 1968 The Nice had their first taste of commercial success when their cover of "America", the popular West Side Story number re-imagined as a heavy instrumental acid-rocker (Emerson called it "the first instrumental protest song", chosen as a reaction to the assassination of MLK that spring), hit #21 on the UK charts. The group achieved further notoriety in the press when they were banned from further appearances at the Royal Albert Hall after Emerson had burned a makeshift spray-painting of the American flag during a prestige gig at the venue in July.[1]
Guitarist David O'List was fired from the band in the fall of 1968 during the initial recording of the album. (An early outtake of "Daddy, Where Did I Come From" featuring O'List on guitar was later released on the compilation Autumn '67 - Spring '68). After flirting briefly with auditioning a replacement guitarist (including Steve Howe, later to join Yes), the Nice decided to carry on as a keyboard-led trio and completed the album that October.[1]
Structurally, side one of the album picked up where its predecessor left off, with shorter psych-pop numbers ("Daddy, Where Did I Come From", "Happy Freuds") sitting next to extended jams based on classical compositions (Sibelius' "Intermezzo from the Karelia Suite"), only this time without the participation of a guitarist. "Daddy Where Did I Come From" contains a comedic spoken word break of a father trying (and failing) to inform his son about the facts of life, while "Happy Freuds" is a Zappa-influenced puncturing of self-assured people with heavy use of echo delay on the vocal. The cover of "Karelia Suite" features a lengthy interlude with Jackson bowing his bass, followed by Emerson creating structured feedback with his Hammond L100 through a Marshall amplifier, supplemented by a Dallas Arbiter fuzz-face unit.[1]
A significant evolution was taken on side two with the appearance of the multi-sectional suite "Ars Longa Vita Brevis." The suite begins with a prelude featuring a full orchestra followed by an extended drum solo ("Awakening"), a more conventional acid rock number with guest electric guitar ("Realisation"), a rock adaptation of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G Major featuring a return of the orchestra ("Brandenburger", released as a non-charting single in November 1968), a lightning-paced Jazz-fusion Hammond organ jam ("Denial") and an orchestral coda. "Ars Longa Vita Brevis" was, along with Procol Harum's "In Held 'Twas In I" released around the same time, the first side-long progressive rock suite and served as a template for Emerson's later efforts on Five Bridges, Tarkus and "Karn Evil 9". Emerson recalled that during a break in the recording of "Brandenburger", he heard several of the orchestral musicians complaining about the noise and tempo of the arrangement, whereupon he decided to crank the volume of his Hammond even louder.[1]
The album unusually contains some songs in which Emerson sings lead vocals: he sings the lead in "Daddy, Where Did I Come From", sings the second lead vocal on "Happy Freuds" and takes the bridge in "Little Arabella". Guest guitarist Malcolm Langstaff, who played on the second movement of the suite titled "Realisation", died in 2007.[2]
The title is an aphorism attributed to Hippocrates usually rendered as "Art is long, life is short"; Keith Emerson's interpretation of this can be gauged from his sleevenote:
Newton's first law of motion states a body will remain at rest or continue with uniform motion in a straight line unless acted on by a force. This time the force happened to come from a European source. Ours is an extension of the original Allegro from Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. Yesterday I met someone who changed my life, today we put down a sound that made our aim accurate. Tomorrow is yesterday's history and art will still be there, even if life terminates.[3]
For the cover, the group hired photographer Gered Mankowitz to create a composite overlap of X-rays of the three band members. While at the medical clinic, Emerson was informed that his X-ray showed two broken ribs, sustained from his intensely physical performances during the group's live shows.[1] The cover went on to win the New Musical Express award for Best Pop Album Sleeve that year.
The original US version of the album opened with the earlier single "America". Released in November 1968, Ars Longa Vita Brevis failed to chart in either the UK or US, although it received a positive review from Record Mirror which stated it was "musically excellent, very original, and going in a good direction to boot."[1] Melody Maker was even more impressed, calling it "a vast improvement on their first album which shows them moving in a direction far removed from any other group, British or American."[4] Retrospectively, Allmusic's Bruce Eder described the album as "a genuinely groundbreaking effort".[5]
All songs written by Keith Emerson and Lee Jackson, except where noted.
Added to side one (tracks 1 and 2) on the Columbia Records release via their Columbia Special Products subsidiary.[6]
with: