Gentle Giant ( B3 )

In 1969, the Shulman brothers finally dissolved the group in order to escape the pop music environment that had frustrated them. Surprisingly, they did not return directly to rhythm and blues or soul, but chose to pursue a more complicated direction. Ray Shulman later stated "We knew we couldn't continue with the musicians we'd had before. We weren't interested in the other musicians in the band — they couldn't contribute anything. We had to teach them what to do. It got rather heavy when we could play drums better than the drummer, and even on record we were doing more and more of it with overdubs. It got stupid having a band like (that). The first thing was to get some musicians of a higher standard."

Formation of Gentle Giant

Gentle Giant was formed in 1970 when the Shulman brothers teamed up with two other multi-instrumentalists, Gary Green (guitar, mandolin, recorder etc.) and Kerry Minnear (keyboards, vibraphone, cello etc.), plus drummer Martin Smith, who had previously drummed for Simon Dupree and the Big Sound. The classically trained Minnear had recently graduated from the Royal College of Music with a degree in composition, and had played with the band Rust. Green was essentially a blues player and had never worked with a band above the semi-professional level, but adapted readily to the demanding music of the new band. The Shulman brothers, meanwhile, settled into typically multi-instrumental roles of their own: Derek on saxophone and recorder; Ray on bass and violin; Phil on saxophone, trumpet, and clarinet.

It was like this big funnel, really. We all had these varied influences, whether it be pop, classical, rock, jazz, or whatever, and we just came together and created what we did. A lot of the bands who were doing prog rock back then were doing long songs that in many cases were just filler, but we never tried to impress anyone with our talents, maybe we were just trying to impress each other! What to us just seemed like some clever songs really touched a lot of people it seems, which never fails to amaze me.

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Derek Shulman on Gentle Giant's writing approach
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