{"id":21094,"date":"2012-07-19T04:00:31","date_gmt":"2012-07-19T10:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=21094"},"modified":"2013-02-06T08:33:21","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T13:33:21","slug":"jon-lord-obituary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2012\/jon-lord-obituary\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Lord Obituary"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alissa Ordabai<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jon Lord: 1941 – 2012<\/h3>\n

\"\"Jon Lord took you outside of the mundane, the familiar, and the clich\u00e9d. Where rock guitar in the 60’s was busy constructing and establishing the essential, basic paradigms of the genre, his keyboard gave it extra dimension, lifted it outside of the rigid framework, and also gave it proper muso cred. When Lord was soloing on those early Deep Purple tracks, you could tell that here was someone who\u2019s had classical sensibility, but still chose to dedicate himself to the emerging new genre. And his quick-witted, erudite solos always sounded a like a huge compliment to rock \u2019n roll. While the guitar has always been a party instrument, the keyboard was something different \u2013 with legacy stretching all the way to classical music, the baroque, and the romantic era. <\/p>\n

Far from being a trophy classical musician supplying superficial tonal credibility to the music of the working class, Lord\u2019s impact on rock was inspiring on a constructive, ground-breaking level. His playing wasn\u2019t just a classy, exotic ornament to the band\u2019s music \u2013 it was the indelible part of its essence. Here was someone who \u2013 despite his classical background \u2013 took full-heartedly to rock. His intelligent, thoughtful interaction with Blackmore\u2019s leads on such gems as \u201cChild in Time\u201d and \u201cHighway Star\u201d opened the door to a larger vision of the band and of the genre, later to be explored by Yes, ELP, and other progressive bands. A vital connection between the classical heritage and rock \u2019n roll, Lord from day one has been a true rocker \u2013 spontaneous, authentic, and dedicated to taking Western music and Western culture to a new level. <\/p>\n

He pursued his classical aspirations outside of the Deep Purple career starting from his first 1972 album Gemini Suite<\/em>, and later on Sarabande<\/em> in 1975 and Pictures from Within<\/em> in 1997. But he will always be remembered for being the pioneer of hard rock \u2013 the cerebral counterpart to the visceral, the thoughtful elaboration complimenting the primal instinct, the classically trained musician who never looked down on rock music, but made it a multi-faceted, fascinating phenomenon with depth and vision which sustain it to this day. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alissa Ordabai – Senior Columnist — Jon Lord: 1941 – 2012 Jon Lord took you outside of the mundane, the familiar, and the clich\u00e9d. Where rock guitar in the 60’s was busy constructing and […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6971],"tags":[2378,201,2902,519],"class_list":{"0":"post-21094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main-articles","7":"tag-deep-purple","8":"tag-editorial","9":"tag-jon-lord","10":"tag-obituary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}