One of my workmates is a huge Prog fan. He has enlightened me to the massive scale of Italian prog. I am quite frankly amazed at how many Italian prog bands there have been.
Its given my funny bone the itch to write a song called "Prog is big in Italy"
PFM & Magma?
Prog like fusion, jazz & blues was killed when it become homogenized for the masses from bands like Asia (sorry Uwe), Late Genesis, Journey & Kansas. They tried to bring women to concerts, imagine that!
I remember reading an interview with Phil Collins talking about how horrible it was having a male only audience. Homogenization & compromise kill any genre, like a lot of the post punk bands who have the look, but music is top 40 & inoffensive.
I remember when Weather Report, "Birdland", Pat Metheney & smooth jazz came out. It was cool to go to a lawn concert with your wine coolers and tell people how much you love jazz. They had women who were fans.
Kenny G, John Tesche & Yanni were really hot.