Progressive Epics. Classical Suites. Extended Jazz Improvisations. Some songs are just long, y’know—a matinee feature all to themselves. In this ongoing series, MusicTAP presents the best of long-form musical accompaniment for your weekend moods.
How do you take a perfect studio album and raise the bar in live performance? Touring the superb Bridge Across Forever in 2001, Transatlantic injected a bit of Fab into their set by folding the entirety of The Beatles’ Abbey Road medley—from “You Never Give Me Your Money” to “Her Majesty”—into their “Suite Charlotte Pike.” For a song already containing the lyric “Becoming the Beatle inside of me,” it was the only melodic conclusion. The result is…well, a lot of fun. It’s not like we ever got a performance like this from The Beatles themselves, so it’s a treat to hear the incredible musicianship of Transatlantic brought to bear with all the heart of lifelong fandom. It’s also a masterclass in arrangement, as the Abbey Road epic built piecemeal undergoes further construction for an almost-seamless fit with the “Pike” bits.