Rick Wakeman
Kerry Minnear
Danny Manners
Larry Fast
Andy Giddings
 

my personal favorites,
who did not have to battle for 1st place in the 'best prog keyboarder of all time' contest.
;)
richard wright
tony banks
vangelis
eddie jobson
joe zawinu
robin lumley

paulo
That Rudess fella seems to know the black ones from the white ones.

I guess the forum rules on 'no politics' has been abandoned then?
 
 
I slay me.

- Adam Holzman (Steven Wilson's go-to KB collaborator) - this one gets my official vote
 
but also there's:
 
- don't have a name, but the KB guy in Big Big Train is brilliant
- John Evan of Jethro Tull - maybe not in the running for *best* but certainly deserving of honorable mention
- Tomas Bodin of the Flower Kings certainly merits mention in this discussion
 
I must confess I'm not familiar with the names Dave Greenslade, Danny Manners, or Gleb Kolyadin, but I may know the groups with whom they play.  Google here I come.
 
Edit: Danny Meyers of Big Big Train ... of course ... what I said earlier!

In terms of strictly technical chops, Jordan Rudess is an overclocked, quantized MIDI sequencer in human form. Nothing but awe for that guy's fingers. He's also a great guy and a generous teacher. But after I bought his tribute to classic synth songs without hesitation, I actually only listened to it once. Somehow, he'd managed to make Tarkus sound even more mechanical than the machine-like original. Had to put on Emerson's version to flush my ears.
 
More important is what the keyboard player adds to the song and to the band. Rick Wright embodies that ideal, and that's someone I can listen to for hours.
 
Wakeman, however, gets my vote for the top spot, having both the chops and musical sensibility. He may be past his prime today, but his material from the 70's (e.g. Six Wives, Center of the Earth) will be long-remembered as classics. 
 
I have to say, though, that I've stolen more licks from Dave Greenslade than anybody else.

bitflipper
 
More important is what the keyboard player adds to the song and to the band. Rick Wright embodies that ideal, and that's someone I can listen to for hours.
 
Wakeman, however, gets my vote for the top spot, having both the chops and musical sensibility. He may be past his prime today, but his material from the 70's (e.g. Six Wives, Center of the Earth) will be long-remembered as classics. 
 

I remember thinking what a blow it was when Wakeman left the Strawbs, but his replacement Blue Weaver really melded with the band in a way Rick never did. Blue Weaver could have made my list. He went on to make a fortune with the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever.

jamesg1213
Of course Wakeman also played piano on some iconic pop hits in the '60s and '70s. His piano on Cat Steven's Morning Has Broken is just beautiful

Life on Mars.


 

i don't consider classic purple prog at all.
 
good heavy blues and rock,
with a touch of the classical thrown in.
 
love john lord's playing,
but would never consider it prog.
 

emeraldsoul
I'm just gonna throw Lyle Mays into this, even though fluid jazz fusion isn't prog rock, either.

I think the genre was never strictly defined back in the 70's and progressive was used to define things that were, well progressive and it was a pretty broad church. Latterly the term has become Prog and got stricter and is used to define a narrower band of music, I still like the old definition. A lot of later Prog is not that progressive at all.
 
 
 

Just been listening to Beardfish, Rikard Sjöblom's keyboard playing is exceptional. I knew him primarily from his guitar (and occasional) keyboard work with Big Big Train, but did not realise quite how good he is on keys.

bitflipperMore important is what the keyboard player adds to the song and to the band. Rick Wright embodies that ideal, and that's someone I can listen to for hours.

 
Case in point: David Gilmour's Live in Gdansk.  Wright played on that album and the interplay between the two at the end of "Echoes" was just sublime.
 

Well. Prog magazine's results are out. They have published the top 50, which I am not going to type out here. But here is the top 10
 
1 Keith Emerson
2 Rick Wakeman
3 Tony Banks
4 Richard Wright
5 Jordan Rudess
6 Mark Kelly
7 Patric Moraz
8 Geoff Downes
9 Derek Sherinian
10 Jon Lord
 
Of the newer artists the terrifically talented Russian Gleb Kolyadin makes it to 15, how well would he have done without the nostalgia element? At 29 he is the youngest in the list.
 
Geddy Lee is no 19!
 
Some other favorites of mine
21 Martin Orford
24 Dave Greenslade
31 Danny Manners
34 Vincent Crane
 
There are some interesting stat at the end of the article. By sales (solo and with bands) the top three would be 1 Richard Wright, 2 Tony Banks, 3 Rick Wakeman (I wonder if this includes Wakeman's session work?)
 
52% British, 22% USA. 4% Canada.
 
70% had first appeared on record before 1980 and only 6% since 2000, this probably says as much about the voting demographic as anything else.
 
 
 
 
 

70% had first appeared on record before 1980 and only 6% since 2000, this probably says as much about the voting demographic as anything else.

Another possible factor...
 
8 years ago Prog Magazine said Rudess was #1. Since then, two of the four guys above him on today's list have died. Jordan just needs to kick the bucket to reclaim the top spot.