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In music : Jon Anderson featuring the Band Geeks - Perpetual Change

 We Hear A Sound and Altering Our Returning The two old men at the back of the theatre were curious, what would the young guns make of their music. ------------------------- For years Jon has been deconstructing or reimagining live the work which he has made his name with. Not unlike many people holed up in 2020/21, he decided on a different tack, lets go back to the source, play the 70's music with a bunch of guys who have the musical intellect to find the original music and give it new life.  By find, I mean find the spirit of the music as it was designed as William Bruford used to say. As we are talking drums Andy Ascolese strikes me as someone one who understands Bill's space and brevity better than anyone bar Dylan Howe, whilst sounding, not playing, like a rock drummer. He also has a ton of energy. But there are moments where in the blink of an eye he is an orchcestral percussionist. Nothing, and then a statement of the tune, rhythmically, or a brief clatter around ...
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Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks -True

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There are really just two questions for me, Is the organiser back.  Has he opened the door and entered the House of Castellano or merely thrown some fairy dust over it.  The Organiser In 1980, when the tectonic plates of Yes shifted, shaking the very foundations that had driven them to such incredible heights, the roots of the earthquake lay with Jon. He had decided he was no longer "the organiser" but a song writer, who wanted to make more spontaneous music.  In 2023 he returned to an idea he had pursued on two previous occasions; to re-establish himself at the fore front of Yes's most demanding music, the music that has become known as the main sequence. So, he dialled B for Band Geeks.  They and Jon delighted everyone on their tour last spring, receiving standing ovations wherever they went. The idea then begins to spin around in Jon's mind about another possibility; new music with the young Turks who played the classics with such elan, energy, flair and skill....
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John Holden - Proximity and Chance

  A Full House  Note  This will be my first review under my Nom De Plume as a writer. I would like to thank all those who have read my blog over the years. It has now passed fifty thousand views despite recent modest activity. My intention is to broaden its subject matter as well as talk about my up and coming novel, "Hermes" the history it delves into, the speculations it offers and the conclusions one draws from a study of the past and the developing future.  Proximity and Chance   The emergence of this new project from John made me both excited but nervous, much like the previous one. The reason is simple after being so thrilled by his previous work and his evolution as a musician I was concerned whether he could maintain the momentum and offer something new and interesting, which genuinely added to his canon. I need not have worried.    Rather than a track by track and musician call out I am going to offer a more organic less Germanic review, m...
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Trevor Rabin - Rio

  There's a fire burning When you are fifty years in to your exploration of music, the same rules apply as they do to all the elements of your life, almost. It's not quite expand or die, more expand, circle or die.  From my first single (Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, Dancing in The Street) to yesterday’s Radio 3 jewels, gems and mysteries and everywhere in between I have been trying to hear music better. I hear harmonics, progressions and melodic connections that I could not have begun to appreciate in 1968. The nuances are more apparent, the structure clearer and yet ultimately, like all art, more than anything in 2023, I want to be moved and touched. What of the other side of the equation, the musician whose age I share? Trevor’s stated intent for his first solo vocal project since 1989, was to grow his musical vocabulary and try literally anything and see what happens. At an intellectual level, my one burning question was, would he be able to deploy all the e...
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John Holden - Sakusei no tayasu-sa (Ease of Creation).

  Kintsugi With John's fourth project he has moved into an area rarely inhabited by the kind of bands that he and I share an interest in. Bands become a victim of their own momentum and feed on themselves. John, on the other hand, has no other consideration than to make music.  I have been thinking of artists that set aside naked ambition and just instinctively create. The Beatles "White Album" written in Rishikesh has that feel. Joni Mitchell's "Hijira" is more focused than "Hissing"; it feels more naked, more to the point, as if you get a more clearly distilled vision of the artist. Perhaps Steve Winwood's "Arc of a Diver" is an artist arriving at a destination, rather than striving restlessly for more 'something.' Thats what I feel I am receiving with Kintsugi. Part of that is because John has taken more personal responsibility over the playing and part is due to his absolute determination to feed the songs rather than the ...
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Alan White - Lights Out

  Alan White When Chris Welch commented on Bill Bruford leaving Yes in the summer of 1972 he said it was like Rolls quitting Royce.    Over the years since then all the talk has been about how complex Yes's music was by then and what a mammoth task it was for Alan to come in and learn all that stuff in a few days which he did in time for Dallas. That was only a small part of the story the reality was the way Bill and Chris worked was entirely atypical.  To break into that required a complete rethink for the entire band. Chris towards the end, on the fortieth anniversary of the Yes Album acknowledged that. Rick in late '72 found the change unsettling. It was as if the foundations of a building had been completely remodelled and the upper floors didn't sit properly afterwards.  When you sat in the Wembley Arena in 1977 and listened to Alan count in Starship Trooper you knew the journey had been ...
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Tiger Moth Tales - Spring Fever.

  Time Won't Wait For You and Me. I have to admit as the years role on for music to get passed my defences gets harder and harder. When I am becalmed somewhere in the world the sound track to my day is BBC Radio 3. Extra ordinary sonata's, symphonies, sacred music, jazz tumble out of my beloved Sonos. Today Janacek, Sibelius, Vaughn Williams all floated up into my loft. If I want to set the agenda it might be Holly Cole, Streisand, Sinatra as the sun falls out of the sky and supper beckons.  Jan Garabek, Jaco Pastorious, Hilliard Ensemble one could go on. I left tons of my teenage music behind years ago but if the stars collide I would happily sit in the theatre in "Chippy" and revel in the warmth of Fairport or the Nettlebed Folk Club where I have seen Home Service. So scene set whats this TMT like. Peter Jones Tiger Moth Tales has got behind my defences and its utterly wonderful.  When I listen to his bravura p...
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