A full quarter-century after the 1969 record debut of Yes, diehard fans of the prototypical progressive-rock band suddenly have four new albums to investigate: a one-volume career retrospective, a concert tape rescued from the vaults, a new collection from guitar ace Steve Howe and a recording featuring key Yes alumni performing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA; "Symphonic Music of Yes" (RCA Victor). * * *
A few weeks back Billboard, the music industry weekly, revamped the system it uses to rank classical and classical-crossover music. "Symphonic Music of Yes" shot to No. 1.
Which is it - justice or sacrilege? If the original music of Yes was art-rock for art-rock's sake, what is it when already-grandiose pop fantasies are bolstered by a full symphony orchestra?
Sonic wizard Alan Parsons produced and engineered the sessions with the London Philharmonic, which was conducted by David Palmer, who handled the arrangements on the Yes chestnuts as well. The English Chamber Orchestra and the London Community Gospel Choir provided additional grandeur. And the cover art is by old Yes-cohort Roger Dean - a red-rock elephant-arch scene one wouldn't be surprised to run across in Canyonlands.
But the wisest move was to enlist distinctive vocalist Jon Anderson, percussionist Bill Bruford and guitarist par excellence Steve Howe (who performs on every track) to imbue trademarks like "Roundabout," "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and the early epic "Starship Trooper" with that unmistakable Yes-ness that made them popular in the first place.
The album even includes "Close to the Edge" - but at 7 minutes, 38 seconds, this is a Reader's Digest version of what was an almost 19-minute classic of its kind. Where the original 1972 fantasy had an elegiac pace in places, this one seems compressed and hurried.
With an orchestra at hand, the flourishes of keyboardists Rick Wakeman and Tony Kaye may have seemed less necessary - but the overall result is the kind of quandary that faces those who have to choose between the Nutrasweet of Diet Coke and the full-caloric rush of the Real Thing: While "Symphonic Music of Yes" is grandly lush, it's still only an acceptable substitute; the album will only compel true fans to dig out, spin and luxuriate in the originals.
YES; "Highlights - The Very Best of Yes" (Atlantic). * * * 1/2
And speaking of the originals, here they are. Atlantic Records, Yes' home for the first 15 evolutionary years, has collected the most familiar and, of necessity, relatively brief and radio friendly tracks in a single package.
The American breakthrough "I've Seen All Good People," including the chess-inspired subsection "Your Move," is included, as well as earlier songs that hinted of Yes' progressive future, such as "Survival" from the 1969 debut album, with Anderson's high, flighty vocals, and the three-part "Starship Trooper" from 1970's "The Yes Album," signaling the arrival and addition of Howe. And then come the classics: "Roundabout," "Wonderous Stories," "Going for the One," the chart-topping "Owner of a Lonely Heart," "Leave It," "Rhythm of Love."
More than a few notable short tracks are missing: the delightful cover of the Beatles' "Every Little Thing" is among them, as is the remake of Paul Simon's "America," perhaps thankfully. But building a one-volume anthology around a group famed for its long-form impressionistic fantasies had to be even more challenging.
As a result, "Highlights - the Very Best of Yes" offers no samples whatsoever from "Close to the Edge" (which is unfortunate), "Relayer" or "Tales from Topographic Oceans" (which isn't all that regrettable).
Like a trench-specked archaeological dig, "Highlights" reveals the history of Yes in intermittent segments. The anthology manages to present a serviceable overview of a band that evolved, through time and a constantly shifting personnel roster, from a promising late-'60s British pop unit to a groundbreaking progressive-rock collective in the '70s and finally to pop-single success with a tighter yet still grand style in the '80s.
"An Evening of Yes Music Plus," featuring Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe (Herald-Fragile-Caroline Records). * * *
While "An Evening of Yes Music Plus" stars four of the most prominent Yes-men, it's actually a recorded relic from 1989. That was the year the quartet released "Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe" - legally not a Yes album perhaps, but Yes-ish all the same.
ABWH were four-fifths of the early '70s lineup that created the classic albums "Fragile" and "Close to the Edge," but in their wanderings and wafflings over the years they lost rights to the Yes name. That's now the property of original bassist Chris Squire (the other indispensable one-fifth) and his more recent Yes colleagues. The courts decided, however, that Anderson et al. had a right to perform their old music and advertise their origins - and so we have an album titled "An Evening of Yes Music Plus" that is really by ABWH, though it only obliquely says so.
Heritage, a new imprint from Caroline Records, has gone all out to give Yes adherents a quality live album. This is a two-disc, two-hour set on gold CDs, recorded on Sept. 9, 1989, the final concert of the ABWH tour. Like many a Yes album, it gives each of the stars a solo spotlight. Anderson is elfin and acoustic-subdued on a medley including "Time and a Word," "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and "Teakbois." Howe thrills the audience with the virtuosity of the instrumentals "The Clap" and "Mood for a Day." Wakeman wakes everyone up with his keyboards on a trilogy derived from his '70s concept albums "Six Wives of Henry VIII" and "Myths and Legends of King Arthur." Bruford employs drums acoustic and electronic in a feverish poundfest during "Long Distance Runaround."
The concert presents the "Close to the Edge" sonic quilt in its entirety, as well as old favorites like "Starship Trooper" and "And You and I." The ABWH album generated tracks like "Birthright," "Themes" and "Brother of Mine."
STEVE HOWE; "The Grand Scheme of Things" (Relativity). * *
Guitarist Steve Howe demonstrates once again that members of Yes creatively need one another as much as the rest of us need oxygen. Howe's inventive filigrees and riffs are an undeniably integral part of the band's legend, and he shines anew on "The Symphonic Music of Yes" and "An Evening of Yes Music Plus." But without his Yes-mates. . . .
Simply put, "The Grand Scheme of Things" is rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
Which isn't to say Howe doesn't contribute a few new twists. After all, the album has 16 tracks, two-thirds of them instrumentals like the jaunty, acoustic "The Valley of Rocks" and the concluding "Road to One's Self," a bit of melodic haiku on which he performs koto and flute. Howe continues to experiment with guitars and even keyboards, squeezing all manner of traditional styles into a single song.
On the other hand, his nasally vocals are uniformly bland and his lyrics lackluster. His songs may actually make some sense (which can't always be said of those penned by Jon Anderson and Yes,
in which the voice is more an instrument than a conveyor of meaning), but the word-messages here are almost universally tired and even dour.
"Blinded by Science" bemoans "frozen food in cellophane," among other modern "conveniences." "The Fall of Civilization" is a jeremiad declaring that "Man lit the flame/The fall of civil-iza-tion/Women bear the pain/The fall of civilization. . . ."
Howe must have been emerging from a depressive funk when he pulled this album together. Even the title song is more personal therapy than tuneful epic, con-fessing "I was afraid, afraid of the past/The anger wouldn't escape, but now it's gone at last." Music, he decides, is his salvation in the grand scheme of things.
He may be right. Vocals and lyrics aren't, though. Collaboration with talented but volcanic band-mates may be a pain, Steve, but the result can be more satisfying for the rest of us.