As Jon Anderson goes on tour with jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty to promote their recent album, music fans are beginning to discover who the adventurous members of the jazz/rock band Yes actually were. While the legendary band tours around the states without their original vocalist, the musicians stick to strict note by note replications of their songs and opuses. In contrast, Anderson teams with the Mahavishnu alumnus to re-interpret their best known pieces with swing, improvisations, and what’s more, originality.
Indeed, the team of Anderson and Ponty with Jamie Glaser/g, Rayford Griffin/dr, Keith Jones/b and Wally Minko/key joined together to deliver Yes “hits” like “Long Distance Runaround” “And You and I” and “Owner of A Lonely Heart,” but the delivery was infused with a flexibility and inquisitiveness that made the songs sound fresher than the simple retread of another “reunion” tour. Anderson, still in amazingly rich and 3 dimensioned voice, poured new wine into the wineskins of these songs. Respectively, Anderson created Indian ragas, Weather Report world and rollicking pulses on these Baby Boomer hits while new material such as “New New World” re-affirmed the singers defiant optimism about life on this earth and beyond.
For his role, Ponty’s violin added extra textures and a vibrant pulse to pieces such as “Time and A Word,” while his instrumentals created foot stomping and heel clicking themes as vehicles for spontaneity. Jones and Ponty delivered a tour de force improvisation on “Jig” that brought the audience to a enthusiastic standing ovation while “New Country” had the violin master create chorus after chorus of rousing ideas. Freshening up his past, he returned to his popular “Renaissance” but with the extra lyrics provided by Anderson to mix the sighing strings with Anderson’s uplifting messages of hope.
And hope there was plenty of this night in Agoura, as Ponty and Anderson showed that you can look back and move forward at the same time.
Upcoming shows at the Canyon Club and Saban Theatre include Todd Rundgren May 5, The Temptations May 6, Justin Hayward June 12, Al DiMeola June 16, Carl Palmer July 8 and The Yardbirds July 21.