Time And A Word

Yes/1970

There was a time, the late ‘60s and early ‘70s specifically, when rock bands routinely hooked up with orchestras. Think of it as a rather high-brow jam session. The bands (made up of many classically trained, artsy-fartsy British musicians) figured it was a good way to pump up their artistic street cred. Thus, bands like The Moody Blues, Deep Purple, The Nice and others pursued this risky musical experimentation at least for one album. And not always with a great deal of success. Another such band was Yes. After their somewhat tentative yet brimming-with-potential debut album, the self-titled Yes, it was time to ratchet things up in the “serious” and “deep” departments. In other words, time to call the guys in tuxedos. Now, in the case of previously mentioned Deep Purple and their Concerto for Group and Orchestra album, rock band and orchestra simply fought each other like two extremely loud pugilists duking it out in the ring. With Time and a Word, the orchestra tends to just get in the way. And, as with things that get in the way, there’s a possibility you’ll stumble over them. The album gets off to a promising start with opening track “No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed,” as frantic strings and bombastic horns immediately propel the music forward. But once we get to the Big Valley-ish western theme music in the middle section, the orchestra becomes more of a drag (as in a drag on the forward motion of the track). This sense of drag is indicative of the entire album. Although the band/orchestra combination is slightly more seamless in subsequent epics like “Then,” “Everydays” or “The Prophet,” you’re still left with the feeling that if the band could just get that orchestra off its back, things would really heat up. And, as evidenced by bonus tracks minus the orchestra on the recently remastered CD, that feeling is probably accurate. There’s a noticeable energy and vibrancy to the tracks sans orchestra and one can only wonder what the entire album would have sounded like. Oh, well. It was a valiant experiment in its day. However, regardless of the orchestra issue, Yes had come a long way from their debut in terms of songwriting and performing. The classic Yes template was starting to seriously gel, with ingeniously arranged multi-section tracks, recurring musical themes, indecipherable lyrics and those choirboy vocals/harmonies of Jon Anderson. Chris Squire’s dominating Rickenbacker bass is right were it belongs – up front and in your face – while guitarist Peter Banks (this would be his final appearance on a Yes album) plays some of his most explosive fret work. Evidently it was his dismay over the orchestra drowning out his guitar in the album’s final mix that caused Banks to ultimately leave the band. Organist Tony Kaye and drummer Bill Bruford would also be gone within a year or so. But Yes rebounded nicely from the misstep that many believe Time and a Word to be. By late ’71, they would release their masterpiece Fragile, the album that catapulted them to the upper echelons of rock star fame and fortune. By then, Yes would no longer need the heavy-handed orchestration that hampered Time and a Word. New keyboard man Rick Wakeman – with his Mellotrons and synthesizers – would be able to handle the orchestration just fine by himself.

Recommended tracks: “No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed” “Then” “Sweet Dreams” “The Prophet” “Astral Traveler”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep5_HL9A_PA

Fragile

Yes/1971

Yes indeed, by late-1971 the world was certainly ready for these guys. The smoke had begun to clear from the cultural explosion of the 1960s and it was now time to move full speed ahead into the shiny new decade. And Yes was just the band to lead the charge. Having gradually evolved their sound with the first two Yes albums, they ultimately established the classic Yes template on their third album, The Yes Album. The formula went something like this: Extended, multi-section songs with mind-jarring twists and turns; played with the dexterous expertise of musicians like nimble-fingered guitarist Steve Howe, fingers flying all over the place; firmly anchored by Chris Squire’s Rickenbacker bass thump, offset by drummer Bill Bruford’s busy tapping; all cushioned by Tony Kaye’s thick Hammond organ and the ever-chirping high-pitched vocals of Jon Anderson. Yet, something still wasn’t quite right. The expansive new music being prepared for Fragile demanded a broader multi-colored sound palette, one that organist Kaye just wasn’t providing. So, out with Kaye and in with keyboard maestro Rick Wakeman, complete with organ, piano, synthesizer and mellotron among other sundry ivories to tickle. Now, for those who can’t quite stomach hearing lead-off track “Roundabout” played yet again on classic rock radio, put it into proper perspective. At the time, “Roundabout” was totally unique, a breath of fresh air featuring all that was good about Yes. The strong melody gallops along on the back of Squire’s rollicking bass riff, with Howe’s guitar piercing in and out while rookie member Wakeman let’s loose with a couple scorching organ solos – all decorated with those choir-boy vocals and harmonies. Played to death on FM radio? Sadly, yes. But still an amazing, timeless track when heard in the right frame of mind. Sprinkled throughout Fragile are little solo snippets featuring individual members doing their own thing. But it is the two other Yes epics that ensure this album's iconic status. “South Side of the Sky” is probably as heavy as Yes ever got, with its churning verses and soaring choruses interrupted by Wakeman’s stately grand piano interlude and those ethereal Yes harmonies, before chugging back into the ominous, ice-cold main riff. Then there is “Heart of the Sunrise,” the first true Yes epic, setting the stage for many epics to come. The massive King Crimson-ish opening guitar/bass line grabs your attention much like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat might. This shock gives way to the first of appearance of Wakeman’s ghostly and gorgeous mellotron on a Yes album, as the spooky string-section-from-another-planet floats and drifts for a brief yet beautiful pause in the intensity – before the crazy riff kicks back in and delivers your ears to Anderson’s angelic, gentle first verse:

“Love comes to you
And you follow
Lose one
On to the heart of the sunrise
Sharp, distance
How can the wind
With its arms all around me”

Not sure what it all means (a common reaction to Jon Anderson’s lyrics) but it sounds nice. The arrangement meanders from verses to chorus, before segueing through Wakeman’s quirky synthesizer and piano sections and the recurring head-banger of an opening riff, before a grand climax in which Anderson is literally singing his heart out. If the word “masterpiece” could be applied to anything in the entire Yes cannon, it should be tagged onto this near-perfect 11-minute slice of prog sweetness. And a fitting finale it is. Fragile was a huge artistic, commercial and critical success, an album at the right time (1971, though released here in early ’72) and in the right place (the USA, with an audience enthusiastically willing to jump on the prog bandwagon). According to some sources, Fragile spent an astonishing 46 weeks on the Billboard album charts, peaking at #4. The first Yes album to feature the fantasy artwork of Roger Dean (he would create the next five Yes album covers), Fragile got everything right and propelled the band into the upper stratosphere of early-‘70s rock stardom and stadium-sized gigs. But, much like the planet exploding into pieces on the back of the album cover, Yes would soon face a splintering of its own personnel – not to mention a rapidly changing musical landscape, with attitudes soon to become highly critical of anything remotely connected with Progressive Rock.

Essential Tracks: “Roundabout” “South Side of the Sky” “Long Distance Runaround” “Heart of the Sunrise”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJn_4grTKlA

Tales From Topographic Oceans

Yes/1974

Since we’re on the subject of concept albums…might as well haul out the mother of ‘em all, Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes. First, let’s dispense with the usual puns associated with this album: they were in over their heads, adrift in a sea of pomposity, a band drowning in their own self-indulgence, etc., etc. A stunning artistic achievement or an orgiastic example of Prog excess? You be the judge. After a string of popular, pushing-the-musical-envelope albums including The Yes Album, Fragile and Close to the Edge, the band was on a roll and in peak form – the newly crowned kings of a fresh new genre that, believe it or not, was actually looked upon with approval by most rock critics at the time (even those notoriously anti-British writers at Rolling Stone). Upon completing their Close to the Edge tour in 1973, Yes hunkered down in the studio and embarked on a project to let it all hang out – immersing themselves in a concept based on the Shastric scriptures, from the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Not exactly a hip topic amongst your typically stoned, drunk-out-of-their-minds rock audiences back then. You can almost hear the collective “Huh??” This was heavy stuff, indeed, set to four album-side musical epics stretched over two pieces of vinyl (a double album), each slowly unfolding (some would say aimlessly meandering) like a long, lazy river of oblique lyrics, occasional mellotron passages, helped along by some killer guitar riffs from Steve Howe to prevent anyone from nodding off. Missing here were Bill Bruford’s laser-like, jazzy drum patterns (he left the previous year to join King Crimson), replaced by pounder Alan White’s more basic hammer-time style. These four massive pieces, with snappy titles like “The Revealing Science of God,” started off slowly, took their good ol’ time getting up to cruising speed, before finally (some would say mercifully) coming to an end. The usual Yes penchant for pristine harmonies, strong melodies, ingenious arrangements and expert musicianship was still there in full glory…provided you were extremely patient and had some time to kill. But when you make it to Side 3 and 4, there’s the uncomfortable feeling that ideas are running dry, with a little too much instrumental noodling here and tribal drum beating there – all, it seemed, just to fill up the obvious spare time and space. Monumental mistake or masterpiece? Then as now, opinions were intensely divided. Hardcore Yes fans launched their crusade to defend Topographic Oceans while fair-weather fans abandoned ship (and most likely never bought another Yes album). It’s hard to believe there was once an era in popular music when an album of this depth (sorry, couldn’t resist) and artistic audacity would actually be released by a major record company (Atlantic Records). Ah, the early '70s. What heady times they were – even though such risky musical expeditions could quite often become a voyage of the damned.

Essential Tracks: “The Revealing Science of God,” “The Remembering (High the Memory)”

U. K.

U. K./1978

The winds of change howled back in the late ‘70s. A major paradigm shift was slamming the glittery, glammy universe that was rock music. Younger and much poorer musicians were now looking upon the era’s wealthy celebrity rock stars (along with their “dinosaur” bands that came of age in the late ‘60s) with extreme disdain. Okay, hatred. These young musical revolutionaries – many of whom couldn’t even play an instrument, but had dead-on aim when spitting on members of their audience – would teach those old codgers a thing or two, and bring back the fire and passion they believed was lacking in rock music. Not exactly the best time to form a Progressive Rock super group, is it. Enter U.K., four battle-tested veterans from previous Prog giants: drummer Bill Bruford (King Crimson, Yes), bassist/vocalist John Wetton (Family, King Crimson), guitarist Alan Holdsworth (Soft Machine) and keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson (Curved Air, Roxy Music, Frank Zappa). Inhabiting an alternate universe that ignored the changing musical landscape, U. K. (the album) was a Prog lover’s wet dream, a final brief shining moment of ingeniously arranged, multi-part epics like “In the Dead of Night,” the sneaky, meandering instrumental “Alaska” and the jazz-meets-pomp of “Nevermore.” All played with extreme precision and dazzling instrumental interplay – stuff only guys who had been around the block a few times with their instruments could pull off. All four were obviously expert players in their own right. Problem was Bruford’s jazzy, scittering drum patterns and Holdsworth’s fluid fret work drifted further into jazz fusion territory, while Jobson’s twiddly, classical keyboard style and Wetton’s massive, distorted bass thud landed firmly in the heavy-duty Prog camp. In other words, it was all too good to last. After their debut album, U. K. split in two, with expatriates Bruford and Holdsworth forming another band (called Bruford) to more freely exercise their jazzier tendencies. Jobson and Wetton soldiered on with a new drummer, and U. K. was now a keyboard power trio – carrying the cross for a couple more albums before laying it down for good and moving on. The late ‘70s became the early ‘80s, MTV emerged on everyone’s 19-inch sets, and rock music evolved into big hair bands, synth-pop purveyors and futuristic new wavers. But, much like the title of the closing track on U. K., “Mental Medication,” these four musicians were the perfect prescription for an era on life support…before the plug was finally pulled on '70s Prog.

Essential Tracks: “In the Dead of Night” “Alaska” “Time to Kill” “Mental Medication”