BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

Anderson Ponty Band

Crossover Prog

3.66 | 55 ratings

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Evolver
Special Collaborator
Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams

It's here at last!

Last year, Jon Anderson and Jean-Luc Ponty announced that they were finally bringing to fruition an idea they had a few decades ago of joining together on a joint project. One Kickstarter site and some months later, their album is here.

Taken from a live concert, and enhanced with studio magic, the set consists mostly of the duo's well known songs arranged for this group's strengths. The Yes compositions are given a fusion treatment, and arranging Ponty's songs with Anderson's unique vocals and lyrics was done artfully, and elevates the songs.

The album, a live set as I mentioned, starts out very good, and just gets better as they go along (a common occurrence with fusion sets). Hearing what Ponty could do with the Yes material interested me the most. [i]Owner Of A Lonely Heart [/i] is played a bit too similarly to the original, but the violin fills do make the song better. [i]Time And A Word[/i] works as a straight reggae vehicle, but the simplistic form of the genre will most likely relegate this track to the songs I only play at parties.

[i]Wonderous Stories[/i] and a truncated [i]And You And I[/i] benefit greatly from the jazz piano played on each. And [i]Roundabout[/i] played fusion style rocked a little bit less, but at the same tine retained it's power.

I enjoy all of the Ponty compositions, as well, but I have to give extra props to [i]Renaissance Of The Sun[/i] (originally [i]Renaissance[/i] from the great "Aurora" album), one of my favorite of his tracks, with wonderful Anderson vocals.

My only wish now is that the two stay together and come up with new compositions that are unique to this pairing.

Evolver | 4/5 | 2015-9-19

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