THE STEVE HOWE ALBUM

I deeply admire Steve Howe's work in YES but I find this album (and what I've heard from his solo output in general) mostly an unnecessary showcase of various music styles to show Howe's early influences and playing skills. A couple of jolly rags, a slow movement of a VIVALDI concerto, an instrumental version of a 30's film tune, etc.

The guest players include YES-men Bruford, White and Moraz. Luckily Howe himself sings only briefly on one track, 'All's A Chord', but he could have employed more than one guest singer. Claire Hamill sings the only actual rock song 'Look Over Your Shoulder', which for me is easily the most exciting number here. 'Double Rondo' is an 8-minute original composition for a guitar and a symphony orchestra (Howe was not the orchestrator) followed by the peaceful baroque number to finish the album in a 'serious' way. Though I'm not fond of this kind of musical quilt, I round my 2½ -star rating upwards since all tracks by themselves are quite well produced, and I believe this to be from the better part of his discography. As an exhibit of his songwriting (or album-writing!) abilities this collection of tunes would give a notably lower mark.