Anderson

The final volume in the acclaimed series with Malcolm Martineau, charting the complete songs of French composer Gabriel Fauré and performed by a selection of the world’s finest singers. This series follows Martineau’s heralded 5-CD series of The Complete Songs of Francis Poulenc.

John Roy Anderson (born 25 October 1944), known professionally as Jon Anderson, is an English-American singer and songwriter best known as the former lead singer of the progressive rock band Yes, which he formed in 1968 with bassist Chris Squire. He was a member of the band across three tenures until 2008. Anderson was also a member of Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman…

Two years after Thick as a Brick 2, an explicit 2012 sequel to the 1972 prog classic, Ian Anderson embarked on another ambitious journey, this time assembling a concept record called Homo Erraticus. A loose – very loose – album based on a "dusty, unpublished manuscript, written by local amateur historian Ernest T. Parritt (1873-1928)," Homo Erraticus is an old-fashioned prog record: it has narrative heft and ideas tied to the '70s, where jazz, classical, folk, orchestral pop, and rock all commingled in a thick, murky soup…

Part string quartet, part radio play, part sound installation, Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet’s Landfall takes us on a journey through the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which battered the Caribbean and the mainland United States in October 2012. Anderson is a thoughtful sound artist, blending electronic and acoustic music with voice narration to tell her tale of loss and destruction. Poignant moments include “Thunder Continues in the Aftermath,” a haunting echo of the departing storm with stunning digital effects, and the vivid, spine-tingling “Helicopters Hang Over Downtown.” The simple, narrated “Everything Is Floating” transforms tragedy into unexpected beauty.

11/14/2011 - London, UK - As a follow-up to their critically acclaimed CD 'The Living Tree' from 2010, YES legends Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman prepare to release 'Anderson / Wakeman - The Living Tree In Concert Part One' on Gonzo Multimedia on November 28th. The CD was recorded during the duo's British tour in 2010 and comes housed in a sleeve design by Mark Wilkinson who was also responsible for the design of the artwork for 'The Living Tree'…

This seeks to be a good-time record while maintaining the musical intelligence that listeners should expect from Anderson. "Putting the cookies on a lower shelf" can be dangerous if the artists are too busy worrying about public taste to do any real cooking, but it's obvious from the start that the players (Amina Claudine Myers, organ, piano; Jerome Harris, guitar; Lonnie Plaxico, bass; Tommy Campbell, drums) are having a blast themselves. I can't imagine any complaints about anyone's contributions instrumentally. The rhythm team swings, Anderson sounds just great, Myers and Harris shine throughout, and the trombone-organ-guitar ensembles are downright dangerous. The four vocal tracks feature Myers and Anderson solo and in tandem: gutsy, extroverted performances of intelligent lyrics by Jackie Raven. This music is hard to describe but it's natural and infectious, somewhat comparable to Mose Allison, but hotter.

The show begins with an abbreviated version of "Long Distance Runaround," with just Anderson and his acoustic guitar. "Yours is No Disgrace" is unrecognizable, as Anderson turns it into an alternative acoustic rock song, which has its own sense of urgency and takes a classic Yes song that he's done who knows how many times, and turns it on its head- a very interesting cover of his own work…

The Secret Language of Birds is Ian Anderson's third solo album, but the first to specifically highlight his melodic skill and guitar prowess on a set of folk-inspired songs. His first solo album, 1983's Walk into Light, was marred by its full embrace of sterile '80s production in lieu of rusticity. While his second effort, 1995's Divinities, was a move in the right direction and a sonic precursor to the set at hand, it still was held back by its conscious decision to downplay Anderson's obvious acoustic heritage for a more classical bent. But sometimes the obvious is what works best, and Jethro Tull fans were pleased to learn that Anderson's third release finally embraced his classic sound. Just like Tull's excellent Roots to Branches, this one has a decided ethnic flair, running the gamut from Indian to Russian to Celtic.