Jon Young Thropugh Native Eyes

English singer-songwriter Jon Allen follows up Dead Man’s Suit and Sweet Defeat with his third album, Deep River. The most immediately arresting thing about Jon Allen is his voice, which we can only imagine he has acquired from a Bluesman after beating him in a game of cards in a bar somewhere in New Orleans. Allen’s haunting voice, which sends shivers down the spine, conveys pathos, pain and wisdom in equal measure. If he sang the phone book it would sound profound. Thankfully, Allen has no recourse to such banality, and he has once again assembled a strong collection of thoughtful and striking songs. Deep River, as even the name suggests, has strong blues roots, and the occasional strains of the harmonica shores up the conjured illusion of a wander across the American south.

From the spellbinding majesty of the Alhambra to the thunderous war machine called Conquistadores, Jon Mark has again captured the soul and spirit of a people in his music. The Alhambra was at one time the royal city/fortress of the Moors, looking down over Spanish Granada, with numerous and wonderful palaces, courtyards, fountains, and splenderous gardens. It was built over the course of centuries, and became the birthplace of countless legends of opulence, mighty rulers, intrigue, and romance. As in The Standing Stones of Callanish and Land of Merlin, Jon Mark weaves ancient melodies and rhythms into his electronic tapestry, this time portraying the elegance and grandeur of medieval Spain. With classical guitar accents, sounds of harp, trumpet, and the hot desert wind adding vivid colorings, Alhambra is yet another haunting soundtrack to give wings to ever-nomadic imaginations.

In 1988, Jon Anderson quit Yes for the second time and released his first regular solo album in six years, In The City Of Angels. Stewart Levine, best known for his work with Culture Club, was brought in to produce; Anderson worked with a team of L.A. session stars and wrote a couple of songs with ex-Motown ace Lamont Dozier. All of this seemed to portend a more commercial-sounding, straightahead pop effort from the usually ethereal Anderson. The result is about half and half: when writing with Dozier, Anderson expresses conventional romantic sentiments, for which he doesn't really have a feel. His tenor is so chaste and angelic, it's hard for him to be believable on earthly love songs. And soon enough, especially on later tracks, Anderson is once again in spiritual outer space, where he seems most comfortable. The compromise, however, did not appeal to fans, who avoided this album.

Before I Forget is a 1982 album by Jon Lord, featuring a largely conventional eight-song line-up, no orchestra. The bulk of the songs are either mainstream rock tracks ("Hollywood Rock and Roll", "Chance on a Feeling") or, specifically on Side Two, a series of very English classical piano ballads sung by mother and daughter duo, Vicki Brown and Sam Brown (wife and daughter of entertainer Joe Brown) and vocalist Elmer Gantry. The album also features prolific session drummer (and National Youth Jazz Orchestra alumnus) Simon Phillips, Cozy Powell, Neil Murray, Simon Kirke, Boz Burrell and Mick Ralphs. Lord used synthesizers more than before, principally to retain an intimacy with the material and to create a jam atmosphere with old friends like Tony Ashton.

Windows is a live album by Jon Lord and the German conductor and composer Eberhard Schoener. The music and the record are primarily credited to Lord. It was taped at a concert in Munich, (West) Germany on 1 June 1974 and the music is a mix between progressive rock and orchestral late romantic/modernist styles. The piece on the first side, "Continuo on B-A-C-H" is a loose attempt to build on the unfinished triple fugue that closed Johann Sebastian Bach's "Art of the Fugue". The second side of the LP is a three-part composition called "Window". In the liner notes of the LP album Lord makes a comparison between the rhapsodic structure here and the renga tradition of chain composition of poetry in medieval Japan.

Inspired by the artwork of Roger Dean and the writings of Ver Stanley Alder, Jon Anderson developed an entire story around the idea of an interstellar exodus from Sunhillow, writing this album around the narrative (named for the spaceship's architect, Olias). The idea may seem overly ambitious, but Anderson fills the record with enough magical moments to delight fans of Yes' mystic side. The music is written and performed almost entirely by Anderson, who dubs vocals, plays guitar and harp, and adds percussion and the occasional synthesizer to flesh out his ideas so that at no point does the music lose its spellbinding effect for lack of sonic detail. Olias of Sunhillow is faithful to the spirit of Yes, though decidedly more airy than that band's visceral style - its closest comparison would be Fragile's "We Have Heaven" or Going for the One's "Wonderous Stories"…