Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Anderson Ponty Band
Label: Ear Music Records
Release: 2015
Length: 60:57
Rating: 2.5/5
Jon Anderson, former frontman of the legendary prog rock band Yes, and Jean-Luc Ponty, a French violin virtuoso of world renown, planned to launch a joint project, Anderson Ponty Band, back in the 1980s, but other commitments got in the way of their original plans. Roughly three decades after the first ideas for working together, the two legends, with the help of a few talented collaborators, have finally put out a joint live album called »Better Late Than Never«. It will please the fans of their solo careers, but it’s no artistic breakthrough, just a fairly predictable musical merry-go-round with regular glances back at the glory days. The recording comes from Jon and Jean-Luc’s show in the well-known American town of Aspen, in the middle of the state of Colorado.
While Jean-Luc, despite his obvious lack of inspiration, is still technically in flawless virtuoso form and plays the violin just the way you’d expect him to, Jon’s voice is another story. The years are showing, and what saves him is mainly his distinctive, utterly one-of-a-kind timbre, which nobody can take away from him. The lyrics of the freshly rearranged songs are typical Anderson ‘new age’ mantras, the kind that run through most of his career. These days, probably only his biggest devotees still believe in the sincerity of his spiritual messages. Like Jon, most of them don’t feel any material lack, so it’s easy for them to talk about ever-blooming meadows where the sun never sets.
»Better Late Than Never« earns its first major scolding for a completely unnecessary move by Ponty’s current guitarist Jamie Glaser, who produced the record and replaced the original live contribution of his predecessor Jamie Dunlap with his own studio parts. Apparently Dunlap’s departure from the band wasn’t enough, and a suitable ‘disciplinary measure’ had to follow. Thanks to the sterile production, the recording already sounds like it was cut in a studio rather than played ‘live’, and this has desecrated its authenticity.
The performances of most of the pieces, with their reworked arrangements and newly added lyrics, aren’t bad, but they aren’t spectacular either, and you forget them pretty quickly, apart from a handful that stay close to the original versions. Some of the rearranging experiments are rather botched and totally unnecessary, like the reggae version of the Yes song »Time And a Word«, which in its new outfit comes off as a parody of itself. Of the Yes covers, a bit better are »Owner Of a Lonely Heart«, »Wonderous Stories« spiced up with jazzy piano, »And You And I« and the fusion take on »Roundabout«.
The setlist also includes two old Ponty pieces that got slightly reworked arrangements along with newly added Anderson lyrics. »Renasissance of the Sun« was originally known as »Renaissance« (»Aurora«, 1976), »Infinite Mirage« was originally called »Mirage« (»Enigmatic Ocean«, 1977), while »Listening With Me« first came out as »Stay With Me« (»A Taste of Passion«, 1979). Thanks to the slowed-down tempo, courtesy of Jon’s ‘meditating’, and the ‘bar-room’ jazz piano, none of them tops the original instrumental versions.
With »Better Late Than Never«, Anderson and Ponty have made a listenable but unexciting and thoroughly uninspired live record that will only make the most devoted fans of their solo careers happy. Everyone else won’t miss it one bit. The chronic lack of adventurousness and the overreliance on freshly rearranged past laurels take a good chunk of the artistic value away from »Better Late Than Never«. Still, it’s a better effort than the studio (and live) version of »The Living Tree« (2010), Anderson’s joint project with Rick Wakeman, which, despite their musical greatness, was a downright awful listening experience.
Lineup
Jon Anderson – vocals
Jean-Luc Ponty – violin
Jamie Glaser – guitar
Wally Minko – keyboards
Baron Browne – bass
Rayford Griffin – drums, percussion
Production
Jon Anderson and Jean-Luc Ponty
Tracklist
1. Intro (1:18)
2. A For Aria (4:34)
3. ICU (3:55)
4. Owner Of A Lonely Heart (5:04)
5. Listening With Me (5:39)
6. Time And A Word (5:30)
7. Infinite Mirage (3:48)
8. Soul Eternal (4:58)
9. Wonderous Stories (4:01)
10. And You And I (3:00)
11. Renaissance Of The Sun (6:36)
12. Roundabout (5:25)
13. I See You Messenger (3:51)
14. New New World (3:46)
