Sun, 30 Apr 2006

Howe, Now

One of the great shifts in popular music over the last 35 years has been the decline in the importance of individual musicianship. Today, popular groups are rarely noted for their instrumental skills. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the most influential rock groups tended to be so because they had the most skilled instrumentalists. The primary instrument in rock is the guitar, and the master guitarists of that era often made the reputation of the groups for which they played.

One of the more talented and influential guitarists of this era was Steve Howe. Primarily known due to his association with Yes on and off over the last 30 years, Howe was also a founding member of the earliest "supergroups", Asia, and has released a series of solo albums during his long career.

Like many of that time, I learned to play the guitar during my teenage years. Among my strongest musical influences during that time was the music of Yes, and so the guitar work of Steve Howe was a target to which I (and many of my musically-inclined friends) aspired. Again, like many, my aspirations far outstripped my talents, but even if I could only passably play stripped-down versions of their songs, I did come to understand and admire two key aspects of Howe's playing: the unusually wide range of his musical styles (no full-volume-and-three-power-chords guitar player he), and his strong skills and technique. It was the latter that made Howe's music so tantalizing to novices like myself - he made everything look and sound so easy that it was only after you sat down and tried to work out how to actually play something of his that you could begin to see its underlying complexities. The term "often imitated but never duplicated" certainly applied to Howe's music.

Thus, one evening not too long ago, I found myself just surfing the Internet, trying to find a photo of a particular Gibson guitar owned by my friend Dan Ichov. Howe had long said that if he had to pick one guitar as his overall favorite, it would be his Gibson ES-175D, so as a kind of quid pro quo for that testimonial, the Gibson web site has a link to www.SteveHowe.com. I clicked on the link, and there on the site's News page, I read that in a few weeks time, and only a few miles away, Steve Howe going to give a solo concert in a local club.

I had attended several Yes concerts in the 1970s, but these were always in large arenas with many thousands of fans, and it was impossible for the most part to get very close to the edge of the stage. But in a club venue, there would probably be a most a couple of hundred people, the atmosphere far less raucous than someplace like Madison Square Garden. This was an opportunity too good to ignore. I shot an e-mail off to Dan, asking him if he'd like to join me to see Howe's show, and he accepted almost immediately.

An hour before the doors opened at the club, a line had already formed outside the door. The crowd was mostly older (that is to say, closer to my own age), with more than a few grey hairs and receding hairlines among the throng. A number of people wore old Yes concert tee shirts, some from recent tours, others dating back to "Fragile", a Yes album from 1972. Still, there were a number of young kids, teenagers, and a few attractive young women. One man brought his daughter, who couldn't have been more than six years of age. I was betting she'd conk out around the time the show was scheduled to start (around 9 PM).

"Now I feel old," Dan told me.

This performance was strictly a solo concert. The club stage was large enough to accommodate much bigger ensembles, but for Howe's show there was just one chair at the front of the stage. Off to the left was a large music stand with a lamp, with the evening's scores neatly arranged. To the right, there was some electronic equipment (I supposed it had to do with the sound system), and a boom microphone. And neatly racked and stacked behind the chair were the tools of Howe's trade: half a dozen acoustic guitars of varying sizes and shapes, a pedal steel guitar, and a teal-blue, solid body electric guitar. Clearly this show would have a great diversity of musical styles.

The road manager walked around the stage, checking connections and making sure everything was arranged just so. Finally, just after 9 PM, the house lights dimmed, the stage lights came up, and Howe came through a door at the back of the stage, walked up to his chair, sat, and prepared to play. The crowd gave him a standing ovation, which Howe acknowledged with a smile and a simple, "Thank you." I was most interested to see what Howe would be like in person and up close. Like most people, my only experiences of him were either through his recordings, or his appearances in concert with groups like Yes, on a fairly distant stage in front of tens of thousands of people. Only very rarely had I seen a "big name" performer close-up in a relatively more intimate setting of only a couple of hundred people. I didn't know what to expect: would he be the stereotypical rock star, full of himself, haughty, aloof, doing a "strictly professional" performance and then getting the hell offstage and out the door?

Much to my delight, Howe was not at all stuck up or distant. Quite the opposite: he was relaxed, open, and talkative, almost chatty, in fact. He started with the usual pro forma declarations of how glad he was to be here, asked for cheers for the club (the headliner's ritual paean to the venue's management), and then stated, a little quizzically, "I don't know if I've ever been in Allentown before," to which a chorus of voices from the audience, almost at once, called out, "Allentown Fair, 2003!" Howe paused, his head drooping a little. Then with a slightly abashed smile, he said, "Oh yeah, right, right." He actually seemed the tiniest bit embarrassed to not have remembered playing there before. "Thanks, it's good to be back." That tiny bit of self-effacement was a step down off the pedestal atop which, in my mind, I had half-expected him to be firmly ensconced. It turned out that the evening's performance would be a bit closer to a master class than a simple concert.

Taking a Spanish guitar from the rack, Howe proceeded to make final tweaks to its tuning, and launched into his first piece, from one of his solo albums in the 1980s. When he finished, the audience applauded enthusiastically, and he proceeded to explain how he had come to write the song in the first place. This was another unexpected bonus from the club setting and the relaxed pace – Howe took time to explain a lot of the "whys" behind his music, along with what motivated or inspired him to write that particular piece.

After playing several songs from his solo work and from Yes, Howe noted that he was often inspired by music from long ago. "Don't be afraid of it; those guys wrote a lot of really great music!" he enthused. And he then began to play a tune Dan and I immediately recognized as the Concerto in D by Antonio Vivaldi, which is perhaps best known (for the tune, not by name or composer) as part of the soundtrack for the John Wayne move The Cowboys. When he finished, Howe elaborated on his affinity for music from hundreds of years ago. "These tunes have become some of my favorites." "So what's your favorite?" a voice from the back called out. Howe smiled, and without saying another word, launched into another piece Dan and I recognized from the first few notes: "Sleepers Awake", from Cantata No. 140 by Johann Sebastian Bach. Back in college, Dan and Shiloh Canaday taught themselves to play this as a guitar/mandolin duet; Howe played both parts simultaneously. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair as he played. Then, suddenly, he stopped in mid-measure! Another sheepish grin came over Howe's face. "I'm sorry, I've forgotten the next bit!" A big admission from a professional with decades of experience – but then, decades of experience also meant that he probably has many hundreds of pieces of music "in his head", and it can't be easy to being up one on short notice, especially one as complex as a Bach cantata. But after a few seconds pause, Howe began again, this time playing past the point where he stopped before, straight through to the end. I was impressed, and the crowd showed their appreciation in their hearty applause. He then elaborated for those in the audience (probably most) who wouldn't have recognized the piece. "That was by Bach, old Sebastian Bach," Howe said. "He didn't write much for guitar; he did do a couple of lute pieces. But he did write really great tunes. If you look at Bach's music, you'll soon learn that any Bach tune you can play is the best tune you can play." As one who dismissed virtually all classical music in my youth and only later came to an appreciation of Bach and his cohorts, I thought this was one of the neatest summarizations of Bach's music I'd ever heard. It was something one wouldn't expect from a narrowly focused rock guitarist, but it was something entirely in character from a serious student of music of many diverse eras and styles.

Howe then announced that he would play a tune that we would all probably recognize. "When I first heard it, I said, 'I should have written that! It’s exactly the kind of thing I would write!' So I didn't write it, but I wish I did." And with that, he launched into Mason Williams's "Classical Gas". Afterwards, Howe admitted that he couldn't really read music, and had to learn other people's songs by ear. Another surprising revelation, and one that only made his talents seem even more impressive.

One of the several Yes pieces he performed was "The Ancient", from the album "Tales From Topographic Oceans". "Tales" is my favorite Yes album, and, for me, it was a great delight to hear it being performed live, with all its complexities and overtones being translated by Howe from several separate instruments into the one voice of the Spanish guitar.

After nearly an hour of playing, Howe turned to the guitars behind him and quipped, "You're probably wondering why I brought along all these." He picked up a twelve-string guitar, and as he was checking the tuning, it was obvious that the twangy twelve-string had quite a different timbre from the nylon-stringed Spanish guitar. "It's because they sound different!" he exclaimed. He then performed several pieces on it, including "Sketches in the Sun" and "Masquerade", both of which showcased Howe's skills with long arpeggio runs up and down the fretboard.

Then Howe reached back and brought out a small, oddly shaped instrument. It had a pear-shaped body, a short neck, and a large top similar to a mandolin. That is, in fact, what I thought it was. Not so.

"This is a Portuguese guitar. Quite different from the Spanish guitar, isn't it? This guitar was a gift to me from my sister. She had gone on vacation in Spain, saw this, and bought it for me. When she came home, she presented it to me.

'Here, I got this in Spain for you.'

'What is it?'

'It's a Spanish guitar.'

'Um, no I don't think so.'

"And I looked it up, and found out what it was. I told my sister, 'It's not a Spanish guitar, it's a Portuguese guitar.'

'Okay, so play something on it for me.'

'I don't know how to play it.'

'Well, I guess you'd better learn it, then.'

And so to not disappoint my sister, I taught myself how to play it."

The Portuguese does sound much like a mandolin, and I thought of my friend Shiloh playing mandolin reels and strathspeys as Howe demonstrated this unusual instrument. The last piece he played on it during that set was "Nine Voices", which included Howe's first vocals of the evening. Now even though Yes was well known for its tightly-harmonized vocals, Howe almost never took on lead vocals himself. To paraphrase the title of a song from "A Chorus Line", Howe is clearly "Guitar 10, Vocals 3". I guess it's hard to be good at everything. On the other hand, Howe's singing is certainly better than mine, so it's hard to criticize that aspect of the performance too much.

Now Howe changed from the Portuguese to a Martin dreadnaught guitar. "Here's one all the way from Nazareth, Pennsylvania." (Loud cheers from the crowd - Nazareth is only about ten miles from Allentown.) "I've always had great experiences with the folks at Martin; they've always been very helpful to me. And you have to admire the way they've managed to stay in business for all these years - even with all the increases in the price of wood and such – without sacrificing quality." Again, the Martin had a heavier, more solid sound. The pieces Howe played in this part of the set were an eclectic mix of several musical styles, including several jazzy tunes. Howe told stories about Chet Atkins and how, while the two had met only briefly and never played together, Howe considered Atkins one of the stronger influences on his playing. He then launched into a country-and-blues flavored Atkins composition.

Switching again, Howe brought out the electric guitar. "I know you're waiting for this one. Electric guitar has always been a major part of my music. And this one is particularly interesting." He fiddled with some dials and pedals on a foot panel on the floor in front of him. "This guitar plays through a special synthesizer, so my twiddling the controls in particular ways, it turns out that this little box has all the other guitars inside it. I love all the things I can do with it. I can make it sound like a sitar. . . ." He poked and pushed some dials and buttons, then strummed, and out came the rich, many-stringed tones of a sitar. Howe plucked and pulled at the strings, smiling and reveling in the unusual sound. ". . . or I can make it sound like a Gibson." A couple of more adjustments, and then the unmistakable sound of Howe's famous Gibson ES-175 came pouring out. More even than the tunes he played, I was fascinated with this marriage of two musical technologies. Electric guitars and synthesizers have both been around for many years, and, while the guitars have long had various special effects devices (reverb, sustain, echo) attached to them, playing a guitar through a general-purpose synthesizer was an "Of course!" moment for me. After all, there was nothing magical about using keyboards as input devices for synthesizers, so why not a guitar? "It's certainly easier to carry around this one than all of these," Howe said, gesturing at the other guitars he had been demonstrating for us that evening.

Finally, and after well over two hours, Howe brought out his last instrument, a pedal steel guitar. "I'm sure some of you will recognize this," he said. And he told another anecdote about writing music with Yes. "In Yes, we had a kind of basic premise that each album we put out had to be better than the one before it. After 'Tales' came out, we had a bit of a dilemma – what could we do to top that? It took us a while, but we finally came up with 'Relayer', and this is the coda from the song, 'The Gates of Delirium'." Released as a single called "Soon", the song's focus is the ethereal sound of the pedal steel guitar. It has a haunting melody, and Howe played it as if it was thirty years ago, fresh and full of emotion. It was a great high point on which to end the concert, bringing the audience once again to its feet.

For his first encore, Howe relented to the demands of the crowd, playing a tune that many had been calling for all evening, but that he had somehow managed not to yet play: a piece for the Spanish guitar called "The Clap", from "The Yes Album", released in 1972. It was an upbeat tune, which, as Howe related the story, was written for his first child when she was just one day old. It also showcased many of his skills and techniques, a fitting way to close out the evening's performance.

The crowd was still reluctant to let Howe be finished, and the applause continued loud and strong. For his last encore, Howe chose a tune that was familiar to the many Yes fans in the crowd, and also capped the give-and-take nature of the evening's performance. Picking up the Portuguese guitar again, he said, "Here's one I think all of you know. Feel free to join in, and let's see where it goes." And with that, Howe played the very recognizable opening bars of "Your Move", also from "The Yes Album". The audience immediately started to sing along, the many voices arranging themselves into a credible approximation of the vocal harmonies that Howe, Jon Anderson, and Chris Squire of Yes used on the recording and in their many concerts.

For those last few minutes, I left the master class Steve Howe was conducting in Allentown in 2006, and was transported back to thirty years before, when progressive rock was the big thing in my musical life, and Steve Howe's playing was the standard to which I and my friends all aspired. I was eighteen years old again, and just about everything in my life seemed very, very good.

And then, too soon, the song was over. Howe smiled, waved, called out, "Thank you, you've been fabulous. Hope to see you again very soon," then turned and walked back off the stage. And this time none of the applause, whistles, and cheering from the crowd would bring him back. The concert was over.

Exiting the club, Dan and I spent several minutes reflecting on the passage of time, and what had happened during the intervening years to us and our friends who had enjoyed Steve Howe's music when we were young. We were all older, and our lives had all changed – not necessarily better or worse, but certainly different. Howe had likewise changed as well – still gangly and tall, with a little less hair, and needing glasses to read the scores – in a word, much the same kinds of changes we had gone through ourselves. It was reassuring, though, to see that, even after 35 years, Steve Howe still has the chops for the job. I can only hope the same can be said for me when I reach that point in my career.

Posted Apr 30, 2006 at 18:46 UTC, 3224 words,  [/rich]  Permalink