Steve Howe Trio

(From Steve Howe's site)

"Travelling" is the Steve Howe Trio's next release, which will be available from HoweSound on or near March 1. The album consists of live performances recorded in the UK and Canada.

(buy here)

1. Blue Bash

2. Dream River

3. Travelin'

4. The Haunted Melody

5. Tune Up

6. Siberian Khatru

7. Mood for a Day

8. He Ain't Heavy, He's my Brother

9. Momenta

10. Kenny's Sound

11. Laughing with Larry

12. Close to the Edge

Highly Recommended!

Ps: I'll watch Asia and ELP in London on July 24-25 (High Voltage Festival) :) I hope Steve's Trio also plays a London gig by this week, as his schedule doesn't seem busy then. Anyone willing to have a beer after the festival (lol), just add a comment

2008 - Steve Howe Trio

Steve Howe Trio

2008-10-04

Mod Clud, Toronto

After releasing the album The Haunted Melody, the Steve Howe Trio toured Canada, in the brief moments Steve had between his tours with Asia and Yes.

Similar to the 2007 show, but featuring new songs: He ain't heavy, he's my brother, Tune up (by Miles Davis), Laughing with Larry (Steve's acoustic solo), A Venture.

The funny moment of the show is when Ross Stanley plays the theme from The Flintstones during his solo on Kenny's Sound.

Set 1:

01 - Sweet Thunder

02 - Dream River

03 - Chatter and Band Introduction

04 - Travelin'

05 - The Haunted Melody

06 - Tune Up

07 - Siberian Khatru

Set 2:

08 - Mood For A Day

09 - Blue Bash

10 - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

11 - Momenta

12 - Kenny's Sound

13 - Crowd

14 - Laughing With Larry

15 - A Venture/Close To The Edge

Steve Howe: electric and acoustic guitar

Ross Stanley: hammond organ

Dylan Howe: Drums

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Steve Howe - Sharp on Attack (1988)

In 1988, the IRS No Speak label began releasing albums in the "Guitar Speak" trilogy. In this project, various guitarists were called upon to provide new material for compilation releases.

The excellence of Steve Howe's piece wasn't surprising to me. "Sharp On Attack" (which has since resurfaced in an alternate form on Homebrew) is an excellent display of Howe's talents. Steve uses more guitars on his piece than anyone else on this album (five, to be precise), and the internal diversity which results makes it well worth it. The acoustic opening provides excellent flavouring, and the middle section of the piece ranks among Howe's better melodies of recent years. This piece must be considered as the second official installment in Howe's redemption for the early 1980s (with "Sketches In The Sun" being the first), and it does its job well.

(quoted from the excellent blog jazz-rock-fusion-guitar - find the link to it on your right)

In this video, Steve plays his song, now with just one guitar, and, as my friend says, he shows us he was alive and well in the 80s!

Steve Howe - Solo show, 2008 in Canada

Steve Howe

2008-10-02
Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto, Canada

Setlist:
Set 1:
01 - Masquerade
02 - Australia
03 - The Ancient
04 - Corkscrew
05 - J's Theme
06 - Pyramidology
07 - Classical Gas
08 - Concerto In D, second movement
09 - Little Galliard
10 - Mood For A Day
Set 2:
Sadly could not be recorded.

Encore:
11 - Soon (with steel guitar)

In 2008, besides touring with Yes and Asia, Steve Howe played gigs both with his Steve Howe Trio and alone, playing wonderful tunes mostly on acoustic guitar, doing a real one-man show, with tunes from Yes (including the sometimes forgotten Masquerade, from Union) and various solo albums (Beginnings, Natural Timbre, Turbulence).
Little Galliard is a lute piece from 17th century that he recorded on Natural Timbre.
Enjoy!

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Two Yes guitars in Atlanta

Our feature today is part of a Yes concert in Atlanta, August 13, 2002.
First track is Steve Howe playing, on the acoustic guitar, Georgia's Theme, a song from Steve's album The Grand Scheme of Things (1993). This simple and beautiful piece was very rarely played live.
Second track is Chris Squire's solo spot, featuring all we like about his bass guitar style. He adds to The Fish small parts of Tempus Fugit, On The Silent Wings Of Freedom and Sound Chaser.

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Steve Howe Trio - Mood for a day & Travelin'

Finally I could put my hands on Steve Howe's latest album, his deep dive into the world of jazz.

After thinking it through, I decided I shouldn't put the whole album in the blog, as it would disencourage people from buying it (by the way, you can buy here) so I'll upload two songs that show how interesting this album is.

Mood for a day is played on electric guitar, and that's already a huge change! Besides, the hammond organ does really creative basslines (as on the whole album). If Jimi Hendrix used to play as if he were having sex with his guitar, Steve plays here as if his guitar were made of gold and he couldn't spoil it. His improvisations are careful in every note and timbre.

Travelin' is a song by Kenny Burrell, a guitarist that really inspired him to do this album. Her the Hammond is also at the forefront, as well as the drums. If you start hearing, you can't stop until it ends.

Link on comments and keep on jazzin', Steve!

Steve's busy year

After touring with Asia and releasing their new album, Phoenix (some fans really liked it, check here) Steve Howe announced on his website a new tour from his Steve Howe Trio and a studio album by the group, to be released on June 4 on Steve's label Howesound.
The new album will be called The Haunted Melody (name of a flute piece by Roland Kirk, rearranged by Howe) and my expectations are high, as the shows from the trio, last year were probably the most original thing Steve has done since the 70s. In these concerts, Steve showed his jazz influences and also rearranged completely a few Yes classics. If you still haven't heard it, click here right now. Probably a great albums is to be released.

REUPLOADED: Steve Howe and Dream Theater

This is a bootleg from a Dream Theater concert that had as a very special guest Mr. Steve Howe. I think the year of this concert is 1995, but I'm not sure...
Set list is a medley of Yes classics, all of them instrumental:
Machine Messiah
Heart of the Sunrise
Close to the Edge
Siberian Kathru
Starship Trooper

The guys from Dream Theater do a very good job, and Steve really shines, especially on Machine Messiah, a song he hasn't played with Yes since 1980. Audio quality is excellent.

Ps: I'm very busy this year, I won't be able to post more than once a week.

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2006 - Steve Howe in New York

BB King's Blues Club
NYC
14 de Abril, 2006

In 2006, with Yes inactive, Steve Howe did some small shows, only he and his guitars.
This one here shows well the intimity feeling between him and the public. He talks a lot, about his blues influences, his limited ability to write lyrics, etc.
Besides, he plays some rare tunes, like songs from Natural Timbre and also Nine Voices (from The Ladder)

Kohno Spanish classical guitar:
01 Pre-show music 10:26
02 Applause 00:48
03 Surface Tension 04:37
04 The Ancient excerpt 04:39
05 The Little Galliard (Dowland) 01:48
06 Corkscrew 03:58
07 Classical Gas 03:37
08 Talking points 01:51
09 J's Theme 04:08
10 Concerto In D 2nd Mvt (Vivaldi) 02:28
11 Mood For A Day 03:52

Scharpach custom 12-string:
12 Winter from 4 Seasons (Vivaldi) 03:15
13 Masquerade 02:25
14 And You And I intro > Turn Of The Century outro 03:21
15 more stories 02:05
16 Sketches In The Sun 04:25

Portuguese 12-string:
17 Nine Voices 04:02

(intermission)

Martin 6-string steel cutaway:
01 Intro 02:09
02 In The Course Of The Day 04:30
03 To Be Over 07:18
04 Ram 04:01
05 Goin' Down This Road (Broonzy) 03:22
06 Intersection Blues 02:35
07 Merl Travis quotes 02:06
08 Second Initial 03:41

Line 6 Variax electric:
09 A Drop In The Ocean 02:42
10 variax demos 02:16
11 Whispering (Coburn, Rose & Schoenberger; arrangement: Atkins) 02:48
12 Dorothy 02:55
13 Meadow Rag 03:32

Fender lap steel:
14 Soon 08:25

Portuguese 12-string:
15 Your Move 03:35

encore:
Martin 6-string steel cutaway:
16 Clap 05:10

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2007 - Fragile & Steve Howe

Live at Tilburg (2007-10-30)

Howe has been collaborating again with Yes tribute band Fragile. He was with them for Oct 2007 dates in the UK, Netherlands and Belgium on their 10th anniversary tour. Jon's voice is hard to match, but musically this is a great act. My favourite here is the medley "A Venture-South Side of the Sky", as A Venture was never played live by Yes.

Fragile opened with a set (including "The Revealing Science of God"), followed by a solo acoustic set from Howe, and then a joint set. The joint set included "A Venture", "South Side of the Sky" and "Gates of Delirium" (end section and into "Soon").


Setlist:
Fragile
01 - Intro and opening firebird
02 - Perpetual change
03 - Revealing science of god
04 - Owner of a lonely heart
05 - Close to the edge
06 - Introduction to Steve howe

Steve Howe
07 - Howe solo - Second Initial
08 - Howe solo - In The Course Of The Day
09 - Howe solo - Intersection Blues
10 - Howe solo - Masquerade
11 - Howe solo - Ram
12 - Howe solo - Clap
(change the names of the songs, they are all named simply "Howe solo")

Steve Howe and Fragile
13 - Siberian Khatru
14 - A Venture - South side of the sky
15 - Soon solo
16 - Starship Trooper
17 - Roundabout

(partially quoted from http://www.bondegezou.demon.co.uk/wnsh.htm )

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2007 - Steve Howe Trio

19 May, 2007 Morecambe, The Platform, UK
In 2007, momentarily free from Yes, Steve Howe decided to tour with a jazz-blues-rock-country (summing up, all the music he likes) trio, formed by:
Steve Howe - Guitars
Dylan Howe - Drums
Ross Stanley - Hammond Organ

They reworked some Yes classics, and songs from Steve's solo career, with little respect to the original arrangements. The result is a very original concert, with a jazzy feel recreating completely some well-known songs, some less commented pieces, and a couple of jazz/blues standards from a guitarrist he admires, Kenny Burrell.
Mood For A Day has to be heard to be believed, it was transformed in an exciting 8 minutes long jazz number, with a steady 9/8 meter.
As usual, there's an acoustic session, with less original but perfectly played versions of Cactus Boogie(from Steve Howe Album), Sketches in the Sun (from GTR) and Intersection Blues (from Natural Timbre.)
I must admit some songs get too long and rather loose, like Momenta, originally a 3 minutes long in Quantum Guitar, here it almost achieves 11 minutes, without having so much to say. But except this one, most extended jams are very well delivered.
If you want to hear Steve improvisating, here's a holy grail for you.

Some videos of the trio can be seen at Dylan Howe's Youtube page:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DylanHowe

Here is the group's myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/stevehowetrio
where they say they're going to record a studio album in October (sady they seem to have postponed it...) and say their influences are:
Kenny Burrell
Wes Montgomery
Tal Farlow
Elvin Jones
Philly-Jo Jones
Roy Haynes
Jimmy Smith
Larry Young
Larry Goldings

Setlist:
DISC ONE
Travelin'
Dream River,
Chitlins Con Carne
Mood for a Day
Blue Bash!
Close to the Edge

DISC TWO
Bareback
Medley – Freight Trane/Whispering/Trambone
Cactus Boogie
Sketches in the Sun
Intersection Blues
Kenny's Sound
Momenta
The Haunted Melody
Sweet Thunder
Clap
Siberian Khatru

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Steve Howe solo carreer

Today I'm posting some recent albums from Steve Howe solo career. Most of his compositions are instrumental and guitar-based. That's wise, as his voice as a solo singer is not good...
My focus is on Yes material and not on released albums, but as all of these albums are pretty hard to find on stores or on the internet (I had to upload Skylines, and the other links were not easy to get) I'll put them here. Hope you like.

Skyline (2002)

- Steve Howe / guitars, bass, keyboards
- Paul Sutin / keyboards, percussion

Steve Howe is a world-renowned guitar virtuoso with the great progressive rock group Yes. Probably only the most devoted fans realize that there is much more to him than just being a guitar player for that band. He is a venerated solo artist as well. On his latest effort "Skyline", HOWE proves to be an adept six-string maestro by combining jazz, rock, and strong Latin influences into intricate and dazzling instrumental compositions.
If you want to relax in front of the open fireplace (or the central heating for the less wealthy), this CD is yours: sensitive guitarplay (electric and acoustic, often with a jazzy feel) and soaring keyboards, sometimes evoking Mike Oldfield.
(taken from progarchives)

Natural Timbre (2001)
- Steve Howe / guitar (acoustic), banjo, bass, dobro, guitar, mandolin, percussion, autoharp, guitar (bass), guitar (12 String), koto, mandola, mandocello, Hawaiian Lap Steel guitar
- Andrew Jackman / piano, Glockenspiel
- Anna Palm / violin
- Dylan Howe / drums

Here's probably the best Howe album... All the songs are acoustic, but he can make them very different one from another, using Mandolin, Banjo, several acoustic guitars, violin(played by Anna Palm). The whole album is very calm, perfect for reading, and he makes blues (Intersection Blues, to me the best track), Jazz (Dream River), and ambient music ( Distant Seas)... The disc has songs for all my moods. The Yes songs, in my opinion are all excelent: Your Move's extremely beautiful melody is made better, and the recorders are so calm and soft; Disillusin (from Starship Trooper) is outstanding, very emotive; To Be Over is a masterpiece, with amazing Glockenspiel, and a totally different atmosphere from the original. They are all as good as the originals.

Pulling Strings (1999) (Live)
- Steve Howe / acoustic guitars (1,7,13,15,16), electric guitars (13,16), string pad (7), hi hat (7), lute (9), keyboards (9,13,15), bass (9,13,16), tambourine (9), drum machine
- Phil Spalding / bass on track 1
- Stuart Elliott / drums on track 1

(...)One of those Beginnings tunes, "Pleasure stole the night", appears on PULLING STRINGS, unplugged (like most of the material here), and although its lyrics still don't make sense, it's heartwarming, it really makes you feel as if you just got to know Steve a little better.
Same with the Yes tunes. Once again, you'll have to forgive Steve his well-known limitations, but even so, I feel he makes a decent job of "Soon", "Turn of the Century" and the slow bit from "Close to the Edge". It certainly casts a totally new light on the pieces to hear them performed by someone who was intimately involved in their conception. If Steve played them the way he does here in MY local bar, I'd weep - and not even with frustration.
Steve's instrumental bits, I trust, won't cause anyone any trouble; they're fun as usual. But then, at the end of the programme, Steve suddenly grabs an electric guitar and lets rip with "My white bicycle", a Tomorrow classic I'd never heard before. Judging from its performance here, people, it's a TREMENDOUS tune!
(taken from progarchives)

Spectrum (2005)
- Steve Howe / guitars
- Tony Levin / bass
- Dylan Howe / drums
- Oliver Wakeman / keyboards
- Virgil Howe / keyboards

Steve Howe is the master of diversity on the six-string. With his new CD he covers the entire musical "Spectrum" and beyond. The entire album is instrumental and he certainly makes an immense statement without any vocals added to each track. There is no need for his YES band mates Anderson and Squire to add any vocals to this mix; it is a complete masterpiece without that element present. Rick Wakeman’s son Oliver and his own two talented offspring, Dylan and Virgil, join Howe, which is a stunning combination of the old guard and the new blood emerging from the YES family. Howe is one smart cookie, he has bass player supreme Tony Levin is in the studio for the sessions to round out his resonating guitar oriented compositions. God knows how Levin finds the time to play on all of the projects he does. He is simply incredible.
(...) Songs like “Tigers Den” and “Realm Thirteen” have irresistible hooks and rhythms that are as unique as they are inviting. (...)
Howe is equally adept with the acoustic or electric guitar, hence his ability to rock and play softer more jazz Latin inflected numbers to enhance your listening experience and make it an all around instrumental voyage through several different styles. I have a fondness for prog-rock and jazz fusion, whether it is acoustic or electric it does not really matter to me, I simply love it all. You hear will jazz, rock, country, blues, or combinations of them all in electric and acoustic settings during the course of Howe’s brilliant compositions. This is guitar 101. If you are an avid listener of the Howe repertoire or wish to study one of the more diverse and incredible guitar players on the face of the earth today, check out "Spectrum" now.
(from progarchives)

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Steve Howe - Mothballs

Before joining Yes, Steve Howe had actuated in several bands, creating a great reputation in the underground scene from the late 60s. This is a compilation that shows us his work in these bands, and also as a session player.
This is an important album for those who are interested in how Steve developed his style, and for lovers of the psychedelic music that was so common in the 60s. I must warn you that this compilation has many trivial pop songs that will not change your life. Don't expect a masterpiece!

1. Maybellene - Steve Howe, The Syndicats
2. True to Me - Steve Howe, The Syndicats
3. Howlin' for My Baby - Steve Howe, The Syndicats
4. What to Do - Steve Howe, The Syndicats
5. Leave My Kitten Alone - Steve Howe, The Syndicats
6. Don't Know What to Do - Steve Howe, The Syndicats
7. On the Horizon - Steve Howe, The Syndicats
8. Stop Wait a Minute - Steve Howe, In Crowd
9. You're on Your Own - Steve Howe, In Crowd
10. Why Must They Criticise - Steve Howe, In Crowd
11. I Don't Mind - Steve Howe, In Crowd
12. Finger Poppin' - Steve Howe, In Crowd
13. So Bad - Steve Howe
14. You Never Can Stay in One Place - Steve Howe
15. Real Life Permanent Dream - Steve Howe, Tomorrow
16. Am I Glad to See You - Steve Howe, Tomorrow
17. Blow Up - Steve Howe, Tomorrow
18. Three Jolly Little Dwarfs - Steve Howe, Tomorrow
19. Revolution - Steve Howe, Tomorrow
20. My White Bicycle - Steve Howe, Tomorrow
21. Kid Was a Killer - Steve Howe, Keith West
22. Come Over Stranger - Steve Howe
23. Beyond Winter - Bodast, Steve Howe
24. Nothing to Cry For - Bodast, Steve Howe
25. Nether Street - Bodast, Steve Howe

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