This turned out to be a surprise. Originally touted as a jazzy instrumental album it wound up being much more diverse than that. Some jazz is in the mix but seldom for a whole tune. I think Dregs fans would like a lot of this and find some kind of familiar. Not the jazzy spots, some other ones.
**
By Ryan Smith
http://wavemakermagazine.com/2012/08...acaranda-2012/
I had quite honestly believed this album would never happen.
The grand musical force known as Trevor Rabin came out of South Africa in the late seventies with three solo albums, and eventually introduced the world to a brand new Yes in 1983. After the band's break-up in 1981, Yes bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White joined up with Rabin to start a new group for the eighties called Cinema. When former Yes alumni Jon Anderson and Tony Kaye jumped on board, they confirmed that the group was in fact a new Yes (much to Rabin's chagrin at the time).
Trevor Rabin brought his fresh-sounding guitar playing, his powerful voice and his uncanny writing abilities to the band's eleventh studio album 90125. The album gave them a number one hit with "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and a level of commercial success they had scarcely dreamed of in their previous incarnations. The follow-up, 1987's Big Generator, would unfortunately be delayed by infighting, and was ultimately panned by critics and fans alike.
A fourth solo album, Can't Look Away, followed in 1989 with a little success, but Rabin continued to work with Yes and would see them through to the mid-nineties with the disastrous Union album (released 1991, at least a fantastic tour followed the album), and the very underrated Talk (1994, which features his epic swan song "Endless Dream"). He left Yes in 1995 and entered into highly successful career composing for film.
He's done remarkably little in terms of non-film music, which is a damn shame. In 1999, he guested on former Yes-man Rick Wakeman's Return to the Centre of the Earth, and in 2003 he dipped into his archives to release Live In L.A. (a live album from his tour for Can't Look Away) and 90124 (a collection of demos written for Yes, Cinema, and for his own purposes). There was serious hope for me then that he was going to do something new. But it didn't happen, and so I figured he was happy doing what he was doing.
Then we got this little treat known as Jacaranda, which is his fifth solo album. The record his all instrumental, with everything being performed by Rabin, excepting drums which are split up between the ace Vinnie Colaiuta, Lou Molino III, and Rabin's son Ryan from the band Grouplove. There are also some pretty female vocals on "Rescue".
I was initially concerned about how a Rabin record would sound without vocals. I love instrumental albums, especially as of late, but often times they quickly become boring during casual listens. This album, however, is a diverse collection of compositions which are concisely complex. The first thing I noticed, after the little ditty at the beginning, was the immediate return of his gorgeous guitar tone(s!) and the dense tapestry of keyboards he has chosen to wield once again (listen to the intro to Yes' "Endless Dream" after you listen to this… do it!). The album also sees Rabin making use of jazz compositions, hiding them beneath his signature triumphant bluesy/folk style, and sometimes letting them take the forefront, like in "Freethought." Songs like "Through the Tunnel" illustrate perfectly why I love Rabin as a player. As he jumps precisely back and forth between beautifully serene segments to the more aggressive, one definitely gets a sense of the playful joy he must have simply performing the music. The album's coda "Gazania" is something very special that brings everything together marvellously, with a really neat second half that I won't ruin for you.
In short (?!) Jacaranda is both a joyous return and a showcase of ruthless skill for a powerful progressive mind. It is a brilliant instrumental album that doesn't ever fall into the regular traps by becoming uninteresting for lack of vocals.
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Originally Posted by ombasan
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