The release of Jon Anderson's Windham Hill debut Deseo marks a musical departure which the internationally renowned singer/composer has been moving towards for nearly two decades. The cornucopia of Latin rhythms and percussion and vocal experimentation had been brewing in Anderson's imagination even when he was cutting his first million-selling records with the progressive rock band Yes. "In the early years of Yes I was really interested in Indonesian music and ancient music," he explains. "And I had been lucky enough to spend time in Trinidad at Carnival and I realized how powerful dancing music really can be."
Anderson's ambitious new album was largely written a few years ago when the artist spent 10 days at his house in Big Bear, California, with friends from Uruguay and Mexico. "More and more, we started meeting these marvelous musicians and singers from Latin America," he says, "and the recording built itself from there. Over the past year we brought in one or two special people on each song." The result is a Latin-influenced musical travelogue guided by such stars as Milton Nascimento from Brazil, Ruben Rada from Uruguay, Mexican actress and singer Maria Conchita Alonso, Glen Monroig from Puerto Rico, as well as Anderson's daughter Deborah.
Although he admits that "it was a killer singing in Spanish and Portuguese," Anderson relished the "universal feeling" that emerges from Deseo, a feeling that transcends any specific style. "South of the equator, they live for music," he says. "It's like food, like wine, like love. They have to have music as part of their culture. That's why I find it so moving."
A self-described "musical gypsy," Anderson rarely stays in one place very long. He has lived in the south of France, the Caribbean, Los Angeles, and the mountains of southern California. His travels have served as the basis for his musical journeys as well. In 1993 he toured South America, visiting Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, all countries that had been difficult for rock musicians to perform in for the past 15 years. On that trip, Anderson consolidated the musical influences that had been leading up to Deseo.
"I hope to spend the next five or ten years traveling around different parts of the world. That's the adventurer side of me, but I do it with the intention of linking up with the people in these different countries. It's all part of broadening my musical horizons."
In his supergroup Yes, Anderson has consistently expanded his artistic vision, opening up the vistas of popular music and challenging the status quo of rock and roll. Today, Yes enjoys tremendous worldwide success. Their orchestral album, Symphonic Music of Yes, released in late 1993, topped the classical charts, and a new Yes album is due for release in March 1994. "I've been incredibly fortunate to be part of the Yes history," Anderson explains, "and as that new album will clearly demonstrate, Yes music is really a style of its own and it really works. But I haven't gotten to where I'm going yet."
"I find I can do three or four things at the same time," he continues. "Last summer I recorded an album of musical reflections inspired by the writings of Carlos Castenada. I've also been working with a full orchestra in London, and I'm spreading my wings into the worlds of dance and theater as well. I've written music to be performed by a 40-piece orchestra dance troupe in central China."
Anderson has always maintained an individual identity outside of Yes: In 1976 he recorded his first solo album, Olias of Sunhillow, and he has continued to record separately during the ensuing 17 years. He struck up a partnership with Greek keyboardist Vangelis in the 1970s, releasing the first Jon and Vangelis album in 1980, and the duo continues to record in the 1990s. He has also found a musical ally, "a spiritual brother," in Japanese synthesist Kitaro, with whom he has toured and recorded in recent years.
