------------------------------------------------------- JANUARY 9, 2004 ------------------------------------------------------- Source: Asbury Park Press http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,884150,00.html Jon Anderson's amazing technicolor dreamworld By Mark Voger See him. Hear him. Smell him. Yes singer Jon Anderson plans to dazzle not only your eyes and ears, but also your nose, during his first solo U.S. tour in 22 years. "I'll be using sage on a perfume level," says Anderson of his "Works in Progress" show, scheduled to reach Red Bank on Sunday. "I think the idea of bringing together music, color and perfume is a very interesting experience for me. It's not that I'm the only person doing it; it happens a lot. "In fact, if you look at the '60s, the perfume was marijuana. That changed a lot of energies, you know? More power to that time. Here we are, 40 years later, if you like." Will the fragrance reach the folks in the back row at Anderson's shows? "There are going to be cups of sage at the four corners of the theater, so it'll be well organized," the singer says, adding with a laugh: "It won't get too smoky. "You know, a lot of people use sage to bless a house, and on a daily basis take the sage through the house. It's a very good perfume, for one thing. But it's part of the Native American culture and the aborigine culture, which is worldwide." The 59-year-old native of Lancashire, England, is a founding member of Yes, the British progressive-rock band behind "Roundabout," "Long Distance Runaround," "Your Move/I've Seen All Good People" and "Close to the Edge." Yes built its sound on virtuoso musicianship and the blending of eclectic styles, topped with Anderson's angelic, high-pitched voice and spiritual, sometimes spacey lyrics. Yes' latest collaboration is "Yesspeak" (Classic Pictures), a two-disc DVD set featuring performances and commentary by Anderson and his bandmates: guitarist Steve Howe, keyboardist Rick Wakeman, bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White. But Yes activity was seriously curtailed in the past year after Anderson fractured three vertebrae due to a fall. "I broke my back a year ago, on Friday the 13th of December (2002), which was kind of wild," Anderson says. "I'm going through a real deep, take-a-breath time. My doctor -- who's more of a healing specialist in the terms of chiropractor or ancient healing knowledge -- he said, 'What happened was, when you broke the bones, an energy was released into your system. That's why you feel so driven.' "Because I really do. I feel very excited about the future of what I'm going to do." That includes Anderson's forthcoming release "The Big If" as well as the "Works in Progress" tour. Says Anderson: "I call it 'Works in Progress' because that's what it is. It's a one-man show. I'm working with very modern technology and, at the same time, very acoustic ideas -- playing the harp, singing songs that I remembered writing on acoustic guitar that eventually became Yes songs. That's kind of fun; you remember where it came from. "I talk about various aspects of music and theory. It's like a workshop, really. At the same time, I'll be singing songs from my career with Vangelis, with Yes, and some new songs I've been writing these last couple of years. "There's no record company out there to do any deals with, as far as I can see. So why not just take the music on the road and play it, like I used to in the beginning? You'd start off and tour with new music. Audiences were very open and receptive to new songs, even if they hadn't heard them." Anderson rehearsed his show in a theater near his home, and then performed a dry run for a local high-school group. A tough audience? "Kids can get bored, like anybody," he says, "but they were very attentive and seemed to enjoy my rhetoric and the way I talk. I was telling them stories about where I started and why I started singing, which I might just carry on doing every night. At certain points in the evening, you want to stop and tell a story about how you wrote that song, or how to survive 40 years of rock 'n' roll." During shows, Anderson will also be creating and projecting on-the-spot digital designs based on his studies in Chakra color healing and inspiration derived from Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915). "It comes from the ancient days," Anderson says of his studies in color. "The whole idea of color healing was a very strong part of the beginning of this last century in the '20s and '30s. In America, there was a group of people under the title of AMICA -- Aquarian Master Institute of Color Awareness. They got involved with many societies all over America and built, I think, 14 symphony halls complete with lighting in the ceiling above the symphony orchestra. "The famous composer Scriabin actually wrote music for color. He was one of the most reknowned musicians in Europe at that time. What he created was called a 'light organ.' The orchestra would play music and the light keyboard player, if you like, would play this organ at the side of the stage which didn't make any music; he'd actually written notes to correspond with colors. Above the orchestra were all these lights. They would project these colors over the orchestra in time with the music." Anderson saw correlations between Scriabin's work and the subsequent psychedelic movement. "I started to realize that it's something that happened with rock 'n' roll in the '60s," he says. "You had big lighting energies onstage and music and very sort of courageous musicians up there with all these lights. Of course, there was the added perfume. "That was part of Scriabin's idea -- that color, sound and perfume create a very sonic energy. That's why there was a big change of our consciousness in the '60s through -- we will call it rock 'n' roll music. The pop music of that time -- The Beatles, the Beach Boys, Frank Zappa, the Doors, etc. -- with their style of music and stage presentation with projection and things like that, it created this whole raising of consciousness they used to call 'psychedelic.' "So this has been going on forever in the human experience -- that we have slowly but surely raised our consciousness every 200 or 300 years. We're going through a similar experience." Another reason Anderson is bringing computer animation on the road: "So that people don't really necessarily just have to watch me singing. Because after all," Anderson says, laughing again, "it's just me singing and playing the guitar. So they can watch these designs on this sphere that I've created and enjoy the energy that comes from the colorization of the stage." Anderson suggests that people who are open to the experience may tap into subconscious sense memories. "Remember, we're all tribal people," he says. "Don't pretend you're not, because we're all from tribes. And tribal people have certain things they can never forget in their system. One of these things is sage. It's part of the heritage of this part of the world. People shouldn't be afraid to accept the ancient idea that tribes are very important and their lineage is very important. And not to forget." Jon Anderson is also scheduled to perform at 9 tonight at Trump Marina, Huron Avenue and Brigantine Boulevard, Atlantic City. $39.50. (877) 477-4697. www.trumpmarina.com. Anderson is also scheduled to perform at 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Keswick Theatre, Easton Road at Keswick Avenue, Glenside, Pa. $29.50-$35. (215) 572-7650. 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