Cleaver and a fun jazz-rock like medley for Yes-lovers. Which I'm not, b.t.w. I often get a bit nervous from the sound of Steve Howe and this guy has that same effect on me, so I guess he did it well ;-) Funny sidenote: both Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman were invited for a jazz-rock/fusion project lately, Anderson for the fine album Lizard's Tale from Dennis Haklar and Wakeman for Billy Sherwood's project The Fusion Syndicate, which is ok but not great (too much solo's too less compositions).

Ok, I read something about that album a while ago and was thinking if Rick Wakeman really could play fusion. All I have heard him play is classical inspired arpeggios, and in a rather stiff way if you ask me. But I could give that album a shot just to hear how he handles that style of music.

I think I get what you mean by beeing nervous by hearing Steve play. Some solos he does sounds a bit sloppy or hard for him to play and not that precise. But he can also play the most wonderful stuff. He's not as - for example, Allan Holdsworth, who always does great stuff on his guitar.

I wouldn't buy The Fusion Syndicate for Wakeman's playing. It's really nothing special and certainly no fusion. But if you buy it for great solo's from for example David Sancious, Steve Morse or Jerry Goodman, or wonderful drumming by Gavin Harrison, Chester Thompson, Chad Wackerman or Billy Cobham or for listening to the great Percy Jones again, it's ok

Yeah, that's a funny thing with Yes and Steve Howe: sometimes I'm impressed (Awaken, Close To The Edge), sometimes I can't listen to it. Well, even Holdsworth makes mistakes, but an improviser can work with that to create something new.

Speaking of guitar players and how it affects your sense: Many of Steve Hackett's solos on Foxtrot and Nursery Cryme makes me feel embarrassed for his own sake. In my ears some of his early electric guitar playing sounded like a young kid who plays it - at least to my ears. He was an acoustic guitar player at first, the electric guitar was new to him during that time, so.. BUT, I get a totally different feeling of his playing on Selling England. The whole band plays much better on it btw. I dont know what other people think of this, havent read any comments somewhere, so maybe it's just my ears who sending me wrong signals

I've never felt anything bad about Steve Hackett's early soloing. I liked the way he was innovating. Especially the tapping was something that wasn't done a lot in those days. But the main difference for me between Yes and Genesis was that with Genesis it wasn't the solo that mattered but the complete composition, while Yes was more a collection of virtuoso's, musicians that wanted to show how good they were, especially live.