Judge Not This Race by Empty Remains

On the unusual discography of Steve Hackett

Glancing at the overstuffed list of albums made by Steve Hackett, it’s reasonable to conclude that the British guitarist and composer, now 74, is just another rock legend riding that old gravy train, living in (and off of) the past.

Hackett was part of the classic 1971-77 lineup of Genesis – that’s him on Foxtrot, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, A Trick of the Tail, etc. – and in the decades since, he’s undertaken diligent, rehearsal-intensive efforts to recreate the music of that era for the prog-rock band’s current fans.

A random sampling turns up Foxtrot at Fifty and Hackett Highlights Live in Brighton (2023), and a similar set from a 2019 show at Hammersmith focused on Genesis’ Selling England By the Pound (1973). Hackett assembled formidible jazz and progressive-rock talents for studio projects like Genesis Revisited (1996), which features three A-list bassists (Tony Levin, Alphonso Johnson and Pino Palladino) and two similarly legendary drummers (Bill Bruford and Chester Thompson); it’s an ornate and surprisingly listenable tribute.

Though he hasn’t yet devoted a tour to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Hackett participated in the preparation and selling of last year’s super deluxe 50^th anniversary edition of the intricate (if ever so slightly pompous) extended narrative album that was Gabriel’s last with the band.

By engaging the Genesis legacy in this direct way, Hackett shows shrewd understanding of the market: Right now scores of Genesis tribute bands are roaming the earth – and getting paid – for fastidious recreations of old music. Why shouldn’t an artist who contributed to those works initially participate in the nostalgia industrial complex?

It’s a significant bonus that Hackett’s groups zoom right past everyday mimicry: If you’re paying to have a “Genesis Experience,” might as well patronize a musician whose execution of the tricky Genesis details – the switchbacks and lurches into odd meters – are the result of having written bunches of them in the first place. Listening to any of Hackett’s live renditions of Genesis material, even a cynical crank (owning it over here!) can catch a vibe that goes beyond the nailing of performance details: These players believe in the enduring mythology of the band, and allow that belief to animate what they do. Skeptical? Check this version of “Watcher of the Skies,” the opening track from Foxtrot, recorded by Hackett and crew in 2022.

Thing is, though, the Genesis redux efforts are just one element of Hackett’s music-making cosmology.

He’s got a band project (Steve Hackett and Djabe) that’s issued a bunch of albums. He’s got stripped-down showcases for his guitar compositions (Momentum and Tribute, which includes thoughtful treatments of works by J.S. Bach) and continues to record rock-leaning albums under his own name – for a taste of that, explore 2021’s prog-ish Surrender of Silence, which includes my current favorite song title, “Relaxation Music for Sharks.”

This week Hackett releases Live Magic at Trading Boundaries, which gathers highlights from his annual performances at a small arts space in Sussex. This features a chamber ensemble playing Hackett’s short original pieces, which dwell in an unusual space between instrumental English folk and what classical musicians derisively call “diet classical.”

The album includes “Ace of Wands,” a re-imagining of the opening track from Hackett’s still mesmeric first solo effort Voyage of the Acolyte (1975), as well as an excerpt from Genesis’ “Supper’s Ready” and a surprisingly austere take on “Blood on the Rooftops.” The original pieces are built on familiar composition-class devices: Small melodic declarations tumble into slightly more involved elaborations, with occasional swerve-like detours into different key centers. The ensemble understands Hackett’s roadmaps and how the pieces should breathe; one delight of tunes like “Jacuzzi” is the easygoing group movement, its lightly-held sense of purpose. And cohesion. Let’s be real: Bands that tour constantly with tons of gear and stun-gun lighting (like, oh, that last iteration of Genesis) don’t always sound this unified.

Every discography tells a story. Hackett’s post-Genesis prog-rock endeavors celebrate the musical ideas and performance devices that made that band so distinctive, riveting, quirky. Right alongside that stuff, however, Hackett is making interesting and unexpected music that’s worthy of attention. These projects are the work of a profoundly creative individual, one who has figured out ways to move and evolve in spite of prevailing business conditions. Give Steve Hackett all the grief you want about the Genesis stuff. He’s using those visible projects to subsidize and sustain musical exploration in other directions, where the myths are less fixed in listener memory and the vistas are more open.

We need more icons like him.