One of my favourite fusion bands, RTF regrouped in 2010 for some stunning gigs. They are headed Down Under, reports the Sydney Morning Herald:
Journeymen return in blast from the future
Michael Dwyer
February 7, 2011
Chick Corea's '70s jazz group Return to Forever is back.
ETERNITY is a surprise constant in the fickle music market. From Sam Cooke to Kiss to the Spice Girls to Puff Daddy, the endless reassurance of the word ''forever'' strikes a compelling note in this cruelly fleeting life.
Jazz keyboard journeyman Chick Corea (picture) had a lofty spiritual ideal in mind when he wrote a piece called Return to Foreverfor an unnamed new combo in 1972. But he was also tapping into the same mercurial mojo that would one day sell 5 million Spice Girls albums.
''The poetic thought behind [that title] was that in music and in art in general, when one puts their attention on creativity, what you're doing is returning to a very natural home ground of yourself, of the spirit, of something that everyone has in common,'' Corea said.
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''I'm always trying to communicate from that place and return to it. You get into the survival aspects of your life and you can forget about that easily, so that was like a reminder: return to forever.''
The band that made eight albums under that name throughout the '70s helped to pioneer a form of jazz that curtailed the introspective indulgences of the avant-garde in favour of more populist appeal.
For Corea, bassist Stanley Clarke, drummer Lenny White and a succession of master guitarists (in picture, with Al Di Meola), jazz-fusion or jazz-rock was a vehicle in which extraordinary musical exploration might coincide with as many ears as possible.
''Some of my favourites in the '60s and early '70s were Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, certainly the Beatles, later on Michael Jackson,'' said Corea, who had played with Miles Davis during his Jimi Hendrix-inspired electric period of the late '60s. ''These were all artists who made very creative music but communicated broadly. It was different to the way that I make music, but they had this quality that was very interesting to me: 'What's he doing? How does he touch so many people?' It's a point to learn from. Rock music was one place to look into.''
Another was outer space. Like many of the more progressive artists of the period, Return to Forever was drawn to sci-fi/spiritual themes that paralleled their exploratory nature.
The world tour that blasts off in Australia this month draws largely on their third album, Hymn of the 7th Galaxy, including such trippy titles as After the Cosmic Rain and Space Circus.
The bandleader said that concepts of undiscovered worlds and contact with extraterrestrial life spur his imagination as a composer. In fact, the genesis of Return to Forever is linked to his conversion to the Church of Scientology, founded by New Jersey sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard. ''L. Ron Hubbard said, 'When in doubt, communicate','' Corea said. ''Some of the basic principles of Scientology are based on good communication and that's something that inspired me to see how important that is in life.''
The 2011 mission was to include 7th Galaxy guitarist Bill Connors, but a medical problem has seen him replaced by Australian Frank Gambale (picture), who has played extensively with Corea. Also on board is another fusion pioneer, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty.
''What stays the same is our connection and the spirit of our friendship,'' Corea said. ''It's stable and it's wonderful to have that kind of rapport with one another.
''What's constantly changing is the form of the music and the songs that we play and the way that we play them and the sound. And that will always continue to change.''
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