Results tagged “Chick Corea” from Jazz Beyond Jazz

This booking might seem like a point of departure for JALC, which has a reputation for being tradition- rather than innovation-minded, but it really isn't. The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra performed its members' original arrangements of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Coleman's music in January 2004. Here's Wynton soloing on Ornette's tune "Free" from an LCJO concert in Salt Lake City:

 

 

Loud, fast and chopsy -- that was the definition of "jazz-rock fusion" assumed by panelists (including me)  in a Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Matters public panel discussion of "Fusion at 40" held in conjunction with the headline appearance of  Return To Forever at the Ottawa Jazz Festival.

RTF -- introduced by pianist Chick Corea in 1974 to comprise guitarist Al DiMeola, bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White -- is a banner act at jazz fests most everywhere this summer. This lineup is together for the first time since 1983, its tour promoted as a 25-year anniversary and accompanied by a two-cd retrospective album (Return To Forever The Anthology) which has gangstered much jazz magazine coverage. RTF meets the loud, fast and chopsy criteria, sorta. But the supergroup was born several minutes past fusion's finest hour, and its members' collaboration honestly shows their age.