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Stanley Clarke is an American bassist, composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jazz-fusion bassist to headline tours, sell out shows worldwide and have recordings reach gold status.
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba" and "Windows" are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, Corea is considered to have been one of the foremost pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.
Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš is a Czech jazz bassist.
David Holland is an English double bassist, bass guitarist, cellist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States since the early 1970s.
Albert Laurence Di Meola is an American guitarist. Known for his works in jazz fusion and world music, he began his career as guitarist with the group Return to Forever in 1974. The 1970s and 1980s saw albums such as Land of the Midnight Sun, Elegant Gypsy, Casino and Friday Night in San Francisco earn him both critical and commercial success.
Return to Forever was an American jazz fusion band that was founded by pianist Chick Corea in 1972. The band has had many members, with the only consistent bandmate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke. Along with Weather Report, The Headhunters, and Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever is often cited as one of the core groups of the jazz-fusion movement of the 1970s. Several musicians, including Clarke, Flora Purim, Airto Moreira and Al Di Meola, came to prominence through their performances on Return to Forever albums.
Leonard White III is an American jazz fusion drummer who was a member of the band Return to Forever led by Chick Corea in the 1970s. White has been called "one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion".
Return to Forever is a jazz fusion album by Chick Corea recorded over two days in February 1972 and released on ECM September that same year—Corea's fourth release for the label. It is the debut of a quintet featuring singer Flora Purim, flautist/saxophonist Joe Farrell, bassist Stanley Clarke and percussionist Airto Moreira, who would go on to record under the name Return to Forever.
John Laird Abercrombie was an American jazz guitarist. His work explored jazz fusion, free jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Abercrombie studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He was known for his understated style and his work with organ trios.
Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy is a studio album by American jazz fusion band Return to Forever. It was released in October 1973 by Polydor. It was the first album not to feature Flora Purim, Airto and Joe Farrell, and marked a shift away from the largely acoustic fusion they created. Drummer Lenny White and guitarist Bill Connors make their first appearances with the group. Connors would leave shortly after the album's release.
No Mystery (1975) is a studio album by jazz-rock fusion band Return to Forever, and the second featuring the quartet of Chick Corea, guitarist Al Di Meola, bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White.
Where Have I Known You Before is a studio album by Return to Forever, the first featuring guitarist Al Di Meola, and the second since leader Chick Corea switched to mostly electric instrumentation, playing music heavily influenced by progressive rock, funk and classical.
Light as a Feather is the first studio album credited to jazz band Return to Forever led by keyboardist Chick Corea. It features saxophonist/flautist Joe Farrell, bassist Stanley Clarke, vocalist Flora Purim and her husband, drummer/percussionist Airto Moreira, who all performed on Corea's previous album Return to Forever, from which the group took its name.
Arild Andersen is a Norwegian jazz musician bassist, known as the most famous Norwegian bass player in the international jazz scene.
Children of Forever is the debut album by jazz fusion bassist Stanley Clarke. It was recorded in December 1972, and was released in 1973 by Polydor Records. On the album, Clarke is joined by vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Andy Bey, flutist Arthur Webb, guitarist Pat Martino, keyboardist Chick Corea, and drummer Lenny White.
Return to the 7th Galaxy: The Anthology is a 1996 compilation of 1972-1975 recordings made by bands assembled by Chick Corea under the name Return to Forever. The collection includes tracks from the albums Light as a Feather, Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy, Where Have I Known You Before and No Mystery, together with four previously unreleased tracks.
In the 1970s in jazz, jazz became increasingly influenced by Latin jazz, combining rhythms from African and Latin American countries, often played on instruments such as conga, timbale, güiro, and claves, with jazz and classical harmonies played on typical jazz instruments. Artists such as Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola increasingly influenced the genre with jazz fusion, a hybrid form of jazz-rock fusion which was developed by combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments, and the highly amplified stage sound of rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix. All Music Guide states that "..until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate." However, "...as rock became more creative and its musicianship improved, and as some in the jazz world became bored with hard bop and did not want to play strictly avant-garde music, the two different idioms began to trade ideas and occasionally combine forces." On June 16, 1972, the New York Jazz Museum opened in New York City at 125 West 55th Street in a one and one-half story building. It became the most important institution for jazz in the world with a 25,000 item archive, free concerts, exhibits, film programs, etc.
The Stanley Clarke Band is an album by the Stanley Clarke Band led by jazz bassist Stanley Clarke. It was released by Heads Up Record in June 2010 and was produced by Clarke and Lenny White. Band members include Ruslan Sirota on keyboard, Ronald Bruner, Jr. on drums and featured performer Hiromi on piano.
In the 2010s in jazz, there was a noted resurgence in the popularity of jazz, particularly in the United Kingdom, where new artists rose to prominence such as Sons of Kemet, Shabaka Hutchings, Ezra Collective, and Moses Boyd Young audiences overall also listened jazz moreso than before, with streaming services reporting a spike amongst people under 30. Part of this is attributed to the rise of streaming services, and part to fusions with other genres and collaborations between jazz musicians and popular artists in other genres, such as Kamasi Washington's work with Kendrick Lamar
Forever is a double CD album of live acoustic recordings recorded in California, Tokyo and Seattle in 2009 by the Return to Forever pianist Chick Corea, bass player Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White and studio rehearsals with guests Jean-Luc Ponty, Bill Connors and Chaka Khan. It was released on the Concord label I 2011.
References
- ↑ "the complex and highly talented young guitarist, Bill Connors" (Nemko, Guitar Player, 1974; "Bill Connors has been admired by aficionados and fellow players for his finely developed musical sense since he first broke on the national scene" (Santoro, Guitar Player, 1985); "Bill Connors has always lived and played ahead of the times" (Messer, Guitar Player, 2005); "Bill Connors was the 'cry of love' in fusion guitar" (Vernon Reid, 100 Years of Jazz Guitar, Columbia Records).
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Connors, interview with Frankie Nemko, Guitar Player, October 1974.
- 1 2 Connors, interview with Gene Santoro, Guitar Player, 1985.
