Customer Reviews

Return

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Known for his ground breaking work as the original guitarist for Return to Forever and his seminal acoustic guitar explorations for ECM, Bill Connors newest effort is perhaps his best work to date. While most fusion projects utilize a distorted guitar sound pitted against complex rhythm sections, Connors forgoes his rack of effects to uncover the sonic intricacies of a Gibson L5 matched with his own hand built amp. Do not construe the purity of his tone as an attempt to produce a straight ahead Jazz album. There is nothing archaic or antiquated about this recording. This is contemporary improvised music performed at the highest possible level imaginable. Connors solos are both sophisticated and moving, blending his flawless technique with an emotional element missing in most recordings of this genre. Pianist Bill O'Connell not only complements the guitarist's brilliant solos, but pushes Connors to heights rarely reached on studio recordings. Bassist Lincoln Goines, drummer Kim Plainfield, and Myra Casales round off this band of exceptional musicians. Together they create an eclectic synthesis of Jazz, Rock, and Blues where the sum is always much greater than the styles which are integrated. Connors, who for the last 30 years has been overlooked and underappreciated by the music industry, has produced an album that is sure to correct this inexcusable oversight. Return is more than a comeback album, its sets a standard and raises the bar, for others to try to emulate.

James W. Scott
History Teacher
Fredericksburg Tx

It's astounding to me how the spaced out, LSD inspired, cosmic, post-hippy, jazz-fusion crowd have exposed themselves to be as inflexible to change as are the jazz purists. The reading of this poor guitarist's fans reviews of this album is proof positive of the former statement. Well I grew up listening to Mahavishnu Orch., Return to Forever, Stanley Clarke, Frank Zappa and all the other Dieties of the screaming guitar solo just like my fellow reviewers. Fortunately, unlike my esteemed collegues, I took the time to appreciate other facets of the art form called jazz.

Forget what the ney sayers have to say about this album. This artist simply chose a change pace one time and what does he get?! OOOOH! He sounds like Pat Martino! OOOOOO! I wish someone would accuse me of sounding like Pat Martino! My God! What a compliment! Considering that this particular jazz idiom is not Bill's mainstay, comparing his sound here to Pat Martino only highlights Bill's versatility, which was probably the point of the creation of the album in the first place.

All the screaming, howling, mechanical playing, psuedo shreader, Steve Vai wannabes that are mentioned by the other reviewers here, never saw a "real" jazz chord progression that they could follow. Those other guys are the Gods of rehearsed solos. All of their facy licks where manufactured way in advance of their recording/concerts performances. And that "includes" Al DeMiola with McLaughlin being the exception to the rule.

With this recording Bill proves that he can do the "Now, Here's Something Completely Different" thing. And he pulls it off quite nicely if you ask me! See if any of the other so-called guitar gods would care to try. Let's see if any of them would be good enough to envoke the name of Pat Martino. I think not! Those guys are way too satisfied playing screaming solos to whole note rhythmed chord progressions to even try.

So for you fans of Bill that don't like this album - Let this be a lesson to you! Never do the Mesciline until you've heard the album at least once. We wouldn't want you to miss the collidascope colors!

Let me start out by saying that I love Jazz and Rock. Also, I don't mind distorted guitar. I like Holdsworth. I like Connor's '80s records (Assembler, Double Up, and Step It). I think they have a real directness and rawness.

This album, as you can tell by my stars, is perhaps even better, but completely different. I feel that this record is more direct, solid, and steady from track to track.

The distortion and harmonizers are gone. What's left is an awesome deep clean guitar sound. The legato isn't as apparent, if even present at all. Instead, listeners are treated to an almost straight ahead jazz album. I say "almost" because there is still something raw present that hints at rock. Perhaps it's the stripped setting, the attention to band riffs, and the strong rhythmic content.

If there is a reader on the edge on this one and knows guitar jazz albums for reference, then I'd say Scofield's "Works for Me" is in a similar conscious. Personally, I love this album and it keeps getting stolen by friends out of my car, so it can't be too bad...

Forget all the comparisons to other guitar players, other guitar recordings, or hyper-technical analysis of chords changes.... This is a very satisfying recording. I've got it on my iPod and every time one of these songs comes up in shuffle mode I smile. Very nice interplay between the band members, great guitar tone and playing and nice compositions. It's not going to tear your head off with the "wow that's new and different" thing. But I can tell you this: after years of listening to this recording it still satisfies. For all you audio freaks the recording quality isn't bad either.

BTW--I'm an aging guitar player, went to Berklee and all that back in the 80's. I love the guitar and its practitioners. I own Step It on vinyl and so on. Check it out--it's worth a listen or few.

Ever since I heard the first Return to Forever LP, I've been a huge fan of Bill Connors. His solo in part IV of Stanley Clarke's "Life Suite" is one of my top 10 solos of all time -- 5 minutes of continuous goosebumps. "Step It" is a monster in the same vein: that great singing, burning tone, with occasional moments of blinding intensity. I also liked his ECM acoustic records -- although they have a completely different sound, they express the same sort of brooding emotion.

I would Google Bill's name periodically to see what had become of him, which seemed to be "nothing," and so was hugely thrilled to see that he'd finally recorded something new after about 20 years of silence. But it was barely worth the wait. It sounds as though Bill's been off practicing scales, striving to expunge his sound of any sort of feeing or depth. "Nobody Yet To" is the only tune that you might recognize in a blindfold test as being Bill Connors, and only for fleeting glimpses of the old Bill. This isn't affirmatively bad music -- it's actually pretty good for working out at the gym. But if demons were what drove Bill in the past, they're definitely exorcised.

If your thing is fairly normal guitar scales over 2 or 3 note chord vaiations then this is for you. Boring as hell for me. There is a ton of other more interesting guitarist out there. Better try Connors in his ecm period...much more interesting than this.

I bought the three legendary Bill Connors albums when they came out in the 80's. I also have Return to Forever's Hymn to the Seventh Galaxy. J.Dennis and the others have completely missed the mark. Frank Gambale, Allan Holdsworth, Scott Henderson, Birelli Lagrene and many others are more cutting edge than this. Why is Bill trying to clone Pat Martino? If I want to hear a record like this, I'll put on Pat Martino's "Interchange". One other thing, there are guys who are much more adventurous with a clean tone than this. Don't believe me? Get some Joe DiOrio or Mick Goodrick and learn a hard lesson. The only reason I gave this four stars is that the group (especially the pianist) are stellar.

A true melding of jazz and fusion. What you've always wanted, but have never found. A pure Gibson L5 with a painstakingly crafted amp built by Connors himself, pianistic genius Bill O'Connell, e-bass guitar master Lincoln Goines, and monster fusion drummer Kim Plainfield (with added percussion by Myra Casales) adds up to pure jazz fusion genius. Connors, once a member of Chick Corea's spectacular fusion outfit, Return to Forever, here places himself in an absolutely brilliant setting.

Look. This is it. Outpacing Mahavishnu, Mike Clark, Scott Henderson, Dennis Chambers, Greg Howe, Jing Chi, Vital Information, Frank Gambale, even the great John Scofield, these guys have produced the absolute ur-jazz/fusion disc of all time. Simply put, this is the greatest jazz/fusion recording ever. Hands down.

Why? The jazz element comes properly to the fore, which is not always the case with these hybrids. Listen. These guys have jazz chops out the wazoo, which all too seldom happens with these ventures. If you don't have the jazz chops, the disc tends to bog down, repeating warmed-over jazz-rock clichés. But that doesn't happen here, and listeners are the big-time winners.

Moving the music into some kind of jazz/fusion nirvana, Return is my disc of the year. And it will take a monster contender to supplant it.