Return to Forever reunites with no regrets
by Brett Wertz | Omaha Reader
Return to Forever, often considered the forefather of the modern jam band, have reunited for their first tour in more than 25 years. The four core members are on board for 50-plus dates that will find them crisscrossing two continents with a stop in Omaha.
“It’s a nightly thrill,” said Chick Corea, the musical prodigy who founded Return to Forever in the early 1970s. “Night after night we’re putting it all back together again.”
After moving away from the avant-garde keyboard styling that characterized his youth, Corea — an almost entirely self-taught pianist — began to explore a new style known as jazz fusion.
Though the group featured a rotating lineup, its nucleus consisted of bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Al Di Meola and drummer Lenny White. With Corea at the helm, Return to Forever spent a decade exploring the borders between Latin, jazz and rock music, generally choosing to ignore any distinctions.
The group’s brash irreverence for traditional jazz conventions garnered lots of attention, positive and negative. The beautiful new blend of music ultimately resulted in a Grammy Award for Return to Forever for Best Jazz Performance by a Group in 1975. Two years later, however, the group would part ways.
But even with a quarter-century of dust settled on their recordings, there was never any doubt for Corea that Return to Forever could return to form.
“I left all of my expectations alone,” Corea said. “I decided to just have none at all and play, then see what happens.”
According to Corea — and judging by ticket sales—the response has been beyond enthusiastic, despite the rust that the group is still shaking off nightly.
“I haven’t played much electric keyboards in the past few years,” Corea said, “and that’s my technical challenge.”
Beyond the technical, though, there are also musical issues. After Corea disbanded Return to Forever in 1977, players went their separate ways. Corea sees this individual growth not as a challenge, but an opportunity.
“It’s a new day,” Corea said. “With the four of us having experienced a lot of music in the past decades, we’re introducing our new ideas. It’s a nightly discovery.”
Though reasons for the group’s breakup remain cloudy, some members have suggested it was rooted in a philosophical disagreement between Corea and Clarke. While performing with Return to Forever, Corea converted to Scientology — a religion that Clarke would ultimately abandon. The tension between them may have led to the breakup.
Recently, though, the four put differences aside in favor of the music and overwhelming fan support.
“Through the years we would meet and talk about Return to Forever,” Corea said. “It was always one-on-one; the four of us would never be in the same space. But over the past couple years there was more of that conversation.”
The consensus was that they wanted to set up a reunion tour, but only in 2008 were they able to nail down the dates.
“We all checked our schedules and it worked,” he said. “It was a relatively short runway, considering I usually book tours as far as two years in advance.”
Once the scheduling was set, the rest fell into place.
“The music coming together is the easiest part,” Corea said. “That’s the most natural thing that we’ve always done together, and that’s the joy of it, really.”
Reunited on stage, Corea and Return to Forever are getting a taste of bygone days, but rarely look back too far, preferring to ignore the big what-ifs in their past.
“I’ve gotten out of regretting things,” Corea said. “It doesn’t do any good. I’m thankful all of our lives took the course they needed to artistically and musically, and now we have another opportunity to play again.”
