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On the Road With...
Lenny White and RTF IV: Germany, Holland and France
Carl L. Hager
Freelance writer and editor, publisher of the blog Jazz (Jazzers Jazzing), Senior Editor and contributor at All About Jazz since 2009."But now this band, this version, RTF IV—I don't mean to downgrade any of the other earlier versions of Return To Forever, or put them in a secondary category, but this one is very, very musical. It covers a wide variety. The people at the classical festival made me realize that there were all these different kinds of musics that we dealt with. You have five musicians who have had many, many different musical experiences, and it's kind of a conversation. It's like if you were to be in an audience and listen to five famous actors who had been in the business for 40-50 years, talking about their different roles in films, you would be privy to some information that you wouldn't normally get. What you have in this band are five different individuals who have played every kind of music you can imagine. We have musical conversations every night, and you can be privy to them.
Return To Forever performing at Central Park's Wollman Rink on July 28, 1975.
From left: Chick Corea, Al Di Meola
Al Di Meola
b.1954
guitar
, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White
"We're true road warriors. We travel well, but it's traveling. We sleep when we can. This is a vicious schedule—we just did 11 concerts in 12 days. I personally think the performance at the Tollwood Festival in Munich was the best so far. This is worth all the stress of traveling, to see genuine joy on the faces of the fans."
Photo Credits
Page 1: All Photos: Bill Rooney
Page 2: Ria Images
