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Lenny White and RTF IV: Germany, Holland and France
by Carl L. Hager
Intro |#2 | #3 |#4 “The gigs in Germany were fantastic, great audiences. The band is starting to hit its stride. In Hamburg, about 1,000 real dedicated fans stood in the rain for the full performance. In Neckarsulm, we played at the Audi performance center inside an Audi car manufacturing plant, a remarkable structure filled with classic and current Audi cars. “Overall, this is an amazing band. We played in Essen, Germany, ...
Continue ReadingLenny White and RTF IV: Syracuse, NY and Canada
by Carl L. Hager
Intro | #2 | #3 | #4 [Editor's note: After opening night in Northampton, Massachusetts, Lenny White and his Return To Forever band mates played at the M&T Jazz Festival in Syracuse, New York, then headed north to Canada for festival dates in Montreal and Ottawa. After filing this report, RTF IV played a third festival date in Toronto, and then got on a plane to Berlin.] Show time!
Continue ReadingLenny White and RTF IV: Northampton, Mass.
by Carl L. Hager
Intro | 2 | 3 | 4 [Editor's note: Lenny White and the other members of the legendary jazz/rock band Return To Forever began a world tour last February in Australia, and on Friday, June 24th resume in Northampton, Massachusetts. After that it's north to Canada for three dates, over to Europe for a month, then back to the U.S. for the summer. Throughout the tour you'll have the opportunity to get ...
Continue ReadingLenny White: Jazz/Rock Collides Again
by Carl L. Hager
When that cool, overcast dawn arrived in Bethel, New York, neither the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair's expired permit, nor the rain, mud, and technical problems could have kept Jimi Hendrix and his Band of Gypsys from playing. It was destiny. Believe it. A hundred miles south on that same morning of August 18, 1969, Miles Davis had gathered the four other members of his famous quintet at his New York City home for a short rehearsal: ...
Continue ReadingLenny White: Anomaly
by Ian Patterson
At twenty-five, Lenny White had established a reputation as one of the best drummers in jazz-rock and fusion, having featured as a nineteen year-old on trumpeter Miles Davis' epochal Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969) and forming one-half of the formidable rhythm team, alongside bassist Stanley Clarke in Chick Corea's seminal fusion group, Return to Forever. In the thirty-plus years between RTF's break up and 2008 reformation, White has also recorded with a long list of topnotch jazz musicians including saxophonists Stan ...
Continue ReadingLenny White: Just Doing It
by Rex Butters
Miles Davis kicked the fusion door open in 1969 and some people still haven't gotten over it. Among the future jazz star innovators on Bitches Brew (Columbia/Legacy, 1969) was an unknown eighteen year-old Tony Williams fanatic named Lenny White, who found his recording debut making history. Now an elder statesman at almost sixty, White maintains a furiously fast level of invention tied to an appropriately superhuman technique. Despite recently recovering from shoulder surgery, White packs a punch enviable in a ...
Continue ReadingReturn to Forever: Return to Forever: The Anthology
by Tom Greenland
In support of their 2008 reunion tour, Concord Records has released Return to Forever: The Anthology, a selective overview of the quartet's classic 'middle period.' Formed by principal composer/keyboardist Chick Corea, RTF included bassist Stanley Clarke, drummer Lenny White and guitarists Bill Connors or Al DiMeola. An alumnus of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969), inspired by Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, as well as Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes, Corea recorded two RTF albums with Clarke (a former compatriot ...
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