North Sea Jazz Festival

It's been awhile since I've had the chance to post, my son plays select baseball and the schedule makes for a real challenge time-wise.  But after 50+ games and a couple of thousand miles on the car, the season is wrapping up and I am able to get back to some posting here.

A couple of real gems surfaced over on the Dime bit torrent site this past week from this month's North Sea Jazz Festival .


Return to Forever (this lineup being dubbed Return to Forever IV) and John McLaughlin & 4th Dimension both performed hour long sets at the festival that were broadcast, and the recording quality of these sets is superb.

Return to Forever has hit the road again this summer with a couple of lineup changes.  Al DiMeola is gone, replaced by Frank Gambale who has played extensively with the Chick Corea Elektric Band. Also joining the band for this tour is violinist Jean-Luc Ponty.  The rest of the band
consists of long time members Stanley Clarke, Lenny White and of course Chick Corea.

Let's start with the guitar seat.  Personally, while I certainly admire and appreciate Al Di Meola's technical abilities on the guitar, I have never really been a big fan of his playing style. Bill Connors, the RTF guitarist that Al replaced, was a little more to my taste. And really my favorite RTF lineup was the original with Joe Farrell on reeds, Airto on drums, and Flora Purim spinning her vocal magic.

Frank Gambale takes a much more subtle role here, which gives the band more of an ensemble feel.  His paying is solid and tasteful, if a tad restrained by comparison (although that may only be by comparison).

The addition of Jean-Luc Ponty adds some nice textures to the music, and in fact my favorite piece from this set, Renaisssance, features Ponty extensively.

What we have here is a 60 minute truncated version of their normal set.  Excellent stuff!
Return to Forever - 2011-07-08

John McLaughlin has been touring with his 4th Dimension band for several years now, and they really cook.

The band is mostly the same as the one that toured the U.S. last, with new drummer Ranjit Barot taking over for Mark Mondesir.  Again we have a somewhat truncated version of the band's touring set, pared down to about an hour.

John McLaughlin needs no introduction to anyone with even cursory exposure to fusion, and while the guitar work may be toned down a bit relative to the Mahavishnu days, John still slings a pretty mean axe.  Bassist Etienne Mbappé is a real treat, this guy can play.  Make that PLAY.  He and John compliment each other very well.  Gary Husband plays keyboards and some drums as well, and as one would expect in a band of this caliber he can bring it too.

The music here continues in the vein of 2010's excellent "To the One" - muscular and yet melodic.

JohnMcLaughlin & 4th Dimension - 2011-07-09

Again, the sound quality of both of these sets is very, very good.  These are well worth the time and bandwidth to download.  Enjoy!  And as always, thanks to those who record and share these broadcasts.  If you like what you hear, support the artists and buy their CDs!