Location: Rovinj, Croatia
Concert date: 07/16/2011
Attendance: 6,000
Ticket price: 350kn/650kn or 950kn (VIP)
Croatia pleasantly surprised everyone this year by organizing the Avantgarde Jazz Festival, which hosted plenty of eminent names. Still, more or less all of them (maybe with the exception of Gary Burton) pale next to the legendary headliner, Return to Forever, here in the festival’s fourth edition. The band keeps its original members Corea, Clarke and White. Instead of Connors or Di Meola, the guitar spot goes to the phenomenal Frank Gambale, who has been working with Corea for years, and RTF4 is rounded out as a fifth member by yet another of the seventies’ musical innovators, the legendary violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. So for the length of the fest, the jazzers took over the charming little town of Rovinj, where besides great music you could also soak up gorgeous sunsets and equally aesthetically pleasing girls in bikinis.
Around six thousand people, including a huge number of visitors from the rest of southern, central and eastern Europe, packed into the courtyard of the former tobacco factory. The organization nailed it in some places (especially crowd control at the entrance) and dropped the ball in others. There were a few meters of empty space in front of the stage where nobody was allowed to step (except the photographers during the first song of each act), and then the best view of the stage went to the elite. They had little tables set up, all in the style of the golden years of jazz and its clubs, and only after that came a few seats for everyone else, while the rest of us stood. Standing is of course the best option for concerts, but the layout was still a bit off. Luckily I snagged a spot right at the side of the first row of those tables, so I had a phenomenal view and could still go nuts to the music as much as I wanted.
First up on stage was the Croatian jazz fusion outfit Combinate, who warmed up the crowd with a solid dose of fusion and gave latecomers time to find their spots. It was definitely a great call to make the support act Croatian by default, which goes a long way toward promoting this kind of music to local and foreign audiences alike. The band won me over above all with the song “Esmeralda”, which in style is a bit reminiscent of Focus’s “Sylvia”, and it was probably the latter that inspired the birth of “Esmeralda”.
Around half past ten in the evening we finally got what we came for: Return to Forever IV. The crowd went wild and bowed down to the band before the musicians had even laid their fingers on their instruments. Totally expected, since Croatia doesn’t host such legends, innovators and all-around milestones of music history every day, which is exactly what Return to Forever are, and Corea, Clarke and Ponty in particular. The start was unfortunately marked mostly by technical issues, with the guys hunting for the right sound and getting in sync with each other. You couldn’t hear the bass, the keyboards were too quiet, the guitar too loud. These troubles dragged on until about the third tune, so we didn’t exactly get the full experience on “Medieval Overture” and “Senor Mouse”. By “Sorceress” everything finally clicked, Corea and Clarke started smiling and enjoying themselves, and the rest was, no doubt, yet another concert for the history books.
Return to Forever blew us away with every single song, whether acoustic or electrified. Clarke was the one burning hottest throughout, proving he still has his best years ahead of him. Hammering on strings has never been as erotic as when Clarke does it, and above all it has never produced such a sound, and by extension such music. Slapping has always been Clarke’s turf, but this time he proved again that you don’t have to dig up old videos on YouTube to find his best performances. With every concert Clarke pulls a fresh set of bass tricks out of his pocket. Everyone was also curious how Jean-Luc Ponty would fit into the band’s already packed sonic picture. The violinist is in fantastic form and proved on Sunday why the band invited him into this new lineup, but I have to admit that with him, the tunes from “Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy” especially lose some of that cosmic sound that is the thematic backbone of that record. Ponty’s fills, doublings and solos sound too traditionally jazzy to elevate the concept, or even just keep up with it. Maybe some will disagree, since it was still played brilliantly, even masterfully, it just didn’t stylistically fit the concept of “Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy”. Jean-Luc, though, shone all the brighter in the acoustic parts and in the RTF material from “Romantic Warrior”, where the rearrangements weren’t noticeable at all. If anything, it looked like the songs had originally been written for a quintet. Since Gambale is another new face in the band, it’s worth stressing that neither Di Meola nor Connors was missed all that much.
Besides classics like “After the Cosmic Rain”, “Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy”, “Romantic Warrior” and “Spain” (where Clarke won himself an improvisation spot every single time, which is of course phenomenal given his technique, but to my mind there were too many of these fairly similar showcases), RTF4 also played Ponty’s new creation “Renaissance”, a gorgeous acoustic aria that suited the vibe of the Rovinj setting perfectly. The concert was supposedly closed with Corea’s legendary “Spain”, which, with all the improvisations and spontaneous bits from individual players, ran almost 20 minutes. After a finish like that, I’d have called the show fantastic, but not a historic high point. That’s why the band’s next gesture is the reason everyone will remember this concert night for the rest of their lives. During the second encore, RTF4, smiling like never before, invited all the die-hard fans up front, those of us who had been jumping around and trying to stay on our feet despite all our sweat on the floor. In doing so they poked a little fun at the calm and, for the most part, uninterested so-called elite, who were chatting over their wine about the current state of their investments. The crowd fought its way between their tables up to the front of the stage, where we jumped and clapped our way through the whole of Clarke’s “School Days”. Later Corea stayed on stage long enough to shake hands with those of us who had climbed high enough and thank us. The communication never exactly flowed at any point, but this time it was obvious that it wasn’t just us, the crazed fans, showing gratitude. The band was clearly happy to be able to thrill somebody this much. And of course the fans were all the more grateful when the band delivers for a full two and a half hours!
The RTF4 concert in Rovinj was definitely a huge highlight. Judging by recordings from earlier shows on this tour, it was one of the most dynamic and relaxed, yet at the same time the tightest, especially after the first three songs. From the moment the musicians stepped on stage, the euphoria of the great multi-thousand-headed crowd rightfully built up to a peak, reached with “School Days” and above all with the cheerful attitude that has won them so many devoted fans over all these years. The Avantgarde Jazz Festival has hosted the biggest jazzers in rock and the biggest rockers in jazz since its very birth, and judging by the organizers, fans of this kind of music can look forward to even more excellent acts. So thank you, Rovinj, thank you, Return to Forever, and thank you to the people who made the event possible and were there. They are all now written back into musical eternity, where Return to Forever return with every new feat.
Setlist
1 .Medieval Overture 2. Senor Mouse 3. Sorceress / Shadow of Lo 4. After the Cosmic Rain 5. Hymn of the 7th Galaxy 6. A Dayride in Oakland 7. Renaissance 8. Romantic Warrior 9. Spain 10. School Days
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