THE INDEPENDENT EAR
Insights, Reviews & Interviews
By Willard Jenkins

Vol. 1 No. 3

Bill Connors, guitar

Willard Jenkins: How did you come to join Return To Forever and what were the circumstances?

Bill Connors: I was in the San Francisco area and at the time I was playing with Steve Swallow who had a trio and Steve knew Chick pretty well. He arranged an audition for me with Chick. Chick was playing at Todd Barkan's club [Keystone Korner] and they had me come in and I played a couple of sets with the band. There was another guitar player and also [conguero] Mingo Lewis was there that night, auditioning. This would have been the beginning of '73. Chick called me a couple of weeks after that and asked if I would like to join the band, which would involve moving to New York.

WJ: That night at the Keystone it was you, another guitar player, Mingo Lewis, Stanley Clarke and Chick?

BC: From what I understand Airto and Flora had gotten into some immigration problems, so Chick was going around with a trio with Lenny White and they sounded really good. I knew the music pretty good because I had their record, "Light as a Feather," I had learned all the tunes, and I was a big fan of Chick anyway.

WJ: Considering that you had Light as a Feather and had learned all those tunes. What was your sense of RTF at the time you joined the band?

BC: It was a dream come true for me because Chick was my favorite musician and I had been addicted to his album "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs." With Lenny and Stanley they were really playing quite strong straight ahead and I was a bit surprised because, although I was an electric guitar player, Chick played extremely loud. He had the Fender Rhodes and he played exclusively that. He had a wa-wa pedal and he would crunch on that, and he had one of these amplifiers that had a high frequency horn built into them and he would really punch that Fender Rhodes. It was like bullets going through my ears, but it was really hot. The feel of that rhythm section was like a really fast ride, completely exciting.

WJ: So it was obvious to you that there was a change in philosophy in the air from that Flora and Airto RTF band?

BC: At first I think Chick was thinking about it but I don't think he had a clear idea at that time, I think they were playing as they had been but with Lenny they had a harder straight ahead feel.

WJ: What were some of the highlights from your RTF days?

BC: I was in the band for a year and a half. The first months were very exciting. As it turned out, when I got to New York, Lenny had decided to not join the band; he had decided to stay with the group Azteca. So Chick found this drummer that none of us had heard of, Stevie Gadd. We got together with Steve, our first gig was at the Vanguard and that was really exciting for me. In that original period we played mostly the same tunes that Chick played with the Light as a Feather Band.

WJ: So at this point it was you, Chick, Stanley, Steve Gadd and Mingo Lewis.

BC: Right. So we had the extra percussion and in the beginning we played the jazz clubs where Chick had been accustomed to playing, in all the big cities. That was the most fun for me, I'd always wanted to be doing that kind of thing, playing jazz in the jazz venues. He really hadn't developed his more fusion direction yet.

WJ: You made one record with the band?

BC: We made two but the first one was not released.

WJ: Considering both sessions you made with RTF, was it totally Chick's direction or did every member have a responsibility?

BC: It was Chick's direction. Stanley was really the veteran in the band at that time and Chick was kind of giving him some seniority in the band - he was paid more and was given an opportunity to contribute to the writing. So I was happy to be playing their material.

WJ: What precipitated your leaving the band?

BC: I became somewhat frustrated because during the year and a half we had gone from playing more like straight ahead jazz - along the lines of the first night I played with him, which was more from a jazz perspective, which is really what I had hoped to do [when I joined]. Then as it grew, after the first four months or so, we began playing in gigantic venues more like rock halls. There was kind of a thing going on with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Larry Coryell's 11th House… so often they would book two of these bands together… a couple of times we played opposite Weather Report. Other times we would play opposite big rock bands as kind of a warm-up. Our volume just grew and grew and then we started to perform like a rock band with stage monitors…

WJ: Do you think this had anything to do with Chick feeling in competition with those other bands?

BC: I did think that it was a little too much bowing to the McLaughlin direction. We had gone to see that band and the next day he took us down to 48th St. to a music store and we bought stacks of giant amplifiers. It was a little mis-placed for me. I had been trying to get away from that kind of thing. I come from Los Angeles originally and I liked Cream, blues and rock before I got into jazz. In a way it was like a certain going backwards for me. There was a song [in the RTF repertoire] that was kind of like a pop tune, called "Space Circus." On that song it would be like an extended solo for me in A minor, stagnant key solo, then Chick would put kind of like a pounding backup. That was like that rock thing, kind of like an anxiety based vibe. I thought our strength was not in playing that kind of clichéd thing.

WJ: So did you guys have any discussions about that?

BC: Yeah we did and I have to say I don't think I was a very mature person at that time. I never really could recover from what happened in Japan.

WJ: What happened in Japan?

BC: Since the first time I'd ever hung out with Chick, he and Stanley would always talk about Japan. They had gone there with Airto and Flora and they were a tremendous success there - apparently they were like the Beatles there. And they were always talking about how when they arrived at the airport in Japan there was a big press conference, like the Beatles. So it was a really novel thing. I could easily imagine how the Japanese would love the "Light as a Feather" band; it was very sophisticated and it was not in your face… So when we finally went to Japan in early 1974 I was nervous because the more we went along Chick was using me as the electric guitarist, whereas before he had no idea what the guitar should do, so I was fulfilling all of my dreams by trying to be more like a saxophone player.

WJ: But he was pushing that electric guitar sound out front?

BC: He saw that people would respond to it as a cultural kind of iconic sound. I liked to use the value of that but then I put what was important to me behind it in the feeling of it. I started to feel that we were losing our voice. When we went to Japan I was very insecure because the Japanese press really beat up on me. I felt I was being made like a scapegoat. The Japanese loved the "Light as a Feather" band and they heard this record that had the "Space Circus" kind of songs, kind of in your face change in direction and I felt like they were blaming me.

WJ: The Japanese had an adverse reaction to that sound?

BC: Yeah they did and Chick was very sensitive to it and I didn't appreciate the way that he reacted. He sensed at the airport - I think he was a little nervous too. When we went to our first concert - it seemed like all of Japan was there - so Chick had arranged the show so he would first play solo acoustic, then he would play a duet with Stanley on acoustic bass, and then he would play a "Light as a Feather" style trio piece - maybe "Sometime Ago", a samba like thing, and then I had to come out and Stanley would switch to electric bass and I came out with my electric guitar and then we would just play like "Space Circus."

WJ: So when you came out last, apparently in the Japanese audience's mind the whole vibe changed.

BC: Yeah, and it was like my fault and I think I was too sensitive to it. I was a "Light as a Feather" fan too, as well as a Chick fan, and I loved it when Chick would play any of his old tunes. Sometimes if you really kicked him hard he would play like he was in Circle again, he's a natural born genius. But he was more normally somewhat of a control freak. The thing in Japan kind of hurt my feelings - it was like 'wow, I'm ruining this great thing that we all love and I'm like responsible for it.'

WJ: What was Chick's reaction to all that?

BC: I didn't feel he had any sensitivity for me on the issue. If I could do it again I wouldn't take it all so personally but I did at the time, I guess being that I was also a big fan of his. We had other issues come up; we went through this thing that maybe I was playing too loud or something. As time went by I just was feeling inhibited and we were starting to develop a pattern. We had a real sparkly quality in the beginning.

WJ: Was there a particular breaking point or was it a variety of things building up?

BC: The Japan thing put a big emotional dent on me and I wasn't big enough to get over it. I kind of brooded about it for a few months. We went on and played all over Europe and I was having a conflict in me. I was hearing John Coltrane and guys like that and I was only 23 and I wanted to live up to those standards and it was just hard for me to be doing like a kind of commercial endeavor.

WJ: Was the bottom line that you didn't sign on to play in a rock band?

BC: [Chuckles] I don't feel that I could sign a statement like that because Chick was my hero; it was kind of like a hard situation where a guy that you really looked up to they're not doing what you expect of them.

WJ: In the end did you guys just come to an agreement to disagree?

BC: I actually just turned in my papers and I told them I was going to have to leave, this was in the middle of 1974. We were in Europe somewhere… and nobody got mad, Chick was really always very considerate. I think I was very upset…

WJ: But there really wasn't any kind of blowup or anything?

BC: No, not at all. Chick was very nice and he was hoping I'd change my mind but I just felt that I needed to leave at the time. Looking back I feel it's the kind of thing that everybody has to go through but I think I was having a hard time because he really was a hero of mine… When the band played good it was like nothing else, it was really, really hot. I knew I wasn't going to tell Chick what to play, or anything of the sort. I told him the things I loved about his music, but I was concerned because he had never played with a guitar before and I could see that he was just developing his ideas there… I had my own ideas and I didn't want to be corralled in. I think it was more about my self-esteem - I was there to provide the electric guitar, the sexy, symbolic instrument, but I needed to feel like part of the team. And I guess I couldn't get that. When Stevie Gadd left the band I was disappointed, it was like the whole rug came out from underneath us, we hadn't realized how much he meant to the band. Every song would have a unique atmosphere, he was great and Chick played great with him. I remember one time we were traveling and we went to Ronnie Scott's club in London and we saw George Benson there. At the time George had Earl Klugh in the band. I was talking with Earl in a back room somewhere and Earl and I were saying 'hey, let's trade gigs.' I think I was starting to think about playing acoustic and Earl was all hot to play electric. When I left RTF Earl played in the band, for only two or three months. Chick went and bought him a Les Paul guitar; I haven't seen Earl since then but I'd imagine he didn't enjoy it as much as he thought. Stanley told me that Earl just split and they couldn't get ahold of him and then they wound up getting DiMeola to replace him.

WJ: What are you doing these days?

BC: For a long time I've been a teacher, but I've got a new album that came out like six months ago. I'm playing with Mike Clark the drummer that I knew from back before; I used to play with Mike before I played with Chick and before he got the gig with Herbie Hancock. We used to all be poor together. I've still got my head in the clouds.

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