Bill Connors (born September 24, 1949) is an American
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
guitarist who was a member of
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021) was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain (instrumental), Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba" ...
's band
Return to Forever
Return to Forever was an American jazz fusion band that was founded by pianist Chick Corea in 1972. The band has had many members, with the only consistent bandmate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke. Along with Weather Report, The Headhun ...
. After leaving Return to Forever, he recorded three acoustic albums and then four electric albums as a leader/soloist."the complex and highly talented young guitarist, Bill Connors" (Nemko, ''Guitar Player'', 1974; "Bill Connors has been admired by aficionados and fellow players for his finely developed musical sense since he first broke on the national scene" (Santoro, ''Guitar Player'', 1985); "Bill Connors has always lived and played ahead of the times" (Messer, ''Guitar Player'', 2005); "Bill Connors was the 'cry of love' in fusion guitar" (Vernon Reid, ''100 Years of Jazz Guitar'', Columbia Records).
Early years
Connors was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1949 and began to play the guitar at the age of 14. After three years of extensive self-study of the rock and blues influences that were his first inspiration, he began to play gigs around the Los Angeles area with a heavy blues/rock group called Middle Earth. He found his way to jazz, the music that would lead to a lifelong commitment.
"I'd been playing for about four years", he explained at the time of his RTF tenure, "and suddenly had an overnight change. I didn't want to be a blues guitarist anymore. I began listening to people like
Bill Evans
William John Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer who worked primarily as the leader of his trio. His use of impressionist harmony, block chords, innovative chord voicings, a ...
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery (March 6, 1923 – June 15, 1968) was an American jazz guitarist. Montgomery was known for his unusual technique of plucking the strings with the side of his thumb and for his extensive use of octaves, which gave him a ...
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...
Django Reinhardt
Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani people, Romani nickname Django ( or ), was a Belgium, Belgian-born Romani jazz guitarist and composer in France. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe ...
really got to me. The first time I heard one of his records, I thought that was just what I wanted to be. He had all the fire, creativity, and energy that rock players have today. And the amazing purity of his melodies—you just knew they came from a totally instinctive place."Connors, interview with Frankie Nemko, ''Guitar Player'', October 1974.
He and Django differed however over the matter of electronics with Bill preferring the sound of the electric instrument. "I always wanted to use the electric guitar in a sophisticated context, like with Chick
orea
Orea is a municipality located in the province of Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. According to the 2004 census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating pop ...
I like to play jazz with that electric-rock sound. For me it's a lot closer to a horn than the traditional guitar, and that's what I love about it; I can sustain notes, get into different kinds of phrasing—do things other instruments do naturally, only the guitar does it with the aid of technology."
Connors moved to San Francisco in 1972 to join the Mike Nock Group (formerly known as The Fourth Way) with drummer
Eddie Marshall
Edwin "Eddie" Marshall (April 13, 1938 – September 7, 2011Obituary ) was an American and bassist Dennis Parker. He met up with drummer and vibraphonist Glenn Cronkhite, who introduced him to greater knowledge of jazz. Connors also played with bassist
Steve Swallow
Steve Swallow (born October 4, 1940) is an American jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton, and Carla Bley. He was one of the first jazz double bassists to switch entirely to electric bass guitar.
...
In 1973, after sitting in on a gig, Connors joined Return to Forever, a fusion band led by keyboardist Chick Corea's that included bassist
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke (born June 30, 1951) is an American bassist, composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jazz-fus ...
and drummer
Steve Gadd
Stephen Kendall Gadd (born April 9, 1945) is an American jazz fusion drummer, percussionist, and session musician. Gadd is one of the best-known and most highly regarded session and studio drummers in the industry, recognized by his induction i ...
.
"A miracle!" Bill claims. "Chick was my hero. I wanted to be Chick Corea on guitar. I didn't know him, but whenever I really wanted to get off on music I'd play some of his piano solos and Return to Forever songs. I heard that Chick was looking for a guitarist. Steve encouraged me to call Chick, and though I was very nervous, I did, and he invited me to come over to the club where he was working and sit in. I was so scared that I almost turned him down. But after running around and saying to everyone, 'Guess who I'm going to play with tonight,' and everyone telling everyone else, all this energy was formulating – and I took to my room and practiced my ass off."
That night the fear disappeared. "The minute I got up on stage I had this feeling like I'd been preparing for this all my life. I was so relaxed that I felt as though I was in my own living room. Chick and I played musical games – he'd play these real simple lines and I'd be giving my interpretations of them, then go off into the Chick Corea 'outness.' I ended up in New York two weeks later."
With Corea's band of Stanley Clarke and drummer
Lenny White
Leonard White III (born December 19, 1949) is an American jazz fusion drummer who was a member of the band Return to Forever led by Chick Corea in the 1970s. White has been called "one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion".
White has won thre ...
, Connors established himself on the national and international music scenes, touring in Japan and Europe, and recording the album '' Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy'' (1973).
In April 1974, after the band's tour of Europe and Japan, Bill quit the group. The musical direction seemed to him to be changing from what it was when he'd joined. He explains, "Everything started getting less aesthetic, more rock. Just too much like
Mahavishnu
Mahavishnu () is an aspect of Vishnu, the principal deity in Vaishnavism. In his capacity as Mahavishnu, the deity is known as the Supreme Purusha, the absolute protector and sustainer of the universe, the one who is beyond human comprehensio ...
. I was having trouble expressing myself the way I wanted to in that context."
Connor's disenchantment with the group also stemmed from certain objections to Corea's
Scientology
Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by the American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It is variously defined as a scam, a Scientology as a business, business, a cult, or a religion. Hubbard initially develo ...
-inspired leadership style. "Chick had a lot of ideas that were part of his involvement with Scientology. He got more demanding, and I wasn't allowed to control my own solos. I had no power in the music at all. Then, we'd receive written forms about what clothes we could wear, and graphic charts where we had to rate ourselves every night – not by our standards, but his. Finally, we had to connect dots on a chart every night. I took all of it seriously because I had a lot of respect for Chick, but eventually I just felt screwed around. In the end, my only power was to quit."
After Return to Forever
In 1974, Connors left Return to Forever, and began to explore the New York jazz and session scene, performing with guitarist John Abercrombie and keyboardist
Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer () (born 17 April 1948) is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He rose to prominence while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as with his film scores for television an ...
, and recording with former Return to Forever bandmate
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke (born June 30, 1951) is an American bassist, composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jazz-fus ...
. "It was great," he stated in a 1985 interview, "because it wasn't this contrived thing in order to communicate to the audience. We were *playing* again and *learning* again, and it felt real good."Connors, interview with Gene Santoro, ''Guitar Player'', 1985.
During this period, recording with vocalist
Gene McDaniels
Eugene Booker McDaniels (February 12, 1935 – July 29, 2011) was an American singer, producer and songwriter. He had his greatest recording success in the early 1960s, reaching number three on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100 singles chart wit ...
and Stanley Clarke kept the guitarist's creative impulses occupied with a variety of challenges—but not for long. "Around 1975, I'd decided to become a classical guitar player", he muses. "I did my first solo album in 1974, and just decided on the spur of the moment to do it all on acoustic. That was just such a contrast from blowing people's ears off with my 200-watt Marshall that it really started to capture me." A further impetus came with Connors' discovery of classical artist
Julian Bream
Julian Alexander Bream (15 July 193314 August 2020) was an English classical guitarist and lutenist. Regarded as one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century, he played a significant role in improving the public perc ...
. "I was sitting with his album ''20th Century Guitar''—a real classic—and it has this piece by erman composerHenze that I really loved. It was just getting to me, so I sat down for a couple of days and transcribed it—on my steel-string guitar, with my funny pick-and-finger technique aughs When I got it, it gave me so much pleasure that I said, 'Okay, I'm going to be a classical guitar player.' And that's what happened."
Connors recorded his solo album '' Theme to the Gaurdian'' ( ECM) in 1974, making the switch from electric to acoustic guitar. Simultaneously he began to study classical guitarists. Two more albums on acoustic guitar followed: ''
Of Mist and Melting
''Of Mist and Melting'' is the second album by American guitarist and composer Bill Connors recorded in December 1977 and released on ECM the following year. The quartet features saxophinist Jan Garbarek and rhythm section Gary Peacock and Jack ...
'' (1978, ECM) with saxophonist
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek () (born 4 March 1947) is a Norwegian jazz saxophonist, who is also active in classical music and world music.
Garbarek was born in Mysen, Østfold, southeastern Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war, Czesław Gar ...
, bassist
Gary Peacock
Gary George Peacock (May 12, 1935September 4, 2020) was an American jazz double bassist. He recorded a dozen albums under his own name, and also performed and recorded with major jazz figures such as avant garde saxophonist Albert Ayler, piani ...
, and drummer
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette (born August 9, 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer.
Known for his extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians including Charles Lloyd (jazz musician), Charles Lloyd, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, B ...
Lee Konitz
Leon "Lee" Konitz (October 13, 1927 – April 15, 2020) was an American jazz Alto saxophone, alto saxophonist and composer.
He performed successfully in a wide range of jazz styles, including bebop, cool jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Konitz's ass ...
,
Paul Bley
Paul Bley, Order of Canada, CM (November 10, 1932 – January 3, 2016) was a Canadian jazz pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing and his early live per ...
, and
Jimmy Giuffre
James Peter Giuffre (, ; April 26, 1921 – April 24, 2008) was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He is known for developing forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians, anticipating f ...
in New York City. He toured Europe, performing with
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental music, experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia (Berio), Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Seque ...
and
Cathy Berberian
Catherine Anahid Berberian (July 4, 1925 – March 6, 1983) was an American mezzo-soprano and composer based in Italy. She worked closely with many contemporary avant-garde music composers, including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Hen ...
. He returned to electric guitar, performing and recording with Garbarek on ''
Places
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Oft ...
'' (1978) and ''
Photo with Blue Sky, White Cloud, Wires, Windows and a Red Roof
''Photo with Blue Sky, White Cloud, Wires, Windows and a Red Roof'' is an album by the Jan Garbarek Group. It was recorded on 20 December 1978 and released on ECM Records, ECM the following year. The quintet features rhythm section Bill Connors, Jo ...
'' (1979) and with Tom van der Geld and Richard Jannotta on ''Path'' (ECM) in 1979. In 1984, Connors recorded ''Step It'' with Tom Kennedy on bass,
Dave Weckl
Dave Weckl (born January 8, 1960, in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American jazz fusion drummer and the leader of the Dave Weckl Band. He was inducted into the ''Modern Drummer'' Hall of Fame in 2000.
Biography
Weckl started playing his first se ...
on drums and
Steve Khan
Steve Khan (born Steven Harris Cahn;
April 28, 1947) is an American jazz guitarist.
Career
Steven Harris Cahn was born in Los Angeles. His father, lyricist Sammy Cahn, "loved to hear any and all versions of his songs". He took piano lessons as a ...
on guitar (on "Twinkle" track only). His next album, ''Double Up'' (1986), included bassist Kennedy and drummer Kim Plainfield. The same trio (Connors, Kennedy, Plainfield) recorded ''Assembler'' in 1987. After a gap of almost two decades, his next album ''Return'' was recorded in 2004.
Connors has been giving private lessons while continuing his studies. He plays plectrum style on a classical jazz guitar and a Gibson L-5 CES archtop electric. Other guitars are a
Gibson Les Paul Custom
The Gibson Les Paul Custom is a higher-end variation of the Gibson Les Paul guitar. It was developed in 1953 after Gibson had introduced the Les Paul model in 1952.
History
The 1952 Gibson Les Paul was originally made with a mahogany body, a ma ...
and an
Ovation guitar
The Ovation Guitar Company is a manufacturer of string instruments. Ovation primarily manufactures steel-string acoustic guitars (both 6 and 12-string versions) and nylon-string guitars, often with pickups for electric amplification. In 2015, i ...
Of Mist and Melting
''Of Mist and Melting'' is the second album by American guitarist and composer Bill Connors recorded in December 1977 and released on ECM the following year. The quartet features saxophinist Jan Garbarek and rhythm section Gary Peacock and Jack ...
'' (ECM, 1978)
* '' Swimming with a Hole in My Body'' (ECM, 1980)
* ''Step It'' (Pathfinder, 1984)
* ''Double Up'' (Pathfinder, 1986)
* ''Assembler'' (Pathfinder, 1987)
* ''Return'' ( Tone Center, 2004)
As sideman
*
Return to Forever
Return to Forever was an American jazz fusion band that was founded by pianist Chick Corea in 1972. The band has had many members, with the only consistent bandmate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke. Along with Weather Report, The Headhun ...
Julian Priester
Julian Priester (born June 29, 1935) is an American jazz trombonist and occasional euphoniumist. He is sometimes credited "Julian Priester Pepo Mtoto". He has played with Sun Ra, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock.
Biog ...
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke (born June 30, 1951) is an American bassist, composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jazz-fus ...
, ''
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke (born June 30, 1951) is an American bassist, composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jazz-fus ...
'' (Nemperor, 1974)
*
Paul Bley
Paul Bley, Order of Canada, CM (November 10, 1932 – January 3, 2016) was a Canadian jazz pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing and his early live per ...
Improvising Artists Improvising Artists Inc. (IAI) is a production company created in 1974 by jazz pianist Paul Bley
Paul Bley, Order of Canada, CM (November 10, 1932 – January 3, 2016) was a Canadian jazz pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz move ...
, 1974)
*
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek () (born 4 March 1947) is a Norwegian jazz saxophonist, who is also active in classical music and world music.
Garbarek was born in Mysen, Østfold, southeastern Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war, Czesław Gar ...
, ''
Places
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Oft ...
'' (ECM, 1977)
* Jan Garbarek, ''
Photo with Blue Sky, White Cloud, Wires, Windows and a Red Roof
''Photo with Blue Sky, White Cloud, Wires, Windows and a Red Roof'' is an album by the Jan Garbarek Group. It was recorded on 20 December 1978 and released on ECM Records, ECM the following year. The quintet features rhythm section Bill Connors, Jo ...
'' (ECM, 1978)
* Tom van der Geld, ''Path'' (ECM, 1979)
* Kim Plainfield &
Lincoln Goines
Lincoln Goines (born 1953) is a double bassist and bass guitarist from Oakland, California.
Biography
A mainstay of the New York City jazz/Latin/studio scene since the early 1980s, Goines' career includes performance credits as sideman to Sonn ...
Forever
Forever or 4ever may refer to:
Film and television Films
* ''Forever'' (1921 film), an American silent film by George Fitzmaurice
* ''Forever'' (1978 film), an American made-for-television romantic drama, based on the novel by Judy Blume
* '' ...
All About Jazz
''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...