Bill Connors

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Bill Connors (* as William A. Connors on 24. September 1949 in Los Angeles ) is an American jazz guitarist of the Modern Jazz and Rock Jazz . He played with Chick Coreas Return To Forever and with Jan Garbarek .

Live and act

Connors started playing the guitar at the age of fourteen. After self-taught studies of rock and blues influences, he played at gigs with local bands in the Los Angeles area. However, he soon found jazz and was heavily influenced by Bill Evans , Jim Hall , Wes Montgomery , Scott LaFaro , Miles Davis , John Coltrane . But Django Reinhardt shaped him in particular .

Initially, Bill Connors dealt with the sounds of the electrically amplified guitar, went to San Francisco in 1972 and became a member of Mike Nock's band ("The Fourth Way") with drummer Eddie Marshall and bassist Dennis Parker . During this time he met the drummer and vibraphonist Glenn Cronkhite , who taught him jazz. Connors played with numerous musicians in San Francisco and was involved in the recording of Julian Priester's ECM album Love Love in 1973 , and also played with Steve Swallow and the pianist Art Lande .

His first fame was when he - mediated by Steve Swallow - became a member of Chick Corea ’s fusion band Return to Forever in 1973 , with whom he recorded his album Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy . In April 1974, after the band toured Europe and Japan, Bill Connors left Return To Forever . Since the musical direction of the band leader was too rock for him, he believed that he could not realize his ideas in this context. He was also bothered by the governing leadership style of Corea, which was strongly influenced by the ideas of Scientology . After leaving Corea, he worked intensively on playing the classical guitar. In 1974 he wrote his first solo album for the jazz label ECM with acoustic guitar.

In 1977 Connors recorded his most famous album, Of Mist And Melting, with the famous ECM musicians Jan Garbarek , Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette . In 1980 a second solo album was created for ECM; In 1977/78 he worked with Jimmy Giuffre , Lee Konitz and Paul Bley and recorded two albums with them. He has also performed with Jean-François Jenny-Clark and Barre Phillips . After that, Connors turned back more to fusion music in the 1980s ; the albums of this phase, such as Step It or Double Up , did not meet with criticism. After it had been quiet for a long time, another album by Bill Connors was released in 2005.

Discographic notes

As a leader

  • Theme to the Gaurdian (ECM, 1974)
  • Of Mist and Melting (ECM, 1977)
  • Swimming with a Hole in My Body (ECM, 1979)
  • Step It (1984)
  • Double Up (1986)
  • Assembler (1987)
  • Return (2005)

As a sideman

  • Chick Corea 's Return to Forever : Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy (Polydor, 1974)
  • Jimmy Giuffre: Giuffre / Konitz / Connors / Bley (Improvising Artists, 1978)
  • Lee Konitz & Paul Bley: Pyramid (Improvising Artists, 1977)
  • Julian Priester: Love Love (ECM, 1973)

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ In an interview he said: 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.
  2. ↑ To this he said: I always wanted to use the electric guitar in a sophisticated context, like with Chick [Corea]. 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.
  3. ↑ Further members in 1973/74 were the bassist Stanley Clarke and the drummer Lenny White . After later he left the group a year he was selected by Al Di Meola replaced
  4. ↑ During his time with Corea, Connors said in an interview: That night, the fright totally 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.
  5. ↑ Connors said in an interview: 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 leaving Corea, Connors explored the New York jazz and session scene, performing with people such as guitarist John Abercrombie and keyboardist Jan Hammer ." It was great ", he states," 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.
  6. ↑ Another impulse came from the classical guitarist Julian Bream , whom Connors had just discovered for himself. I was sitting with his album "20th Century Guitar" - a real classic - and it has this piece by Henze 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 [laughs]. 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.
  7. ↑ This album is often titled Theme to the Guardian , assuming a misprint
personal data
SURNAME Connors, Bill
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Connors, William A. (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz guitarist
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , USA