Bill Connors
Step It

A master of technique and instrumental command, Bill Connors is one of the "greater intellects" of contemporary guitar, both acoustic and electric. A self-taught student of Rock and Blues, he found his ideal expressive context in the new Fusion that emerged from the Seventies, establishing himself among the best instrumentalists of the genre and imposing a peculiar style, a technical-timbral "canon" that characterized that entire movement up to the successive, significant developments witnessed in the Eighties and Nineties. When thinking of Fusion guitar, one instinctively thinks of a McLaughlin, a Di Meola, an Holdsworth (leaving aside guitarists like Stern, Scofield, and Henderson who made their mark in the Eighties), but we often forget this phenomenon who contributed personally to the birth of Fusion, already playing with the first Return To Forever in "Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy" and also impressing a sacred monster like Chick Corea.

Django Reinhardt is his legend, by his own admission; in Django, Connors recognized the presence, albeit still in an embryonic stage, of the creative genius, the energy, the "fire" of Rock guitarists, and above all the ability to reconcile his own solid and undeniable technical background with the instinctive spontaneity of street players. But while acknowledging the high artistic dignity of the sound and the expressive modes of the classical guitar, Bill immediately favored the electric: "In sophisticated and highly experimental contexts - for example, on records where I accompanied Corea and Stanley Clarke - I've always preferred using the electric guitar, which has a timbre much closer to that of a wind instrument and can perfectly substitute for it in the role of a solo instrument; I can vary the phrasing technique, apply distortions, move between emotionally diverse if not opposed registers, and today's technologies allow the guitar to traverse paths previously unbeaten because they were unknown".

The spiritualism of Corea and a certain excessive cerebrality of his music led Connors, in the mid-Seventies, to the premature abandonment of Return To Forever: it is the beginning of a solo career not so much illuminated by the limelight but studded with significant artistic successes; starting with the splendid "Theme To The Guardian" from 1974, a testimony of a phase in which acoustic and electric registers still coexisted by integrating, as evidenced by the contemporaneous collaboration with Jan Garbarek for some notable albums (among which "Places," dated 1977, featuring the great Jack DeJohnette). "Step It", from 1984, the album presented here, is without a doubt his masterpiece of the Eighties, produced by his colleague Steve Khan and enriched by the presence of Tom Kennedy on bass and a very young Dave Weckl on drums, forming a trio of exceptional power and versatility. Notably, Khan doesn't limit himself to observing the works from behind the console, but is also a "special-guest" in "Twinkle," showcasing one of his solos and stealing - albeit briefly - the spotlight from the host.

It is a hard, aggressive, extremely muscular and biting album in the guitar parts, somewhat in line with the near-contemporary "Metal Fatigue" by Allan Holdsworth but without those concessions to singing and song-form that in that case partly softened the wall of technique (and, to some extent, coldness, brought into play by the musicians). There is a lot of Hard in the approach and rhythm, virtuosity follows but without overly burdening the genuinely Rock foundation of the whole, so much so that even non-cultists of the more experimental Fusion can appreciate this work. There's a lot of Blues, there's much of the expressive freedom and the more "free" cues of Clapton from the Cream (not surprisingly, the preferred formula is that of the power trio, without any resort to keyboards), there's a great taste for variations and the use of classy drum fills (Dave Weckl's presence is decisive in this respect, the best from this point of view). This forms a wondrous melting pot of lively and exciting sounds, making critic Gene Santoro say, who commented on the album at the very time of its release: "the majestically Blues depth of phrasing and the free, unconventional yet impeccable use of legato bestow on Connors' guitar the same emotional scope as John Coltrane's saxophone".

Listen especially to the "title-track," with its powerful guitar-bass unison capable of closely recalling the riff of "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden (a testament to the Hard punch that is common to the entire disk), and listen - within the same piece - to what Dave Weckl does from around 01:58 onwards: a progression to make you pull your hair out, something that, in all honesty, I had only ever heard from Bill Bruford of King Crimson (I think of "Discipline," in particular, and its monstrous overlay of odd times). In "A Pedal" it’s instead Tom Kennedy's bass that stands in the spotlight, although his solo perhaps amazes less, due to the presence in it of modules already extensively experimented from Pastorius onwards. Overall, "Titan" is perhaps the most notable piece, but Connors also shows he knows how to adopt a more "sweet" register, as in the concluding "Flickering Lights".

An album to listen to and listen to again. Five stars for a work among the most enjoyable and emblematic of Eighties Fusion (and instrumental Rock).