Jeff Lorber returns to fusion

Keyboardist/composer/bandleader Jeff Lorber, one of the architects of smooth jazz, says his decision to bring back the Jeff Lorber Fusion moniker was partly due to the reception the music gets abroad. "In Europe the promoters still promote me as the Jeff Lorber Fusion when I tour," he said in a phone interview today. Conversations among Lorber and bandmates Jimmy Haslip and Eric Marienthal eventually led to Now Is The Time on Heads Up. It includes past Lorber Fusion tunes such as "Rain Dance" and "Water Sign," as well as a new take on Wayne Shorter's "Mysterious Traveler," the title track from Weather Report's 1974 release.

"The idea came up that we should do a Jeff Lorber Fusion, a modern version. We'd record it the way we used to, a band concept live in the studio," Lorber said.

Lorber thinks and hopes fusion may have come of age again. "Everything is cyclical," he said. "Fusion as it was was kind of a tired idea. There were a lot of extremely successful albums, but like all trends it got overrun." The resulting downturn in quality, as well as the reactions of the acoustic jazz police who decried the electricity, energy and success of Weather Report, Return to Forever, Jean-Luc Ponty, and other fusioneers, eventually resulted in the music's being relegated to has-been status.

Now Lorber hopes to help resurrect it. While this disc offers more than a passing nod to the smooth format that much of fusion eventually morphed into, there are certainly moments of energy, passion, and the lickety-split playing that enthralled audiences in the 70s. Let it rock!

Read more about my interview this fall in the pages of Jazziz magazine.