With Understanding Comes Appreciation
The thing I love about the work of Miles Davis' fusion alumni (his alumni in general, really, but this is especially true of the fusion period) is that while every prominent musician who emerged from the band used Miles' ideas as a springboard, none of them mindlessly copied his innovations. For instance, Herbie Hancock was into funk, and so when he split off, he decided to pursue the genre much more doggedly than Miles ever did, but also added his own spin. John McLaughlin, meanwhile, pushed the rock angle Miles was working to entirely new levels —his Mahavishnu Orchestra is arguably the quintessential jazz-rock group. Joe Zawinul took on a more accessible approach to it with his Weather Report (who are still fairly odd, mind you, just not as odd; what I've heard from the suggests they are far from the watered-down fusion ensemble their critics make them out to be), and key releases by the likes of Dave Holland and Keith Jarrett abandon fusion entirely. And Chick Corea? Well, Chick Corea has always been into bossa nova as well as jazz fusion, and he wields the two together pretty successfully here. After the hugely successful sessions with “Silent Way” and “Bitches Brew” with Miles Davis, Chick Corea briefly formed an avant-garde jazz band called Circle but because he wanted a more accessible sound that would garner slightly more popularity, he scrapped that idea and started Return to Forever.