The name Return To Forever has to be one of the most satirisable (or should that just be risible?) of all group names, but a truly stupid name does not necessarily a naff group make. Hey, remember The Beatles?

In fact, Return To Forever have a fairly important part in the pantheon of jazz-rock fusion that they share with the likes of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, an early ’70s music form that some jazz purists will always claim was a terrible commercial concession by previously great jazz players, and others think of as being a giant forward movement for jazz as an art form. Then there are others who consider it just a lot of twaddle from a bunch of guys who have a lot of technique and no taste.

I’m somewhere sitting on the fence between all these arguments. If I’m in the wrong mood, jazz-rock fusion can seem utterly pointless, but in the right state of mind, if you don’t take it too seriously, it can be hugely entertaining. There’s something genuinely gratifying getting to hear guys with great musical chops going for it on electric instruments. Why constrain rock with musicians who never get past a couple of chords, when there’s a whole bunch of complicated notes, tempos and sequences you can work through, all at the same decibels you’d get in a normal rock concert?

To me, listening to jazz-rock fusion isn’t about going “Wow, your technique is unsurpassed and you’re so very fast”, it’s about tuning your brain to the sheer joy of hearing amazing musicians do their stuff. I get a similar intellectual orgasm from listening to Indian classical music: part of what a raga-master will do is just showing off, but you know that somewhere in all those complex notes there’s a direct connection to the grey matter, and like some kind of musical brain exercise, you come out of the experience thinking more clearly.

But let’s get to the matter at hand. Return To Forever, one of the best jazz-rock fusion bands of the ’70s, have returned all these years later with an album simply called ‘Returns’. It’s a boring name for a double CD concert set (DVD on the way) recorded last year and featuring the original lineup. They may not be famous names to the general populous, but to jazz fans all four are legends: keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Al Di Meola and drummer Lenny White.

They’ve achieved a nice fat-sounding recording, and everything is more or less in place. They perform classic tunes from yesteryear, including “Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy”, “No Mystery” and “Romantic Warrior”. Many of these pieces are epics featuring synth-solos that defy the present era, and preposterously fast lines traded between the musicians.

While they’ve lost little of the speed and vigour of their ’70s heyday, the group do sound less jazz-rock than they did first time round, more like a bunch of jazz guys who have just amplified their instruments. That said, if you can deal with the fact that the ceaseless virtuosity of these high-achievers seems somewhat less focused than when they were a full-time superstar phenomenon, it’s an enjoyable set and much, much more than mere nostalgia.

While Return To Forever may not have the guitar firepower of John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra (they are lead by a keyboardist, after all) they make up for it by the slight Latino and classical influences that seep into the music, and especially by bassist Stanley Clarke’s always astonishing feats with the instrument; much of the time he’s playing it like a guitar, but can also plumb the depths with speaker-testing low end.

While the second disc ends with a rather odd presentation of a BBC Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Beatles producer Sir George Martin, that’s not enough to lessen the joy of hearing four musicians who, all these years later, are still at the top of their game. GARY STEEL

3.5 Stars