When Corea replaced Joe Farrell in Return to Forever with Bill Connors’ rock-angled guitar, it changed not only jazz (fusion) forever, it left the talented sax and flute man at a personal crossroads. These three albums, all recorded in the aftermath of RTF reflect how he wrestled with the vibe of the time, notably under Creed Taylor’s production values. Not, of course, that Farrell lacked credentials: he’d taken Wayne Shorter’s place with Maynard Ferguson, and played/ recorded with Mingus, George Russell, the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and had led his own band with no less than McLaughlin, Corea, DeJohnette and Dave Holland. So who needed RTF?

Penny Arcade’s title-track states it’s intentions with a full on funk attack penned by Joe Beck. It’s followed by a 13-minute take on Stevie Wonder’s ‘Too High’, with Herbie’s electric piano reflecting how deeply Hancock was embroiled in the funk fad of the time. The clues are kind of in the titles of Upon This Rock and Canned Funk. In Hancock’s absence, the former is dominated by Joe Beck’s rock-centric often heavily distorted guitar, all encapsulated in ‘Weather Vane’, which handbrake turns between twinned top tempo lines in the same vein as Mahavishnu and super-smooth soprano sequences. Meanwhile, Beck swims happily between Benson-like grooves and quasi Iron Butterfly outtakes. Canned Funk is rich with funk grooves, and its title-track, like ‘Upon This Rock’, has been much sampled, so it’s a cack-handed complement that everyone from Kanye (or should that be Ye?) to, yeah believe it, King Crimson have profited from Farrell’s talents. Except the man and his family, of course, who died stupidly young.