Does fusion music eat its young? Or, to put it differently, will success spoil jazz-rock musicians? These recent recordings by the four ex-members of Return to Forever suggest the dangers that lurk when a popular "supergroup" attempts to subdivide itself into autonomous superstars.

Drummer Lenny White and bassist Stanley Clarke have, for the moment, fallen flat on their faces. Lenny White Presents the Adventures of Astral Pirates tries to palm off some Star Wars-derived silliness as a concept, and thirty seconds of every recognizable lick from the past three years as an album. Clarke's Modern Man finds the once-dazzling instrumentalist now preferring to pass as just another soul singer for all seasons (here a little Stevie Wonder, there a little Isley Brothers, etc.).

Chick Corea, the senior member of Return to Forever and, despite its appearance of democracy, RTF's true leader, has a more mature personality and turns out more substantial music in places on The Mad Hatter. But Corea's string charts never get beyond textbook Bartók, and the whole project is marred by the cutesypoo vocals that seem endemic to far too many Scientology-centered enterprises.

Guitarist Al Di Meola is the one RTF alumnus with no previous reputation to fall back on: he moved into the speed-demon/Mahavishnu-flash chair formerly occupied by Bill Connors, and made his reputation there (and on two solo LPs) as the young man with the fastest fingers on six strings. If Casino impresses more than the work of his ex-colleagues, it's because Di Meola appears to be putting the example of John McLaughlin behind him and carving out a fusion identity of his own. The seeds of his style–a heavily arranged and controlled music that favors exotic Latin riffs and trades a bit of fusion's visceral power for precision ensemble work–were evident on last year's Elegant Gypsy, but on Casino's "Egyptian Danza," the parts seem to be less random and more a product of the artist's particular conception.

As a listener coming at Casino from a jazz perspective, I'm bothered by the lack of space for improvisation on most tracks and the pastiche of Di Meola's overdubbed and acoustic "Fantasia Suite for Two Guitars." But even the more sympathetic fusion audience will probably be left with questions. Can Di Meola produce such precise ensemble music outside the studio, where he might not have such unerring mates as Barry Miles, Anthony Jackson, Steve Gadd and Mingo Lewis? In time, will he write melodies as memorable as Corea's "Señor Mouse," which he plays here? One thing is certain, however: for Al Di Meola, Forever was yesterday. (RS 273)

BOB BLUMENTHAL