RETURN TO FOREVER:
A BRIEF HISTORY
As
Group Reunites for Tour and Concord Releases Return to Forever:
The Anthology
Return to Forever, as an entity, had a pretty
long run with a few different lineups. The initial group,
comprised of Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Joe Farrell, Airto
Moirera, and Flora Purim, was a Brazilian jazz ensemble
that utilized electric piano and electric bass. Some tracks
featured Purim’s vocals, the rest were instrumental.
The group accompanied saxophonist Stan Getz on his 1972
release Captain Marvel and released two albums,
the self-titled debut on ECM and the followup, Light
as a Feather, on Polydor. Both albums were Corea’s
attempts to reach a wider audience without abandoning the
rhtymic interplay of jazz and Brazilian music and without
‘dumbing down’ the music. The two are classic
recordings, and the debut especially has become one of listeners’
all-time favorites.
Following
Light as a Feather, Corea decided to completely
retool RTF (as they came to be known) as a much more rock-oriented
band. The models for this new incarnation seem to be more
of the Mahavishnu Orchestra/Tony Williams Lifetime variety
than a fusionary version of Getz’ cool samba. Continuing
to work with bassist Stanley Clarke, Corea brought in session
drummer Steve Gadd and guitarist Bill Connors. Both recorded
tracks for the group’s Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy
album, but when it was discovered that Gadd did not wish
to interrupt his busy session schedule to go on tour with
the band, drummer Lenny White was brought in instead and
the album was rerecorded. The original recording with Gadd
is supposedly lost. The album moved the group in a much
more rock-oriented direction, even though there was no vocalist
and the tracks were now all instrumentals. This was 1973,
and prog rock, as well as jazz fusion, was in full swing.
Listeners were now becoming used to long instrumental passages
in epic suites of music through such recordings as Emerson
Lake & Palmer’s Brain Salad Surgery ,
Yes’ Tales from Topographic Oceans, or King
Crimson’s Lark’s Tongues in Aspic,
all of which were released the same year as Hymn of
the Seventh Galaxy.
RTF came bursting out of the gate with all
the energy of rock music, but with a technical proficiency
only matched, perhaps, by Crimson and Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Other major fusion groups were becoming increasingly groove-oriented
around this time. Weather Report, for example, released
the album Sweetnighter in ’73, an album that
marked a move away from the more abstract music of its self-titled
debut and the followup, I Sing the Body Electric.
The same year, Herbie Hancock went for the booty with his
funkified Headhunters LP. In this regard, RTF stood
out from most of the jazz-rock fusion bands around at the
time. For one thing, despite Corea’s keyboard wizardry,
the electric guitar was incredibly important to the RTF
sound. This was inspired partially by the legacy of Jimi
Hendrix, and the ongoing work of Mahavishnu’s John
McLaughlin, who was an alumnus of Miles Davis’ late
‘60s/early ‘70s electric bands. McLaughlin had
the intelligence and ability to improvise of a jazz player,
but he had the sonic palette of a rock guitarist. Connors
seemed ideal in this regard, as he had the ability to play
loud, distorted guitar solos that were, nonetheless, very
tasteful and intelligent.
Connors
was on board for Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy, and
acquitted himself well. Being the main solo voice other
than Corea (who at this time was playing primarily electric
piano, acoustic piano, and organ), he provides a balanced
counterpoint to Corea’s restless solos, cutting through
the energy of the rhythm section with his sharp tone and
great playing. Unfortunately, the tour which followed seemed
to sour Connors on the band. For one thing, he was thrown
into an intensive musical environment and his first experience
of first-class touring at the same time. He also felt that
the energy of the band was shifting much more toward the
Mahavishnu style of high-energy rock playing, and there
was less room for his acoustic work, which he valued.
Finally, according to some interviews with Connors, there
were clashes with Corea’s Scientology-influenced leadership
style (Stanley Clarke was also a Scientologist at the time,
though he has since parted ways with the movement). In any
case, by 1974 a replacement was needed. Earl Klugh did some
live dates with the group, but never recorded with them.
Prior to the recording of the band’s next album, Where
Have I Known You Before?, Corea hired 19 year-old guitarist
Al Di Meola. Di Meola was a natural fit for the band. He
had lightning-fast technique and played with an arresting,
electric rock style. He had memorized the entire Hymn album
before even joining the band. He made his presence felt
on Where Have I Known You Before as well as on
the group’s subsequent tour. The group’s personnel
was solidified and continued to play together for the next
two years.
Bassist
Stanley Clarke was a longstanding collaborator of Corea’s,
and the only holdover from the group’s first incarnation
and the resulting two albums. One of the first jazz bassists
to be equally comfortable on both acoustic and electric
bass, he also raised the bass to new levels of recognition,
releasing highly acclaimed solo albums even while with RTF:
Children of Forever (1973), Stanley Clarke
(1974), and Journey to Love (1975). He also
used a variation of funk bassist Larry Graham’s slap
technique, and was a major soloist within RTF—listen
to his solo on “Vulcan Worlds” from Where Have
I Known You Before? and remember that this was 1974, a full
two years before Jaco Pastorious would appear on the scene
and again revolutionize electric bass playing. Clarke was
a pioneering bassist and something like Corea’s right-hand
man.
Drummer
Lenny White first appeared in 1969 on Miles Davis’
Bitches Brew, a recording on which Corea, McLaughlin,
and Hancock (as well as future Weather Report leader Joe
Zawinul) all also appeared. He also played on Freddie Hubbard’s
classic session Red Clay. White also played with
a Santana-inspired rock outfit called Azteca, which was
led by Santana alumni Coke and Pete Escovedo. Other group
members included bassist Paul Jackson, trumpet player Tom
Harrell, and guitarist Neal Schon. White’s ability
to mix the energy and rhythmic sophistication of Tony Williams
with the simple drive of rock music brought him directly
to Corea and Clarke’s attention.
With
two albums and successful touring both as headliners and
an opening act for major rock bands of the time, the group
did indeed begin to change its focus on its next release.
The highly successful No Mystery started to emphasize
a funky groove a bit more, though there was still plenty
of technical expertise on display. In addition, Corea was
now encouraging the rest of the band to offer up compositions,
with the result that the group’s sound branched out
into new areas while maintaining a cohesive feel. Tracks
like Clarke’s “Dayride” or White’s
“Sophistifunk” used a steady groove to provide
a springboard for the group’s soloists to jam off
of, and were a nice contrast to Corea’s compositions,
such as “No Mystery,” which harkens in many
respects back to the original, Brazilian-influenced RTF
sound, and “Celebration Suite,” which is like
a cross between Corea’s Latin-tinged melodic compositions
and some long lost Emerson, Lake, & Palmer track. No
Mystery showed the group coalescing around their own
unique sound, and paved the way for the band to sign with
Columbia (now Sony) Records and to release, in 1976, their
final LP with this lineup, the full-fledged concept album
Romantic Warrior.
>>RTF:
Anthology Continued
