return to forever: c/d

with Braxburger and Hollad and Altschul. I have all the records.

also I like Serena Altshcul

I loved thhe album at the time. I thought it was right up there with the other fusionistic music I was listening to at the time--Mahavishnu, TW's Lifetime, Jack Bruce's "Things We Like", Coloseum II, Santana's "Caravanserai", HH's fusion from "Fat Albert" up to "Thrust", Ten Wheel Drive, DeJohnette's Compost band, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Cobham & the young Brecker Bros. in "Dreams" and Weather Report of course.

It was a strange time for jazz. Eddie Harris tried his hand at electro-fusion and the CTI brand surely tried to turn Hubbard and anyone else into fusionistas. there was a lot of stuff to choose from. The european influence seemed to be more rockish (Gentle Giant, Soft Machine, If, but also Association P.C. (with Charlie Mariano), Passport, and others, i'm sure if I thought about it longer.

Some of that music stands up well today, some of it was crap then and remains crap now, and some I have extremely mixed feelings about. The "Hymn of the 7th Galaxy" is one of those heavily mixed. When I saw it available on iTunes for cheap, I bought it. I was surprised at how dated it sounded. Every lick was still implanted in brain lobes but it sounded predictable, light, safe.

The fusion I rely on from that time that I still enjoy includes:
Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes--Astral Traveling
HH- Head Hunters
Mahavishnu--especially Birds of Fire and My Goals Beyond
Santana--Caravanserai
Les McCann--Invitation to Openness
Miles, Miles, Miles up to the retirement in 1975
Miroslav Vitous--Mountain in the Clouds
Keith Jarrett--Birth, Expectations
HH-Sextant, Crossings, Mwandishi

Well, that's more than ten. All stand the test of time far better than the plasticine Hymn of the 7th Galaxy. I do not deny the sheer virtuosity of Hymn, but find it soulless and empty. Perhaps for me the taint of interviews that Corea gave at the time equating popularity with excellence poisoned the well. i wish it were not so.

A little heard gem of late 70's fusion? Don Cherry's Hear & Now

http://bp2.blogger.com/_L8uZchrDpbU/SFkwNqY5x8I/AAAAAAAAAY0/tNWnoxcTyys/s320/Return+to+Forever+-+Anthology002.jpg

Downloaded this from emusic recently. The remasters are so shitty I thought it was some weird re-record session at first.

Ha.

Maybe you should have held out for the purple chick version.

What is it with engineers wanting to "clean up" old albums to make them sound like they were recorded today? It reminds me of those guitar dorks that are like "Imagine what Hendrix could do with TODAY'S TECHNOLOGY!"

i buy those records so i dont have to hear "todays technology"

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JW46PN1TL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

deliriously tacky cover art on this 2 x CD set. IIRC it's two or three different layers of day-glo paint on clear plastic sleeves

is it a good set?

tough question!

i mean, yeah, it's a good overview of "light as a feather", "hymn of the 7th galaxy" and "where have i known you before". it also has some live tracks and a couple of tracks from later albums. i bet you could find it used for about $10? on the other hand you can probably get all three of those albums for $15. they retail new for something like $8 as those polygram jazz "super saver" (?) issues.

my major quibble is that it only includes half of chick corea's ECM album "return to forever", when it should have all of it! but then that ECM disc is relatively expensive - in my experience you can't find it new for less than $15. i guess i'm saying that i rate the intense jazz-rock oriented, but still jazz ECM material higher than the jazz-oriented rock fusion of the later RTF. but if you're just dipping a toe in, i guess it's a good set.

anyway the point is there's a big stylistic gap with "crystal silence" and "return to forever" on one side and "light as a feather" on the other. i think the intent is the same but the end result is not.

(A little heard gem of late 70's fusion? Don Cherry's Hear & Now

Abso-jazzrockin-(f)lutelety!)

http://cultureking.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/returntoforever.jpg?w=400&h=301

last revive is kind of a bummer

the first album on ecm is SO fantastic.. except i really don't get "what game shall we play today" and always skip it. i'm probably just too much of a hipster but it kills the vibe for me... after 20 minutes of such a magical musical journey, to end with such ez cheese, i'm not feeling it

Flora was a part of the group (and married to Airto). Maybe the angle to take thinking about those tracks is that it jazz group having a vocalist that stepped up front for a couple vocal numbers in the set (which it kinda was). It is out of what the rest of the record sounds like, but it was apart of the group at that point. The first two Return to Forever records are really a different group than the machismo group with the big guitar with Bill Conners and Al DiMeola that followed. All that and Lenny White kicks mucho groove too. The early group was just different.

Kinda hard to go wrong with most jazz fusion LPs up to 1974, especially if they got ties to classic jazz artists.