We lost one of the greats, Chick Corea earlier this year. It was one of those losses that are hard to absorb. He was so incredibly vital. Even while ill, during the pandemic he was streaming regular solo piano concerts from his home studio. He always exuded such positive, life affirming energy, right until the end. In his last year, he started Chick Corea University and was teaching one to one over Zoom. In retrospect, I think he knew his time was short and wanted to share his knowledge with as many people as possible.
Chick was one of those people who strongly influenced me in my formative years. I loved his early acoustic work, Tones for Jones Bones and Inner Space and all his wonderful contributions as a sideman for Miles Davis, Bobby Hucherson and Stan Getz, among others. I consider Now He Sings Now He Sobs to be one of the top 10 trio albums of all time. He was only 26 when he recorded that timeless masterpiece. Chick thought it was his best album.
He had such a long and mercurial career, moving from one genre to another. I loved all the ECM releases, the duo albums with Gary Burton, the trio album with the original Now He Sings lineup (Roy Haynes and Miroslav Vitous,) the two iconic solo piano records and the eponymous Return to Forever album. In fact, I was a huge fan up until the ill conceived last RTF album, Music Magic, which I simply couldn’t stand. After that, I stopped automatically buying his albums and slowly lost touch with his musical career. Now that he has passed, I am reconsidering his importance in the history of the music, and am checking out some of the later albums I missed. I saw him countless times during his ever changing musical incarnations. I was lucky to see him perform a burning straight ahead set with Brian Blade and Christian McBride just a few years back. He remained a magnificent jazz pianist right until the end. The last time I saw him was locally – he brought the Elektrik Band to a nearby town for a fun night of virtuosic fusion closing for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Both bands performed together for the encore. But enjoyable as they were, the Elektrik band just never had the chemistry and grit of early RTF.
As far as I’m concerned, the beginning of the fusion era really started in that iconic year that has been referenced a lot lately, 1973. That was the year Mahavishnu Orchestra put out the searing Birds of Fire. It was also the year Chick Corea’s newly reformed Return to Forever released Hymn to the Seventh Galaxy. Neither release was anything like Weather Report’s early excursions, even 1973’s Sweetnighter still owed a great deal to Miles Davis’s more spontaneous form of jazz-rock. And the same could be said of Herbie Hancock’s Miles influenced Sextant. No, even though Chick was a part of the Miles lineage, having played on Filles de Kilimanjaro, In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew among others, this was something entirely different. It was totally composition driven, groove centered, bottom heavy music firmly rooted in Stanley Clarks rude, snarling bass and Lenny White’s unabashed balls to the wall rock drumming. Pre-synth, Chick conjured all those wildly distorted sounds with nothing more than a Rhodes piano and a few effects put thru a Fender Twin Reverb amp. Bill Connors rounded out the group on electric guitar. Bill is a melodic player, even on electric. And even in this extremely aggressive setting, his solos are models of soaring lines and emotional intensity, with none of the wanking virtuality Al Di Meola was prone to in the coming years after he replaced Connors. I loved Hymn then and played it to death, but even then thought the sound quality left a lot to be desired – it was such a poor recording, it just didn’t communicate the raw magnificence of the live band (saw that incarnation at the Troubador in LA where they performed the entire album -unforgettable.) I have not really thought much about it since and when revisiting, and was frustrated by how thin and small the sound was on the poor sounding CD release.
I knew about the 2008 remixed Anthology but had never picked it up- until about two weeks ago – these remixed tracks are something else, a whole new way of listening to RTF. I already owned a remastered Japanese version of the more prog influenced Romantic Warrior which was amazing…before I heard the remix. These were done at Chick’s Mad Hatter Studio with Chick on hand to supervise. I bought this primarily for Hymn – after all, it was The album that made me a fusion believer. This remix conveys the power and glory of Hymn – It is nothing short of astounding that they were able to create such a powerful and ballsy remix from those ancient tapes. It sounds as if it was recorded in a modern state of the art studio. Lenny’s drums are much more forward and deep – his kick is solid as a rock here. Stanley’s bass growls and struts like a prehistoric beast across the primal aural terrain. It is literally like hearing it for the first time. Just to hear Hymn this way is worth the price of admission, but you get so much more, including the entire Romantic Warrior, sounding better than ever. The only thing that could’ve improved this compilation would’ve been to include the other two RTF albums, No Mystery and Where Have I known You Before in full. You do get sone of the best tracks off both of those worthy albums. I am left wanting more and simply can’t go back to those earlier wimpy sounding CDs. Even the vinyl pales in comparison.
If you are an RTF fan, especially of the “first 4” (post-ECM Return to Forever and Light as a Feather (Polydor,), both classics,) RTF albums, you simply have to get this. Remember those old Maxell tape ads back in the 70s, where the guy is listening to music while siting in a lounge chair and his hair is being blown back as if by a gale force wind? Listening to this remix actually does that.