Available now is the most complete package to date of Return to Forever’s Columbia albums. The set includes 3 great albums on 5 CDs, with each individual album is packaged in a replica mini-LP sleeve reproducing that album’s original cover art. The booklet includes full discographical info., rare photos, and liner notes by Grammy-winning producer Bob Belden, plus a complete reproduction of the original 12 page booklet from the Return To Forever Live box. Pianist, keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader Chick Corea (b. 1941) flaunts his eclectic musical nature like a badge of honor. Moving fluidly within the realms of jazz, classical, fusion and Latin-Jazz, Corea’s stylistic identity cannot be pinned down; his musical personality is defined only by the consistent excellence of his multifarious endeavors. Fifty years into his career, Corea is unquestionably a jazz icon, beloved by devoted listeners, and as influential with fellow musicians, as he has ever been.
After important early experience with both Latin music bands and jazz ensembles, including those of Mongo Santamaria, Stan Getz, and Sarah Vaughan, Corea gained significantly wider recognition when he replaced Herbie Hancock in Miles Davis’s acclaimed quintet in 1968. His work with Davis and his own recordings, including the brilliant Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, positioned Corea as one of the premier post bop pianists of his generation. Yet his eclecticism was about to blossom. After delving into free jazz with the band Circle, Corea turned to the electric piano and formed Return to Forever, which in its original incarnation, took Latin jazz as its focus. Return to Forever would then quickly morph into a highly successful fusion band, one that found Corea making extensive use of synthesizers and electronic keyboards.
From the mid-1970s onwards, the musically peripatetic Corea has formed new ensembles – both acoustic and electric – collaborated with a dizzyingly diverse cast of prominent musicians (Gary Burton, Bobby McFerrin, and Bela Fleck, among them), composed works that range from classical extravaganzas to children’s songs, and has continued to exert wide influence as an adventurous improvising pianist who is nonetheless thoroughly grounded in the jazz tradition. Recent tours with John McLaughlin and a reunited Return to Forever proved that Corea’s popular esteem is rock solid.
The ultimate Return To Forever statement was the 1977 4LP box Return To Forever Live. This version is the first time that the entire concert has been released on CD in the U.S. Unavailable for some 20 years the complete 2 and 1/2 hour concert is heard here remastered by multi Grammy-winning engineer Mark Wilder.
Albums included:
Romantic Warrior (1976)
Musicmagic (1977)
Return To Forever Live (1977) [3 CDs]
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