RETURN TO FOREVER — No Mystery (review)

RETURN TO FOREVER — No Mystery album cover

Album · 1975 · Fusion

4.5/5 · 2024-10-11
FunkFreak75

Chick's second album with guitar phenom Al DiMeola completing the quartet lineup.

A1. "Dayride" (3:15) bouncy, joy-filled Latin Chick opening is quickly assisted by the full band (plus some nice percussion over dubs). It's really Chick's show for the first half of the song with everyone else performing tightly proscribed tasks (quite competently, I might add--even spectacularly in the case of Stanley). The vocals in the middle of the third minute are a bit of a surprise--but they work--and then the multiple downshifts for the finish are really cool. (8.8/10)

A2. "Jungle Waterfall" (3:15) a little more Hendrix-like with some funk in the bass and guitar strumming, the chorus is different: definitely more rock/R&B than is typical for RTF. In the end, with little soloing (Al gets a little spotlight in the final 30-seconds), this feels more like an étude--a whole band exercise in cohesion. (8.8/10)

A3. "Flight Of The Newborn" (7:20) more funk-oriented music with Al doing more of that surprisingly dirty wah-strumming that he'd been doing in the first two songs. The shifts and little individual flourishes start to become more the style than not with some great runs by Al and some stellar interplay between the other three: it's really an awesome display of top notch Jazz-Rock Fusion. Al is not at his fiery best--mostly due to his persistent allegiance to the distortion of the wah-pedal. Definitely the best display of Lenny's supreme talents on the album so far. The fifth minute is filled with some of Stanley's signature electric bass runs which are always astounding as well as lyrical, and then Chick gets to play on his MiniMoog while Al joins Stanley and Lenny to provide the steady yet-spacious support that allows Chick to be prominent. (13.5/15)

A4. "Sofistifunk" (3:20) some extremely funky keyboard play is accompanied by far simpler and surprisingly less-funkier drums, bass, and guitar. The band is cohesive but the style they're going for seems to escape me. If it's sophistication they're going for, they may have achieved it, but it just doesn't feel natural to the band as a whole--maybe to Chick and Lenny, but not so much Al and Stanley. (8.75/10)

A5. "Excerpt From The First Movement Of Heavy Metal" (2:45) classical grand piano opening that turns into sophisticated jazz at 0:28 and then Hendrix blues-rock at 0:50. Stanley's bass play is out-of-this-world awesome from the get go, seeming to play multiple styles all at the same time: R&B, slap, metal chords, and more. Ends with more of Chick's grandeliquent piano bombast. (9/10)

B1. "No Mystery" (6:06) one of the more fully-developed songs on the album and one that more fully conveys the individuality of each of the band members (especially Chick and Stanley in the first third). Acoustic instruments. Al and Stanley's bowed double bass occupy the third minute until Chick's piano chords bring the full band back together. (Lenny's playing percussion only.) Al Di Meola--the Al we've all come to know and love--takes the fourth minute, eventually sharing the spotlight with Stanley and Chick. It's always such a delight to see & hear J-R Fuse artists show off on their acoustic instruments. I love Lenny's marimba play mixed in with the others as they all stop-and-go with their virtuosic flourishes over the final minute. (9/10)

B2. "Interplay" (2:15) piano and bowed double bass open this one sounding almost avant garde. At 0:53 Chick and Stanley inject a more Latin direction, each performing at incredible speeds and ideations: a precursor to the amazing work they do on Romantic Warrior's "Medieval Overture." (4.75/5)

B3. "Celebration Suite (Part 1)" (8:25) opens like a prog rock opera or tongue-in-cheek version of an overture to a classical opera by Bizet or Ravel. The very-Spanish style is maintained in the second and third minutes as the full band shifts into full gear. Lenny's display of drumming is absolutely spell-binding--almost to the distraction of hearing the other amazing performances. Chick gets the first solo on his MiniMoog, but it's the battle between Stanley and Lenny that gets all of my attention. Al gets to jump in with Chick in the fifth minute: they're such an amazing duo, so well-synched. Great bridge at the end of the fifth minute leads into a very complex, showy tangent in which Lenny really gets to shine. At 5:52 there is a break that Chick jumps into with his electric piano, starting up a completely different motif--one that is laced and interlaced with incredible melodies. Wow! The rest of the band, I think, must be standing back, watching in awe--though somehow they are able to continue to be sporadically supportive. The final minute sees Chick taking the solo spotlight into a very dreamy passage before the band moves on to Part 2. (19/20)

B4. "Celebration Suite (Part 2") (5:30) Full band with everybody "hitting" big chords with all of their electronic effects (and Lenny absolutely killing it on le batterie!) so that Al can go off on one of those soaring solos that he would become so famous for. (Mid-blowing Lenny!) At the two-minute mark there is an oddly melodic bridge into a pause before everybody picks up the chase again--this time with everybody on full show-off mode: Stanley hitting some incredible bass chords, Chick manning multiple keyboards as if they were extensions of his 20 fingers and toes, and Lenny going absolutely crazy--all before a dramatic extended finale. (9.25/10)

Total Time: 42:53

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece representative of the highest echelon of Jazz-Rock Fusion and yet the band is still gelling, the compositional excellence still eluding them at times.