RETURN TO FOREVER — Where Have I Known You Before (review)

RETURN TO FOREVER — Where Have I Known You Before album cover

Album · 1974 · Fusion

5/5 · 2024-10-11
FunkFreak75

Replacing fan favorite Bill Connors was no easy feat, but 22-year old Al DiMeola brought a lot more to the table besides jaw-dropping speed.

A1 "Vulcan Worlds" (7:51) The iconic song from the album with Stanley's slap bass and Tony's Billy Cobham-like drumming has Stanley, Chick, and Al playing with interesting sounds and effects on their lead-blistering instruments. The first real instrumental section starts at 2:10 with a brief Chick MiniMoog solo followed by an equally-brief bass solo before yielding back to Chick for an extended solo. At 3:30 Stanley takes the reins back for a few seconds as if to bridge/hand off to Al for an impressive solo in which he slowly builds up with a distorted sound toward some of his famous machine gun runs. But it is Stanley's solo in the fifth minute that really takes the prize, showing the world who's Number One. Chick and Al get the seventh minute--with Al revealing more of his prodigious talent. Then the band goes into a near-"Midnight Cowboy" melody motif to close out the song in the final minute. (14.5/15)

A2 "Where Have I Loved You Before" (1:01) the first of Chick's piano interludes sounds so Oscar Peterson-like (at least, they do to these untrained ears)! (4.5/5)

A3 "The Shadow Of Lo" (7:34) See: even jazz-rock fusionists can make beautiful laid-back music! The pace does pick up in the third minute but it remains constant in its commitment to melody and smoothness. Al and Chick both get plenty of chances to shine while Lenny and Stanley remain pretty steadfast in their duties as rhythmists. The final couple minutes sees the band picking up a funk theme that sounds like a variation on Rufus' "Tell Me Something Good." (14.25/15)

A4 "Where Have I Danced With You Before" (1:12) acoustic piano solo with a little acoustic guitar support. (4.5/5)

A5 "Beyond The Seventh Galaxy" (3:11) I love the full rock bass on this one as Lenny crashes away and Al and Chick fill the top. The opening themes are presented and carried forward by the trio of Chick, Al, and Stanley! Then Chick gets to fill the next section with multiple keyboards at once. Al gets a left channel solo in the third minute. (I hear a little of "Alice" in some of the melody lines coming out of Chick!) (8.875/10)

B1 "Earth Juice" (3:45) heavy rock-funk line with near-disco drumming and percussion accompaniment along with Chick's Fender Rhodes over which Al gets full leadership (despite Stanley's amazing bass play beneath and Chick's almost constant accents between Al's lines). Nice song though it is not my favorite sound to come from Al's electric guitar. (8.875/10)

B2 "Where Have I Known You Before" (2:09) Bill Evans-like solo piano: quite dramatic and beautifully melodic. The right hand might be a little more aggressive and dynamic than Bill ever gets, but it's still so beautifully melodic! (5/5)

B3 "Song To The Pharoah Kings" (14:21) the song opens with an extended MiniMoog-over-organ solo passage. At 2:10 there's a shift to a different palette of electronic keyboard sounds with the rhythm section of Lenny and Stanley (and Fender Rhodes and clavinet) joining in at the end of the third minute. A little tango-like rhythm pattern is established by Stanley and Chick, with Stanley maintaining the oscillating chord progression, while Chick takes the first solos. Lenny gets to impress in the sixth minute (man! is he awesome!) before Stanley steps to the front at the end of the sixth. Man! is he amazing! (As is Chick's support beneath). Al finally gets to step up after an awesome bridge in the beginning of the eighth minute, but it's a slow, Latin build through Chick's layers of keys that gets him there, finally, in the middle of the ninth minute--duelling with Chick's screaming MiniMoog until 8:50 when he finally gets the stage all to himself. He does not disappoint though some of his playing feels a bit soulless--a feeling that is only augmented by the very connected and dynamic performances of his three band mates beneath and around him. Chick gets rest of the tenth minute as Al moves into some pretty awesome rock rhythm guitar and Stanley and Lenny continue to fly around beneath. Wow! How could anyone possibly compete with this amazing foursome? The song plays out with everybody hitting their chords together while Lenny boisterously accents it all from beneath. The very final 30-seconds is as good as any of the other moments of the song with the incredible dexterity on display. Wow! (28.75/30)

Total Time: 41:24

To my ears and brain, the music on this album is a serious step up from that of the second RTF album. The debut album stands alone as a very nice Chick Corea project, but Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy is to me merely an attempt to emulate and compete with John McLaughlin and his Mahavishnu Orchestra. And who can blame Chick for this? Everybody else was doing it! And the Bill Connors quartet may have been the best at it, but the three Al DiMeola-staffed RTF albums present a sound and engineering step up into the realms of that of progressive rock music: clean, clear capture of dynamic instrumental performances throughout each and every song, start to finish; gone are the thin, watered-down soundscapes of Teo Maceo and David Rubinson; here are the vibrant soundscapes that Bruce Douglas envisioned with his 1969 work with Hendrix and John McLaughlin's Devotion (an album I much prefer to the early Mahavishnu albums). Here is the sound vibrancy and quality of Boston, Aja, and the computer/digital age beyond. 20-year old Al will get better (as we'll see on No Mystery and Romantic Warrior) but Lenny, Stanley, and Chick are definitely at the top of their game! And the compositions are simply perfect for these instrumentalists! Bravissimo!

A/five stars; an incontrovertible masterpiece of prog-rock-satisfying jazz-rock fusion; one of the shining moments of the apex of the movement.