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Return to Forever | |
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 Return to Forever in Rochester, New York, 1976. Left to right: White, Clarke, Corea, Di Meola | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | New York City, United States |
| Genres | |
| Years active |
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| Labels | |
| Past members | Chick Corea Stanley Clarke Joe Farrell Airto Moreira Flora Purim Lenny White Bill Connors Steve Gadd Mingo Lewis Earl Klugh Al Di Meola Gerry Brown Harold Garrett Gayle Moran James E. Pugh John Thomas James Tinsley Ron Moss Frank Gambale Jean-Luc Ponty |
| Website | return2forever |
Return to Forever is an Americanjazz fusion band that was founded by the late pianistChick Corea in 1972.[2] The band has had many members, with the only consistent bandmate of Corea's being bassistStanley Clarke. Along withWeather Report,The Headhunters, andMahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever is often cited as one of the core groups of the jazz-fusion movement of the 1970s. Several musicians, including Clarke,Flora Purim,Airto Moreira andAl Di Meola, came to prominence through their performances on Return to Forever albums.
After playing onMiles Davis's jazz-fusion albumsIn a Silent Way (1969) andBitches Brew (1970), Corea formed anavant-garde jazz band calledCircle withDave Holland,Anthony Braxton andBarry Altschul. In 1972, after converting toScientology, Corea decided he wanted to communicate better with his audience. This meant performing a more accessible style of music than avant-garde jazz.
Return to Forever first disbanded in 1977 after five years and seven studio albums. The band never released another studio album, but occasionally reunited for live performances until Corea's death in 2021.
The first edition of Return to Forever performed primarilyLatin-oriented music.[2] This initial band consisted of singer and percussionistFlora Purim, her husbandAirto Moreira (both Brazilians) ondrums and percussion, Corea's longtime musical co-workerJoe Farrell onsaxophone andflute, and the youngStanley Clarke on bass.[2] Within this first line-up in particular, Clarke played acousticdouble bass in addition toelectric bass. Corea'sFender Rhodes electric piano formed the basis of this group's sound; he had yet to discover synthesizers, his trademark sound in the group's later years. Clarke and Farrell were given ample solo space themselves. While Purim's vocals lent some commercial appeal to the music, many of their compositions were also instrumental and somewhat experimental in nature. The music was composed by Corea with the exception of the title track of the second album which was written by Stanley Clarke. Lyrics were often written by Corea's friend Neville Potter, and were quite often Scientology-themed.
Their first album, titled simplyReturn to Forever, was recorded forECM Records in 1972,[2] and was initially released only inEurope. This album featured Corea's now famous compositions "Crystal Silence" and "La Fiesta". Shortly afterwards, Corea, Airto, Clarke andTony Williams formed the band forStan Getz's albumCaptain Marvel (recorded in 1972 and released in 1975), which featured Corea's compositions, including some from the first and second Return to Forever albums. Their second album,Light as a Feather (1973),[2] was released byPolydor and included the song "Spain", which also became quite well known.
After the second album, Farrell, Purim and Moreira left the group to form their own bands, and guitaristBill Connors, drummerSteve Gadd and percussionistMingo Lewis were added. However, Gadd was unwilling to tour with the band and risk his job as an in-demand session drummer.Lenny White (who had played with Corea inMiles Davis's band) replaced Gadd and Lewis on drums and percussion, and the group's third album,Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy (1973), was then re-recorded (the first recording, featuring Gadd on drums, was never released and has since disappeared).[2]
The nature of the group's music had by now completely changed into jazz-rock, or jazz fusion, and had evolved into a similar vein to that which theMahavishnu Orchestra,Weather Report, and someprogressive rock bands were performing at the time. Their music was still melodic and incorporated strong themes. And while the music had a strong, rock oriented approach, it was elevated by thejazz elements of strong, instrumental improvisation and modulating harmonic and rhythmic structures. Over-driven, distorted guitar had also become prominent in the band's new sound, and Clarke had by then switched almost completely to theelectric bass. A replacement on vocals was not hired, and all the songs were now instrumentals. This change did not lead to a decrease in the band's commercial fortunes however, Return to Forever'sjazz rock albums instead found their way ontoUS pop album charts.
In the September 1988DownBeat magazine interview with Chick Corea by Josef Woodward, Josef says (page 19), "There is this general view ... that ... Miles [Davis] crystallized electric jazz fusion and that he sent his emissaries out." Chick responds, "Nah, that's Disneyland. Miles is definitely a leader ... But there were other things that occurred that I thought were equally as important. What John McLaughlin did with the electric guitar set the world on its ear. No one ever heard an electric guitar played like that before, and it certainly inspired me. ... John's band, more than my experience with Miles, led me to want to turn the volume up and write music that was more dramatic and made your hair move."[3]
While their second jazz rock album,Where Have I Known You Before (1974) was similar in style to its immediate predecessor, Corea now playedsynthesizers in addition to electrickeyboards (includingpiano), and Clarke's playing had evolved considerably- now using flange and fuzz-tone effects, and with his signature style beginning to emerge. AfterBill Connors left the band to concentrate on his solo career, the group also hired new guitarists. AlthoughEarl Klugh played guitar for some of the group's live performances, he was soon replaced by the then 19-year-old guitar prodigyAl Di Meola, who had also played on the album recording sessions.
Their following album,No Mystery (1975), was recorded with the same line-up asWhere Have I Known You Before, but the style of music had become more varied. The first side of the record consisted primarily of jazz-funk, while the second side featured Corea's acoustic title track and a long composition with a strongSpanish influence. On this and the following album, each member of the group composed at least one of the tracks.No Mystery went on to win theGrammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group.
The final album by this longest-lasting "classic" lineup of the group, which had by this time left Polydor forColumbia Records, wasRomantic Warrior (1976), the best selling of all Return to Forever's efforts,[2] eventually reachinggold disc status.Romantic Warrior continued their experiments in the realms of jazz-rock and related musical genres, and was lauded by critics for both the technically demanding style of its compositions as well as for its accomplished musicianship.
After the release ofRomantic Warrior and Return to Forever's subsequent tour in support (as well as having in addition signed a multimillion-dollar contract withCBS), Corea shocked Clarke by deciding to change the lineup of the group and to not include either White or Di Meola.[4]
The final incarnation of Return to Forever featured Corea, Clarke and Joe Farrell as well as a four-piece horn section and Corea's wifeGayle Moran on vocals, but recorded only one studio album,Musicmagic (1977).
In 1978, after issuing a live album of the tour titledReturn to Forever Live: The Complete Concert[2] (a four-LP set, also released in edited form as a single LP and later as a double CD), Chick Corea officially disbanded the group.[5]
In 1982, the Corea/Clarke/White/Di Meola lineup reunited to record a ten-minute track, "Compadres", which was issued on Corea's 1982 albumTouchstone. Also, they played at TheWolf & Rissmiller's Country Club, Reseda, California, withJoe Henderson on April 7, 1982.
In 1983, the same Return to Forever lineup played a short reunion tour of the U.S. and Japan, and the live recording in Japan was released in 2021. The repertoire for the tour included some new material by Corea, including one piece titled "Overture" that was later recorded by theChick Corea Elektric Band for the live various artists double albumGRP Super Live in Concert (1992),[6] and another titled "The Phantom" that Di Meola later recorded on his albumKiss My Axe (1991).
Twenty-six years later, Corea, Clarke, White, and Di Meola reunited a second time for a tour of the United States and Europe that began in the summer of 2008. A boxed set of remixed and digitally remastered tracks from the albumsHymn of the Seventh Galaxy,Where Have I Known You Before,No Mystery, andRomantic Warrior was released to coincide with the tour.[7]
Corea, Clarke, and White (minus Di Meola) performed an acoustic tour in 2009 and released a live album in 2011 titledForever. It included guest appearances by Bill Connors,Chaka Khan, andJean-Luc Ponty.
In February 2011 the group began a world tour in Australia. The lineup for this tour was Corea, Clarke, White, Ponty, and guitaristFrank Gambale of the Chick Corea Elektric Band. Many dates includedDweezil Zappa'sZappa Plays Zappa band as an opening act with Corea occasionally appearing in Zappa's band on keyboards, as well as Jean-Luc Ponty performing some of the songs that he had performed withFrank Zappa.[8]
Corea died of cancer on February 9, 2021.
| Year | Album | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Labels | Note | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Pop | US Jazz | US R&B | |||||
| 1972 | Return to Forever | — | 8 | — | ECM | Credited as aChick Corea solo album | |
| 1973 | Light as a Feather | — | 6 | — | Polydor | ||
| 1973 | Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy | 124 | 7 | — | Polydor | ||
| 1974 | Where Have I Known You Before | 32 | 5 | — | Polydor | ||
| 1975 | No Mystery | 39 | 7 | — | Polydor | ||
| 1976 | Romantic Warrior | 35 | 3 | 23 |
| Columbia | |
| 1977 | Musicmagic | 38 | 4 | — | Columbia | ||
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that country. | |||||||
| Year | Album | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Labels | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Pop | US Jazz | |||||
| 1978 | Live | 155 | 12 | Columbia | Live atPalladium (New York City) [4LP, 2CD, 3CD] | |
| 2009 | Returns | — | — | Eagle | Live at 3 venues (Montreux Jazz Festival,Ruth Eckerd Hall and Bank of America Pavilion) [2CD, DVD-Video] | |
| 2011 | Forever | — | — | Eagle | Credited as Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White. Live at 4 venues (Yoshi's,Monterey Jazz Festival,Blue Note Tokyo and Dimitriou's Jazz Alley. [2CD] | |
| 2012 | The Mothership Returns | — | — | Eagle | Live at 2 venues (Austin andMontreux) [2CD + DVD-Video] | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that country. | ||||||
All members
| 1972–1973 | 1973 | 1973–1974 | 1974 |
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| 1974–1977 | 1977 | 1977 | 1977–1983 |
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| Disbanded |
| 1983 | 1983–2008 | 2008 | 2009 |
| Disbanded |
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| 2010–2021 | |||
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| International | |
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| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
