ROMANTIC WARRIOR

I love a lot of jazz/rock fusion as its termed on this site. There's the tight, explosively powerful playing of early Mahavishnu Orchestra. There's the grace of Weather Report. There's the quirky humour of much of Bruford's solo and "Earthworks" music. But as with all music, for me there needs to be strong melodies underpinning all the tricky time changes and virtuoso playing, especially with jazz. RTF have or had much going for them - they are all great instrumentalists, and if technical brilliance is your bag then you won't be dissapointed. But, however good these guys may be - listen to White's accomplished drumming, Clarke's unique bass playing, DiMeola's speed, and their leader, Chick Corea's total mastery of keyboards - the quality of composition is poor. It is for the most part, elevator music, put into complex arrangements yes, with clever time signatures yes, with brilliant improvisational soloing yes, but at its heart the music is poor and has no soul.It's the sort of music Jazz FM (as was) used to play all day. There are exceptions, such as the 1st part of "Duel of the Jester" where some smart soloing from first DiMeola then Corea is made over a strong riff, but compare that to "The Magician" - every so often the ideas run out so the musicians grind to a halt, noodle for a while, before heading off on a new theme. That's not clever, that's not original, to me it smacks of desperation.

I can see the appeal of this music for many but not for me!