Chick Corea Memorium Poll #3: Electric Solo Output

A note about the first two albums:

I have decided not to include them in the RTF poll for a few reasons. First off, some background, so you know I know what I'm talking about. Return to Forever the album was originally attributed to Chick Corea. The follow-up Light as a Feather, recorded with the same line-up, was attributed to Chick Corea and Return to Forever. The first has retroactively been considered by many as the first canonical RTF entry, an assessment I don't necessarily disagree with. However, it's clear there were some changes between Feather and Hymn.

Firstly, the line-up/instrumentation. Chick and Stanley were the only members to carry over onto Hymn (and, indeed, were the only constant RTF members on every release by the group). While the former albums featured vocals (by Gayle Moran, who would return on Musicmagic) and heavy usage of Joe Farrell's flute/saxes, the latter albums featured the guitar heavily.

Secondly, the compositional contributions by members other than Chick were much more apparent on the latter albums. The former albums had tunes written almost exclusively by Chick (which makes sense considering the first album was attributed to him).

Thirdly, and most importantly, there was a significant change in the style of music. While I would consider all of them to be Jazz Fusion, the former are infused mainly with more Latin styles, especially Bossa Nova. The latter are infused with much more rock and funk.

In conclusion, yes, those two albums could have been in the RTF poll I made. But they aren't. So there. It's my poll. And I made that one a while ago, so it would be pointless to add them now anyway. In any case, they're all killer albums in my book!