LIGHT AS A FEATHER

The deal is sealed: Chick Corea's Return To Forever is more than just a single album issue: it's now a band, a collective with a singular purpose: to explore the expanding and ever-elastic boundaries of the new medium that will become known as Jazz-Rock Fusion.

1. "You're Everything" (5:11) Chick's gentle, melodic electric piano musings that are joined in the second half of the first minute by Flora Purim's very traditional Ella Fitzgerald-like jazz vocals. There is a strong hint of the previous decade's most popular influx into popular music: Brasilian bossa nova--a presence that becomes more pronounced and even dominant as the song develops (with the joinder of Stanley's double bass, Airto Moreira's brushed drums, and Joe Farrell's mellifluent flute. Light and bouncy and very Latin, this song feels/seems a response to pop demands as well as to the domineering influences of Chick's Italian heritage. (9/10)

2. "Light as a Feather" (10:57) opening with a quick fade-in on a Flora Purim vocal that was already in progress usually does not bode well for the presentation of finished compositions, but the length of this with its many smooth and melodic performances overcomes any obstacle presented by recording and editing processes. The performance of now-21 year old bass prodigy Stanley Clarke displays the young artist's continuing development of his own signature sounds and styles--though more in the solos than in the sometimes stiff and rote-sounding supporting chord arpeggios. The performances are all great--so smooth and professional--even presenting some creative and spirited solos from Joe Farrell on tenor sax, as well as Stanley and Chick. Flora's Latinized vocal, however, feels not only a continuation of/carryover from the previous song and is not really missed for the nine-tenths of the song in which it is absent. (18/20) 3. "Captain Marvel" (4:53) some uptempo Latin jazz with some awesome performances from Stanley and Chick, some rather weak and uninspired wordless vocals from Flora, and some poorly recorded and mixed kit drumming from Airto (too far in the background--as if being played in a pit while being recorded by microphones hanging from 20 feet above--while Airto and Flora's hand percussion tracks are recorded as if right in your lap. (8.875/10)

4. "500 Miles High" (9:07) another great opening from the duet of Flora Purim and Chick Corea that rather quickly turns into a Jazz-Rock motif. Flora's vocal here lets me know how influential her vocal stylings were to posterity cuz I definitely hear the mirrored style of the wonderful guest vocalists present in 21st Century electronic jazz duo KOOP's wonderful music. Once the music takes off, Stanley works furiously to try to fully-arpeggiate a progression of fast- changing chords while Chick splashes his own Fender Rhodes chords around over the top before Joe Farrell's aggressive sax steps in to take the lead. In the fifth minute, then, Stanley slows down, which turns out to be a signal that he's getting ready to support and play off of Chick's own solo. The two make such a good duo; I think I could listen to just duets between the two for an entire album. Anyway, the performance demands on Stanley are considerable despite the rudimentary techniques asked of him: they're just performed at such a high speed, yet his own solo in the seventh and eighth minutes is exquisite and classy while also impressive from a skills perspective. Taken into its whole with Flora's dulcet airy soprano melodies (of some rather prosaic lyrics) this is my favorite song on the album. I can't quite grasp whether or not I love this song for its Koop-familiarity or for its own sake. Probably a little of both. (19.25/20)

5. "Children's Song" (2:47) definitely a song that is simple enough to serve as a lullaby. It's minimalistic while still being demanding of the players due to its odd time and polyrhythms. I see it more as a Chopin-like étude. (4.5/5)

6. "Spain" (9:51) a cover of Miles Davis' classic tune shows some live, in-the-studio group spirit while displaying Chick's fascination with Latinized renditions of musical standards (here opening with the jazzified rendering of Rodrigo's famous "Adagio" (the Second Movement) from his "Concierto de Ajanjuez"). Hearing Flora and Airto's effervescent vocalizations from the percussion platform add a kind of 'live' feeling to the song. Both Airto and Chick seem quite engaged while supporting Joe Farrell's light flute play. Stanley is once again hyperfocussed on holding tight to the machine gun notes he's playing in trying to arpeggiate the five-chord descending progression--even as Chick takes the next solo on his "dirty"/distorted Fender Rhodes. At the end of the eighth minute everybody kind of clears out for Stanley to perform a solo. Unfortunately, I do have to admit to one significant negative reaction I have to the song: many of the individual and collective elements of this song were (obviously) lifted/borrowed for BARRY MANILOW's 1978 hit song, "Copacabana," with which I am much more familiar with (for nearly 50 years now as opposed to only getting to know Chick's and Miles' versions for a more recent time span). So, despite the great performances and structural and melodic elements, my brain is constantly singing Barry Manilow version! (17.5/20)

Total Time 42:46

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of fairly early Jazz-Rock Fusion from a group of artists who were trying to merge together as a band but, many of whom, were still experimenting, exploring, and developing their stylistic preferences as well as their own personal interpretation of what this "fusion" thing was really about. Though it's now dated and overshadowed by the musics to come in 1973-76, this is still a collection of excellent songs and a very significant contribution to the odyssey that was the pioneering days of Jazz-Rock Fusion.

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