Music Banter - View Single Post - Return To Forever - Romantic Warrior (1975)
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Old 12-27-2010, 07:44 AM   #2 (permalink)
Guybrush
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First off, I have to say the production here is immaculate and the musicians, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Al Di Meola and Lenny White do a perfect job. Just about everything, for example Whites drum kit or Meola's acoustic guitar, sounds perfect and they just play so damn tight. It's a world class line-up with a brilliant production and I just love how the album sounds.

The compositions I like the most are Chick Corea's, most notably the title track, The Romantic Warrior. I've had a bit of a love relationship with this song for quite a while now and I think much of it's replayability comes from several levels. First off, it's just a brilliant tune and I just think it's beautiful in parts while really engaging and driving in other parts. As a composition, it perfectly showcases the band and the bass, guitar and piano all get their moments to shine. The song is all acoustic and the playing is just jaw dropping. I just wish I could play guitar like Meola does on this song, I love it. The star of the show for me here is still Corea, though. When his piano part comes on in the later half of the song, he and the band just takes it all to a new jazz-hands inducing level.

I'm not so good at turning feelings into words, but this song is without a doubt my favourite tune put out by any of the 70s fusion greats. It's that brilliant! Here they are performing it live by the way.




The other compositions vary a bit for me although they all easily pass the good mark. I'll leave some discussion of those for later, but for now, suffice to say that while the title track is clearly brilliant, the album as a whole does not quite reach that level for me. I give it a very good which it is definetly deserving of.
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