Chick Corea

CD version. Return to Forever is the 1972 album that introduced Chick Corea's new quintet with Brazilian musicians at its heart. After the free trio and quartet work of the year before, Corea turned to song, Latin rhythm and the electric piano. Recorded in New York for ECM, it is one of the defining records of early electric jazz, lighter and more lyrical than most fusion of its time.

The music was recorded on 2 and 3 February 1972 at A & R Studios in New York, with Manfred Eicher producing and Tony May as engineer. Corea plays electric piano throughout. Joe Farrell, on loan from CTI, plays flutes and soprano saxophone, and Stanley Clarke switches between electric and double bass. Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira plays drums and percussion, while Flora Purim sings and adds percussion. Corea composed all the music, and Neville Potter wrote the lyrics for the two vocal pieces.

The twelve-minute title track strings several short sections together so that they flow into one another, with Purim's wordless voice and Farrell's flute often moving as one line before her closing ad-lib. Crystal Silence is a slow ballad on which the band thins down to something close to a trio. Corea recorded it again that November in Oslo with vibraphonist Gary Burton, as the title track of their duo album for ECM. The long closing suite Sometime Ago / La Fiesta opens with an improvised introduction and passes through Purim's song. It ends on the fast theme of La Fiesta, with solos from Farrell and Corea.

In 2001 the album entered NPR's Basic Jazz Record Library, chosen by A. B. Spellman and Murray Horwitz. Spellman called it "a very great electric piano record", and Horwitz praised the way Corea's writing pulled rock, jazz and classical influences together over a constant rhythmic pulse. Reviewing ECM's early catalogue in 2010, Tyran Grillo of ECM Reviews singled out What Game Shall We Play Today as "a lovingly arranged song" built around Purim. The same quintet went on to record Light as a Feather for Polydor in 1973 under the name Return to Forever.

This CD edition carries the original catalogue number ECM 1022 and the four tracks of the album, first released by ECM in 1972.