RETURN TO FOREVER — Musicmagic (review)

RETURN TO FOREVER — Musicmagic album cover Album · 1977 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Abraxas
Return to Forever's last album to date, Musicmagic, shows yet another major style swift and as a consequence it has received bad praise.

In their inception, the band played a very exquisite mix of jazz and latin inspired music, they later moved to a completely instrumental and electric sound where their brains joining the jazz rock movement in the heights of Mahavishnu Orchestra. They rapidly added funk and some classical/symphonic arrangements to their sound, and it was extremely apparent in their commercially successful Romantic Warrior, an album that can be associated to prog rock.

So what had Chick Corea in mind for Musicmagic? It was definitely something new. New because the line-up is changed drastically, the guitars are out once again as in their first albums, vocals are back but from Chick's wife, Gayle Moran, singer of the second line-up of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Lenny White is not on the drums and a brass section is added, first (and last, as for now) time in the group's life. Stanley Clarke is the only remaining member, the only one who was together with Chick in the whole evolution of the band.

As a result, you have a pretty big mixture of things. The latin influences, the classical ones, some rock and funk. Having said that, it seems like a completely interesting album, especially when it's in hands of Chick Corea, but that's not really so. Being the dawn fo the 70s there are some really cheesy moments that jazz fusion, in general, was suffering from.

However if you can pass those moments, the album actually presents rather complex and interesting arrangements that are not repetitions of older ones. Say 'Music Magic' or 'The Endless Night', both 9+ minutes, has the band playing this new style with excellent execution, with both groove and intricacy.

A good comparison would be Chick's solo album 'The Leprechaun' which has a similar idea in mind, mixing jazz fusion with classical ideas mainly. The result on both is not completely successful, but at least it's different from a lot of fusion from its time, and of course the chops and the grooves are always to be found.

So, if you can handle a very different Return to Forever that plays a weirdo fusion with vocals and some lighter late 70s grooves, this is good enough for any jazz rock collection.
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