Chick Corea Memorium Poll #3: Electric Solo Output

Another for Chick! These albums contain some of my absolute favorite material by the late, great genius. Albums like these, particularly the run in the mid to late 70s, are what I would recommend any prog/fusion fan, and certainly should secure him a place on the site. I'm not even sure I can choose. Light as a Feather was one of the first of his I ever heard, and I clicked with it instantly. Then, it was My Spanish Heart, a double album that arrested me with its orchestrations and Spanish influence. I think either The Leprechaun or The Mad Hatter are my favorite (definitely the proggiest, that's for sure), but asking me to choose between them is too hard (even though I'm the one asking, haha). I also checked out the last three more recently, and was pleasantly surprised that they were also AMAZING. Well, maybe not surprised about Vigil, as it won a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album. Usually I don't give a heck about what the Grammy's think is good music, but usually the winners in the instrumental jazz categories are actually decent. And his return to fusion was certainly a worthy endeavor!

Edited by Awesoreno - March 01 2021 at 15:26

Awesoreno wrote: 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.

Return to Forever

^Me too! I really hope this poll gets some traction and some members check out some of these albums if they haven't heard them. Very pleasing to my prog-inclined ears.

Return To Forever

Man With Hat wrote: I only know about half of these, of which I prefer The Virgil.

^Yeah I agree. Especially that third track.

Bump

Special shout out to Friends, which has the killer track Samba Song. Check it out! Steve Gadd elevates it to revelatory heights.

Don't know all of these albums (i.e., the stuff after the 1980s) but The Mad Hatter has floated around in my list of 50 All-Time favorite albums since it came out. Just magical! Steve Gadd, Eddie Gomez, Joe Farrell, Gayle Moran, Herbie Hancock and, of course, Chick, are all PHENOMENAL!