Return To Forever - Romantic Warrior

[frankencat]

Listening to this at work right now. So incredible, I love this stuff.

[Carltone]

you have the new RTF DVD right?!?!??! Incredible version on it... Love that, and "No Mystery"~ Mind expanding tunes, indeed.

[frankencat]

Did they release the live DVD? I was at the show in Clearwater where they were taping for it.

[Carltone]

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Ij%2BYvLsiL._SS500_.jpg

yes!!!!! get it!

[frankencat]

Sweet!

[diego]

Saw the tour... a long time ago. Mirrors above Lenny and Chick, so you could watch them play. Incredible PA... hundreds of tiny speakers.

[todd richman]

One of my favorite classic prog-fusion recordings along with Heavy Weather.

[AlChuck]

I always felt Romantic Warrior was their weakest effort - formulaic writing that seemed designed purely to show off their super chops, but not very coherent or very musical-sounding to my ears...

I still think their best was the first with Al Di, Where Have I Known You Before?, with No Mystery a very close second.

[frankencat]

Wow really? I think Warrior is one of their best and possibly my favorite.

[Carltone]

formulaic writing that seemed designed purely to show off their super chops, but not very coherent or very musical-sounding to my ears...

you act like that's a bad thing...:D
Some of my favorite music is music for it's own sake... it's almost like Chick and the guys didn't care what we might think about it... They were going to compose, play and perform at their collective level best...damn the torpedos, if you will...

Of course, I love all the fusion groups from that era just about equally... Tony Williams Lifetime(with Holdsworth) WOW! Weather Report...WHOA! HeadHunters...Hellyeah! Mahavishnu Orchestra... Da-yumm! RTF.... BOOOOOM! Brecker Brothers...OHHHHYEAH! And all the solo discs from all the various members of each band are killer as well...

Each had a real personality and did something a little different than the others...I don't believe any one player or group was that much better than the others... just different...

[Bren]

Not to disparage the original poster's sentiment, because any RTF is a substantial listen, but I too think that Romantic Warrior errs on the side of technique instead of atmosphere or coherence. "Sorceress" being the exception, because it has a good groove and lets the group 'breathe' away from the tricky ensemble parts.

Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy is my RTF choice, by far. Seems more organic, less over the top, and I'll take Bill over Al any day.

There's a great RTF collection called The Anthology, released last year, that contains the above albums plus selections from the others. Highly recommended.

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www.jazzshelf.org (http://www.jazzshelf.org)

[6Tones]

Listening to this at work right now. So incredible, I love this stuff.
I wore out my CD version of it back in college ;)

[realityczech]

Muddy but beautiful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFP-alYNq5I
Less mud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZiq4fY8uew&feature=related