Romantic Warrior

Last updated
Romantic Warrior
RomanticWarrior.jpg
Studio album by
Return to Forever
Released1976
RecordedFebruary 1976
Studio Caribou Ranch
(Nederland, Colorado, US)
Genre
Length45:28
Label Columbia
Producer Chick Corea
Return to Forever chronology
No Mystery
(1975)		Romantic Warrior
(1976)		 Musicmagic
(1977)
Chick Corea chronology
The Leprechaun
(1976)		Romantic Warrior
(1976)		 My Spanish Heart
(1976)

Romantic Warrior is a studio album by the American jazz fusion band Return to Forever, their first recorded for Columbia Records, after releasing their previous four albums on Polydor. In February 1976, the group retreated to Caribou Ranch near Nederland, Colorado to record. It was the first album to remove the "featuring Chick Corea" credit from beside the band name on the album cover. Despite the music being more dense and avant-garde than the funkier No Mystery, it remains the band's highest selling album with over 500,000 copies sold in the US alone.

Contents

Production

Recording

The album was recorded in a ranch located near the town of Nederland, Colorado (pictured in 2005) Nederland colorado2.jpg
The album was recorded in a ranch located near the town of Nederland, Colorado (pictured in 2005)

Romantic Warrior was recorded in February 1976 at Caribou Ranch, located near Nederland, Colorado.

Music

The album, as a whole, has been considered Chick Corea's answer to Rick Wakeman's successful The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1975), either by its medieval themes or its prog rock leanings. [1]

Chick Corea contributed the longest compositions while the other members each composed one piece. The opener, "Medieval Overture", with its distinctive melodic motifs, sets the mood for the rest of the album. Lenny White's "Sorceress" starts with a funky riff and is distinguished by Corea's synthesizers. The title track, "The Romantic Warrior", is fully acoustic. It has a long intro, which is followed by a short theme consisting of one riff. Each group member, excluding White, plays a long solo. An extended outro follows, during which fast unison patterns are heard.

On side two, Al Di Meola's song, "Majestic Dance", relies on rock riffs and distorted lead guitar sound, and features fast harpsichord-like synth figures. Clarke's "The Magician" is a complex composition, featuring playful melodies, and rapid unison lines. The last track of the album is Corea's "Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant", the longest song on the album. It has a more conventional melody as a main theme, but follows the style of previous tracks. Notable is the intense keyboard solo showcasing Corea.

After this album Corea decided that the group's time had come to an end and he continued with a new Return to Forever line-up with Clarke. Corea dedicated the album to the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Retrospective reviews
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [2]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [4]
SputnikmusicStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [5]

In a retrospective review for AllMusic, William Ruhlmann praised Romantic Warrior as "the sound of a mature band at the top of its game, which may help explain why it was Return to Forever's most popular album, eventually certified as a gold record, and the last by this assemblage." [2] In another retrospective review for Sputnikmusic, Brendan Schroer argued that the "true magic of the collective’s work was in how these musicians could work off each other and make something both emotionally resonant and musically abstruse" and opined that "Romantic Warrior plays out as a wonderful - if slightly flawed - melding of incredible technical feats and inner-band chemistry". [5]

Chart performance

YearChartPosition
1976 Billboard 200 35 [6]
1976Billboard Jazz Albums3 [6]
1976Billboard R&B Albums23 [6]

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Medieval Overture" Chick Corea 5:14
2."Sorceress" Lenny White 7:34
3."The Romantic Warrior"Corea10:52
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
4."Majestic Dance" Al Di Meola 5:01
5."The Magician" Stanley Clarke 5:29
6."Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant (Parts I and II)"Corea11:26
Total length:45:28

Personnel

Return to Forever

Production

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References

  1. ↑ Nicholson, Stuart (13 May 2021). "Chick Corea: an appreciation of one of jazz's great musicians". Jazzwise. Retrieved 4 October 2024.
  2. 1 2 Ruhlmann, W. (2011). "Return to Forever Romantic Warrior (1976) album review | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
  3. ↑ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 50. ISBN   0-394-72643-X.
  4. ↑ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 1208. ISBN   978-0-141-03401-0.
  5. 1 2 Schroer, Brendan (2021). "Return to Forever Romantic Warrior (1976) album review | Sputnikmusic". sputnikmusic.com. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 "Return to Forever Romantic Warrior (1976) album review | Awards | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
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