WHERE HAVE I KNOWN YOU BEFORE

	Where Have I Known You Before
	Produced by Chick Corea
	Released on September 1974
	US CHART POSITION #32 . . . US JAZZ CHART POSITION #5
	Find it at GEMM
PD 6509 cover [high resolution scan]

T his is the beginning of the best lineup RTF ever had, with a 19-year-old Al Di Meola joining Corea, Clarke and White. However, Where Have I Known You Before is hardly a showcase for the young guitarist. He plays a lot of quiet rhythms, pokes his neck out occasionally, almost passes for a Ponty employee. The real show is Chick Corea and his amazing technicolor synthesizer, especially for the kraut space fusion of the Pharaoh Kings. On the side stages, Lenny White slips into the shadow of Lo, Stanley Clarke chimes in with a vulcan amazing opener, and Al Di Meola soaks it in, watching, waiting. Despite some superlative fusion, I still prefer Mystery and Warrior. Di Meola especially lit the latter up like a torch. In lieu of those amazing solos, Where Have I Known You Before has Chick’s synthetic tricks and thin slices of keybread pressed between meaty jams. All of the electric RTF albums are amazing, especially when the contributions of Clarke and White are weighed in, but there’s nothing on here that will rock your world in deep and unalterable ways. The decision to separate the longer songs with Chick’s keyboard soliloquies doesn’t quite work for me. They’re interesting, but out of place on a fiery fusion record. While Di Meola fans may be disappointed that their hero doesn’t here save the day, the three senior mousketeers put on a display of superlative swordsmanship. The period marks it as classic Corea fusion, the vintage maybe a year before the rich notes of Di Meola fully developed.

TRACK LISTING

VULCAN WORLDS (Stanley Clarke) 7:51
WHERE HAVE I LOVED YOU BEFORE (Chick Corea) 1:01
THE SHADOW OF LO (Lenny White) 7:34
WHERE HAVE I DANCED WITH YOU BEFORE (Chick Corea) 1:12
BEYOND THE SEVENTH GALAXY (Chick Corea) 3:11
EARTH JUICE (Chick Corea/Stanley Clarke/Lenny White/Al DiMeola) 3:45
WHERE HAVE I KNOWN YOU BEFORE (Chick Corea) 2:09
SONG TO THE PHARAOH KINGS (Chick Corea) 14:21

CREDITS

STANLEY CLARKE -- electric bass, Yamaha organ, chimes, bell tree
CHICK COREA -- acoustic piano, electric piano, clavinet, Yamaha organ, synthesizers, percussion
AL DiMEOLA -- electric guitar, acoustic twelve-string guitar
LENNY WHITE -- drums, percussion, congas & bongos
Shelly Yakus - engineer
Neville Potter -- album cover concept
Petra Kinkele, Kameny Associates, Inc. -- cover design
Herb Dreiwitz -- front cover photography
Pete Kaplan -- group photographs

return to CHICK COREA/RETURN TO FOREVER discography

REGION	RELEASE DATE	LABEL	MEDIA	ID NUMBER
US	September 1974	Polydor	LP	PD 6509
UK	1974	Polydor	LP	2310 354
		ECM	CD	825 206

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