Personnel: Chick Corea (vocals, acoustic & electric pianos, organ, Clavinet, synthesizer, marimba, snare drum); Stanley Clarke (vocals, organ, synthesizer, acoustic & electric basses); Lenny White (marimba, drums, congas, percussion); Al DiMeola (acoustic & electric guitars).
Recorded at The Record Plant, New York, New York in January 1975.
Digitally remastered by Dennis Drake (Polygram Studios).
NO MYSTERY (1975) sees Return to Forever experimenting with funk and heavy-hitting rock. "Sofistifunk" is a great example of the former. On this track, drummer Lenny White lays down a fat dance groove. However, to offset this, keyboardist Chick Corea and guitarist Al DiMeola create an abstract musical dialogue between synthesizers and fuzz guitar.
"Excerpt from the First Movement of Heavy Metal" is the best example of the band's explorative, hard-rocking side. This piece opens and closes with a tongue-in-cheek "classical" piano introduction. In between, DiMeola, White, and bassist Stanley Clarke engage in an over-the-top, no-holds-barred jam. The title track is the jazziest of all the songs here. This sensitive, Latin-influenced composition contains many beautiful passages as well as a number of sudden melodic deviations. Overall, this piece really shows off Corea's distinctive compositional style, which borrows not only from Cuban music and post-bop jazz, but also from the Spanish guitar tradition. Certainly, DiMeola--who is known for his love of flamenco music--had an influence on this musical direction as well.
