Return To Forever
Carnegie Hall
New York City, NY
July 3, 1974
Soundboard Recording


01 Applause / Ambiance 1:40
02 Beyond the Seventh Galaxy 3:18
03 Song Intro by Chick Corea 2:08
04 Song to the Pharoah Kings 15:42
05 Song Intro by Chick Corea 0:51
06 The Shadow of Lo 9:48
07 Song Intro by Stanley Cl� 0:52
08 Where Have I Known You B� 6:09
09 Stanley Clarke bass solo 5:12
10 Song Intro 0:43
11 The Vulcan Empire 10:05
12 Closing Announcements 1:47

Total time 58mn 15sc

Chick Corea - keyboards
Stanley Clarke - bass
Al DiMeola - guitar
Lenny White - drums

This performance by Return to Forever is historic for a few reasons. Recorded just a few weeks before the group's powerhouse outing for Polydor, Where Have I Known You Before, it marks the first performance of RTF with the fiery young guitarist Al Di Meola, who at the time of this Carnegie Hall concert was three weeks short of his 20th birthday. As DiMeola recalled, "Sometime in the early summer of 1974, I was sitting in my Back Bay apartment in Boston behind Symphony Hall when I got a call from Chick. My first reaction was shock and disbelief that it was him. As a student at the Berklee College of Music, RTF and Chick were favorites of mine and a lot of fellow students. He had called me to extend an offer to come to New York and join the band based on a recording that he had heard. A friend of mine from New Jersey, Mike Buyukas, had taken it upon himself, without my knowledge, to locate Chick and try to get him to listen to some recordings he had made of me playing with the Barry Miles Quartet when I was 17 years old. This cassette tape that Mike passed on to Chick convinced Chick to hire me. So I packed a bag, hitched a ride back home to New Jersey, and three days later was playing in Carnegie Hall."

Corea addresses DiMeola's entry into the band as a last-minute replacement for guitarist Earl Klugh, who himself had been a temporary replacement for guitarist Bill Connors, an equally fiery distortion-laced electric guitarist who had appeared on Return to Forever's 1973 album, Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy. You can even hear Chick refer to DiMeola in his introductions as "Albert," which is probably the first and last time he ever used that misnomer. Rounding out the group are Stanley Clarke on bass and Lenny White on drums. Performing material that would later appear on Where Have I Known You Before, this Carnegie Hall gig essentially served as a dress rehearsal for that potent recording which blended rock power with jazz harmonies and improvisation like no group had done before.

Where Have I Known You Before would be released in September of 1974. The fusion supergroup would follow with 1975's Grammy Award-winning No Mystery before switching to the Columbia label and debuting with 1976's best-selling Romantic Warrior. Corea would disband that particular RTF lineup and carry on with an expanded edition of the group which included Clarke on bass and featured a five-piece horn section, along with Gayle Moran (Chick's future wife) on organ and vocals.