Customer Reviews

Where Have I Known You Before

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is my favorite album by my favorite fusion artists. I was in High School when this came out. When I first heard Vulcan Worlds it just blew me away. Dimeola's quitar playing was so much different to what was being played at the time, he had balance and taste and his tone was so full and meaty. Stanley Clark's solo on Worlds was the main reason I started playing Bass. The best way I can describe his solo on Worlds is "NASTY". (If you listen you can see why Victor Wooten says his Bass playing comes from the school of Stanley Clarke more than anywhere else) I played that solo over and over on my record player, so much that I had to buy the record a couple of times. My favorite cut is Song to the Pharoah Kings (A MASTERPIECE) it's what makes the album special. It has serveral changes, infact Chick could have made at least four tunes instead of one with the music he put into that one tune. Every one got to solo on Kings except Lenny, but they way he was kicking that kit he got his off too. RTF album covers reflect the music inside, the color and the tone of the cover is the color and tone of the music inside on all of their albums. They broke up because they were all getting too big to stay in a group setting, they were all leaders. Chic tried to keep this lineup together by changing the name from RTF featuring Chic Corea to RTF. It's a shame we didn't get more albums from that 3 album lineup.

How can I describe a record that changed my life forever? I was sitting in a friend's car in Buffalo while he was getting something in the dorm. Unbeknownst to me his radio was tuned to a French station from Quebec. The final track of this record, "Song to the Pharaoh Kings" came on and I had never heard anything like it. "Blown away" hardly describes the effect. At the end I prepared to memorize the artist and record, and the DJ announced it - in French! I couldn't even figure out which part of the announcement was the artist's name.

It took me two years to figure out that that song was on this album. In the intervening 30 years I've listened to the record over and over again and I never tire of it. This is the record that turned me away from rock and into the more sophisticated world of jazz forever. "Pharaoh Kings" is, in my opinion, one of the most brilliant pieces of music written, ever.

On a scale of 1 to 5, this one is 100.

P.S. Amazon has "Pharaoh" spelled wrong in the track name, so you can't find this album by searching for that song through their search engine!

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This is one of those albums that just seems to have been laying there forever, to be discovered by a group of talented musicians. It almost flows from the musicians on it own accord; they seem as surprised and inspired in playing as we are listening.

The whole band - Chick, Al DiMeola, Stanley Clark, Lenny White - are phenoms. Their skill is stratospheric. To me, as a drummer, Lenny's performance here is magical.

Remember, this album came out in the same period as John McLaughlin's most famous works - BIRDS OF FIRE and INNER MOUNTING FLAME - so these guys were feeding off of each other (much like Paul McCartney and Brian Williams were).

This album is one of the Fusion pioneer albums. The genre didn't exist before RTF and McLaughlin. It quickly sunk under its own weight with all the copycat bands, while the founding fathers moved on to better things.

I saw RTF on tour for this album; third row front; right in front of Lenny (I could see his kick drum foot working - he had on these platform shoes, playing heel-down). It was a fabulous show, even better than the album (I remember Stanley turning to Lenny and giving him the "easy, dude" hand sign: Lenny was just a monster, in his own world!).

If you buy only ONE Corea album, or even only ONE Fusion album, this is the one!

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This is one of the few recordings I had in the 1970s that I really still like a lot now. My musical education between then and now has added a lot of jazz and classical music.

Let me warn jazz purists that there is a lot of funk here, a lot of fuzzy electric bass. "Earth Juice" is the closest thing to a disco song that I actually like.

Let me warn funk maniacs that the keyboard playing here is just way too good for funk. It makes you suspect that the keyboardist may have had some classical training.

This record does make a great pair with "No Mystery".

If you are one of the tiny minority that likes both James Brown and Miles Davis (as I do), you would probably like this record.

I first heard RTF live in the early 70's, when they opened for Herbie Hancock in Indianapolis, and my musical life changed forever. They played several cuts off of Where Have I Known You Before, and I immediately went out and bought the vinyl. I saw Corea, White, and Clarke later on in Denver in a small club, and they were a little more laid back and acoustic, less electric. Where Have I Known You Before epitomizes the fusion of that time. The drive and tension of the rest of the band coupled with Corea's very sensitive piano is great.

This hard to find CD is a must for fans of fusion jazz. The groundbreaking quartet of Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Al DiMeola, and Lenny White provide the true fusion of rock and jazz with the hard driving "Earth Juice" and "Vulcan World". And then the solo piano of the title tune provides a surpassingly sweet moment of peace. Along with their classic Romantic Warrior and Weather Report's "Heavy Weather" this CD is a classic of early-mid-70's fusion jazz.

This is an exiliarating work of jazz/rock fusion. It is a testament to the talents and versatility of Chick Corea and the others. I have always liked this recording best of all Return to Forever.I have always been moved by all the energy and talent displayed here and have had both the vynal and cassette tape versions. sadly I lost them both but I soon with own the cd. I would like to kidnap korn and maryln manson fans tie them up and force them to listen to this and other Return To Forever and Mahavishnu ,orchestra r recordings. Also some Blow by Blow and Wired by Jeff Beck would be on the program too. Let's organize and fight the idiots with bad taste with good music.

RTF follow up their classic Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy with this recording. It showcases another tremendous step forward for the band as their famous lineup in clinched with the addition of Al DiMeola on guitar and Chick Corea's first use of the synthesizer,in this case a moog. A little under half these tracks over consist of 1-2 minute varriations on the title track and tracks like White's "The Shadow Of Lo" and Chicks own "Song To The Pharoah Kings" do run on a bit longer but in terms of virtuoso musicianship know no equal of course,even if they don't make very easy casual listening. Clarke's opener "Vulcan Worlds" (a theme he'd return to the same on his Stanley Clarke album) is one of two exciting and emotionally stimulating tunes here-the theme is expressed very loudly on a very prickly sounding moog. On "Earth Juice" Clarke focuses more on his bass playing and they even return to musical ideas as expressed on the previous album on "Return To The Seventh Galaxy". While many of these songs are slower and often sweeter then the high octane music featured on their last album this recording has just as much going for it overall.

Although remastered by Dennis Drake, the CD is just as raucous as the LP. More than a quarter of a century on, I shouldn't still be listening to this sort of stuff -- it's all about youth and excitement, playing your instruments as hard as you can, and making a wonderful noise in the process.

What strikes me today is the unusual contrast between Corea's solo acoustic piano pieces (e.g. the Satie-esque 'Where Have I know You Before') and the heavy electric ensemble pieces sandwiched between them. Some record stores file this album under 'R' and some under 'C' -- it's unclear whether this was an RtF with a few doodles Corea couldn't find a place for, or a Corea album with a few group tracks designed to enable new-boy DiMeola to find his feet.

What is clear is that Corea's judgement on keyboard tone was dodgy to say the least -- no-one today would choose some of the cheap 'stylophone' noises that Corea selected for RtF. And yet in the noisy exuberance of youth, it all works. For a totally instrumental album, there are a lot of themes here: Vulcans, pharoahs, galaxies and L Ron Hubbard all get a mention. And there's even an unsung Neville Potter lyric. Amidst this mayhem and Corea's misjudgements, apprentice DiMeola (cutting his first ever LP) seems the mature master, always choosing the right attack and sustain for his guitar.

The best thing about this album could be Lenny White's 'Shadow of Lo', which just goes to show that drummers can compose great melodies.

Personally I feel that RtF's best LP was just round the corner -- 'No Mystery' -- but this album was a wonderful preparation for that slightly less Vulcanised masterpiece.

In 1974, I enrolled at Berklee College of Music majoring in drumset performance as a 17 year old. Having come from a picturesque small town, I was unprepared for the rough neighborhood that was lower Massachusetts Avenue. Along came "Where have I Known You Before", which we listened to every day. All of my friends & I had a daily reprieve from the funky dorm rooms & bad food. We knew there was some magic in the world. Soon after, I saw the band at Boston Symphony Hall from the 8th row, and I was at once energized to be a better musician and at the same time, intimidated by the very young hot players of the day; Al Dimeola, Stanley Clarke, Terry Bozzio, Pat Metheny.
Some folks have told me that they think fusion music is presumptuous or precious. That's fine. But remember that the we future musicians at the time were facing the soulless disco tsunami, that we had lost Hendrix and Allman, and RFT and Mahavishnu reminded us that in music there lived joy and humanity and skill that no 8-bit drum machine could squash. This album reminded me that better times were ahead. But maybe you had to be there.