Joe Farrell

Joe Farrell, real name Joseph Carl Firrantello (16 December 1937 Chicago Heights, Illinois, USA - 6 January 1986 Los Angeles, California) was a jazz saxophonist and flautist. Farrel, best known as a member of the original line-up of Chick Corea's Return to Forever, was heavily influenced by John Coltrane, among others. His early solo CTI LP, "Follow Your Heart", with Chick Corea and Jack DeJohnette, showed an avant-garde style. In the 1960s Farrell played with Maynard Ferguson's Big Band, the Thad Jones And Mel Lewis Big Band, Elvin Jones's combo, and Slide Hampton, and recorded with Charles Mingus, Dizzy Reece, Andrew Hill and Jaki Byard. After his time with Elvin Jones' combo ended in 1970, Farrel joined Chick Corea on his album "Return To Forever". With the same line-up of musicians featured on the album, the original line-up of Chick Corea's influential fusion group Return to Forever was born. Joe was on Return to Forever's "Light as a Feather", but left the group later on in 1973. During the next two decades, as well as releasing a series of albums under his own name on the CTI label, Farrell was featured on recordings by jazz artists Freddie Hubbard, Hermeto Pascoal, fellow Return to Forever band mate Airto Moreira, Mose Allison, Lee Konitz, Leon Thomas, was on Billy Cobham's fusion classic "Spectrum", recorded with salsa luminaries Fania All-Stars, was featured on multiple recordings by James Brown, and with other artists in the popular music field such as The Band, Aretha Franklin, Art Garfunkel, Roberta Flack, Hall & Oates,Carly Simon and Bee Gees.