Chick Corea & Origin: Change (1999)

CHICK COREA & ORIGIN: CHANGE (1999)

Track listing

"Wigwam" (Corea) – 6:56
"Armando's Tango" – 5:54
"Little Flamenco" – 6:42
"Early Afternoon Blues" – 6:37
"Before Your Eyes" – 5:08
"L.A. Scenes" – 5:36
"Home" – 7:51
"The Spinner" – 7:56
"Compassion [Ballad]" – 7:47
"Night (Lyla)" (Cohen) – 3:02
"Awakening" – 6:17

Personnel

Avishai Cohen – acoustic bass
Chick Corea – piano, marimba, handclapping
Jeff Ballard – drums, handclapping
Bob Sheppard – bass clarinet, flute, baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone
Steve Wilson – clarinet, flute, alto saxophone, soprano saxophone
Steve Davis – trombone

If you dig Chick Corea but haven’t yet heard Origin, run — don’t walk — and pick up this record. And pick up their debut record from last year while you’re at it. It’s the most exciting stuff Chick has done in years. His bandmates in Origin are primarily young, up-and-coming, straight-ahead jazz musicians. And that’s refreshing. Origin’s music is not a mere showcase for hotshot soloists. Chick’s last acoustic jazz outing, his Bud Powell tribute band, was wonderful. But in the final analysis, it was a handful of amazing, famous players getting together and playing Bud Powell tunes. Origin has a sound. And it’s not a sound you’ve heard from Chick Corea before, although it bears his unmistakable stamp, and thankfully so.
An important facet of Origin’s unique sound is its multiple horns. There’s Steve Wilson on soprano and alto saxophones, clarinet, and flute; Bob Sheppard on tenor sax, bass clarinet, and flute; and Steve Davis on trombone. These combinations of horns call forth some beautiful textures, especially on "Armando’s Tango," "L.A. Scenes," and "Home." Other highlights include the shout chorus that sets up Chick’s piano solo on "Wigwam," the Kind of Blue -style harmonies of "Early Afternoon Blues," the intricate horn/rhythm section interplay of "Before Your Eyes," and the forceful melody and quasi-chamber music ending of "Awakening." All these guys are strong soloists, of course, but it’s the tight horn charts — and the equally tight counterpoint of bassist Avishai Cohen and drummer Jeff Ballard — that provide a lot of the excitement on this disc.

Overall, it’s safe to say this is some of the most ambitious writing of Chick’s career. He’s outdone himself. Surprises abound: the curious atmosphere of early jazz on the eclectic and contemporary "Armando’s Tango"; Chicks’s use of the marimba on "Wigwam" and "L.A. Scenes"; the overdubbed handclaps on "Little Flamenco" (the best track on the record, in my opinion); the stop-start form of "The Spinner," a tune that is simply uncategorizable; and the haunting melodies of "Home" and "Night (Lylah)," the latter composed by bassist Cohen. And yet amid all the newness and originality, there are nods to Chick’s classic moments: the 3/4 minor blues of "Wigwam" is strongly reminiscent of the "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs" era; the use of flute in "Little Flamenco" recalls his work with Joe Farrell and Steve Kujala; and the wonderful grandiosity of "Awakening" is, well, it’s pure Chick. There’s also a nice piano trio feature, "Compassion (Ballad)," which is based on the standard "It Could Happen To You." Origin played Chick’s up-tempo arrangement of the standard on its debut record, so "Compassion" is an interesting contrast.

Amazingly, all the songs were recorded in Chick’s living room with no headphones and no overdubbing, save for the aforementioned handclaps and one marimba part. "All takes are complete takes from beginning to end," writes Chick in the liner notes. The band thus achieves a perfect balance between spontaneity and rehearsed cohesion. It’s marvelous to hear, and although Chick has a constant need to Change, let’s hope he sticks with this band for a while.

Chick Corea & Gary Burton: Native Sense (1997)

Chick Corea and Gary Burton: Native Sense-The New Duets  (1997)

Chick Corea (Piano); Gary Burton (Vibes & Marimba)

Pianist Chick Corea and Gary Burton (vibes and marimba) have put together a new disc of duets, Native Sense, and it can be summed up in one word: lovely. This is the fifth duet recording from these two; their interaction shows the ease and comfort of a long association, even though the last release was twelve years ago. For Native Sense, Corea tells us in his liner notes, he wrote two new melodies: "Post Script" and "Rhumbata." Three other numbers, "Love Castle," "No Mystery," and "Duende" were, says the pianist, "previously written and recorded by myself with other groups but never performed very much afterwards." "Armando's Rhumba" is a piece the two have been performing live for a few years. "Tango '92" is an unused soundtrack piece. For dessert, Corea and Burton turn in a delightful version of Thelonious Monk's "Four in One."

The centerpiece of this album is a pair of two bagatelles by the Hungarian classical composer Béla Bartók. With "Post Script" sandwiched between them, they form a mini-suite reminiscent of Keith Jarrett's tackling of another great classical modernist, Dmitri Shostakovich. On these brief pieces, where Burton shimmers with seemingly impossible delicacy, Corea makes a tentative return to territory he has scarcely visited at all in the nearly thirty years since the demise of his avant-jazz quartet with Anthony Braxton, Circle. Bartók has just the sort of harmonic sensibility that Braxton has mined so doggedly since Chick took off for the more fertile pastures of Scientology and Return to Forever; Bartók's "Bagatelle #2" sounds like the lighter side of, say, "Composition 40F." Here Corea's butterfly-wing lightness, however, demonstrates his long-standing commitment to lyricism at whatever cost.

Armando Corea's Spanish roots are very much in evidence. "Armando's Rhumba" and "Rhumbata," "Tango '92," "Duende," and "Post Script" are all light (always light) Latin rhythms; in fact, scarcely anything on the album lacks a Spanish feel, whether in rhythm or a light (again) flamenco-tinged rumble from one of the principals. Even Monk's "Four In One" sounds like something Tito Puente could sink his teeth into; maybe it's the company, or Burton's spirited attack on the vibes. Both his solo and Corea's, meanwhile, seem to nod to another Monk tune, "Trinkle Tinkle," here and there.

The placement of the Monk piece at the end of the album points up how much ground the two have actually covered in one CD's length. Yet from rhumbas to Bartók to Monk, they remain unruffled, pleasant, and assured. While never losing their light touch, on Native Sense they a clearly enjoying the fruits of a long and rewarding partnership.

The Bill Frisell Band: Where in the World (1990-91)

Amazon.com essential recording
These recordings from 1990-91 add cellist Hank Roberts to Bill Frisell's then-usual trio with bassist Kermit Driscoll and drummer Joey Baron, and there's a remarkable affinity between Roberts and Frisell's instrumental approaches. So much of Frisell's distinctive guitar style has come from his attention to sustain and pitch bending, qualities immediately available in Roberts's cello. Several of the guitarist's compositions here are concentrated on that relationship and on the spatial distinction that exists between those effects when they're accomplished by acoustic or electronic means. It's one of the things separating Frisell from the more commonplace forms of jazz fusion. He actually explores the differences and crossovers between acoustic and electronic space to create a musical analogue for the ways we experience technology. That's also evident in his contrasting uses of acoustic and electric guitars on individual tracks. There are tracks here, like "Rob Roy" and "Smilin' Jones," when Frisell's music suggests a parallel evolution of American music, as if country & western and not jazz had become its "art" music. With its rhythmic and tonal conflicts and odd, oscillating blendings of acoustic guitar harmonics, bowed cello, and Roberts's electronic "jazz-a-phone fiddle," the title track seems to pose "Where in the World?" as a utopian question. --Stuart Broomer

Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani: The Third Man (2007)

Enrico Rava: Trumpet
Stefano Bollani: Piano

The Third Man (2007)

Track Listings
1. Estate
2. The Third Man
3. Sun Bay
4. Retrato Em Branco Y Preto
5. Birth Of A Butterfly
6. Cumpari
7. Sweet Light
8. Santa Teresa
9. Felipe
10. In Search Of Titina
11. Retrato Em Branco Y Preto
12. Birth Of A Butterfly


Italian improvositionists from both ends of the generational spectrum, Rava and Bollani provide a fluid, highly textured, free-flowing album of trumpet and piano. Of the two, the pedigree comes from Enrico Rava, who was really the first Italian jazz musician to be accepted by the New York jazz establishment. He moved there in the late 1960s, following his recording in 1962 with Gato Barbieri. He went on to record with the likes of Carla Bley, Cecil Taylor, Rashid Ali, Charlie Haden before becoming bandleader himself and is acknowledged as one of Europe's finest musicians - helping to put both Italy and Europe firmly on the jazz map.

Stefano Bollani is the blistering young tyro - born in 1972, he considers Rava to be his mentor and they have worked together over the last 10 years (they released "Tati" with Paul Motian in 2004) following his years of study at the Florence Conservatory.

However, there is no sense in which there is a senior or junior member of this partnership; one of the real joys of this album is just how simpatico these two are. Bollani has technique to burn - listen to his fingers flying across the keys on "Cumpari" which pushes Rava into some pyrotechnics of his own - but in general they both play this album slow and languid. They don't show off to each other or anyone else - one leads where the other follows and although they trade licks throughout, they are very tasteful licks. The more lyrical playing for sure comes from Rava, but it somehow plays both as counterpoint to and yet completely in synch with Bollani's vibrant, flame-grilled technique.

Musicicality and respect are at the heart of this album - respect for each other and respect for the traditions. Slow, contemplative yet also sometimes forceful and edgy, there is much to admire and wonder at, whether their own compositions, their improvised playing or the covers which include a variation of Jobim's "Retrato Em Branco Y Preteo".

Another great addition to the ECM canon. --Guy Hayden