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Chick Corea: Piano Improvisations Vol. 1

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: ECM Records
Released: 1971
Time:
 42:50
Category: Jazz
Producer(s): Manfred Eicher
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.chickcorea.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2015
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Noon Song (Chick Corea) - 4:08
[2] Song for Sally (Chick Corea) - 3:50
[3] Ballad for Anna (Chick Corea) - 2:31
[4] Song of the Wind (Chick Corea) - 3:16
[5] Sometime Ago (Chick Corea / Neville Potter) - 8:29
[6] Where Are You Now?: A Suite of Eight Pictures - Picture 1 (Chick Corea) - 4:55
[7] Where Are You Now?: A Suite of Eight Pictures - Picture 2 (Chick Corea) - 2:06
[8] Where Are You Now?: A Suite of Eight Pictures - Picture 3 (Chick Corea) - 2:34
[9] Where Are You Now?: A Suite of Eight Pictures - Picture 4 (Chick Corea) - 2:47
[10] Where Are You Now?: A Suite of Eight Pictures - Picture 5 (Chick Corea) - 0:36
[11] Where Are You Now?: A Suite of Eight Pictures - Picture 6 (Chick Corea) - 3:57
[12] Where Are You Now?: A Suite of Eight Pictures - Picture 7 (Chick Corea) - 2:02
[13] Where Are You Now?: A Suite of Eight Pictures - Picture 8 (Chick Corea) - 1:36

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Chick Corea - Piano

Manfred Eicher - Producer
Jan Erik Kongshaug - Engineer
Valerie Wilmer - Photography
Barbara Wojirsch - Cover Design

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


LP 1971 ECM Records ECM-1020

Recorded in April 21 & 22, 1971 Ame Bendiksen Studio, Oslo, Norway.

Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 is an album recorded by Chick Corea and released in 1971. The album, along with its counterpart Piano Improvisations Vol. 2, was recorded over the course of two days in Oslo, Norway. The two albums in the Piano Improvisations series serve as a sort of bridge between Corea's other works in Circle and Return to Forever. The only musician featured on the album is Chick Corea on piano. On the back cover of the album Corea writes, "This music was created out of the desire to communicate and share the dream of a better life with people everywhere."



This companion volume of Corea’s improvisations doesn’t merely continue where the first left off, but fleshes out finer details unexplored in its neglected depths. This volume is more nocturnal than the last, a siesta in songs without words. “After Noon Song” starts us off alluringly before the crisper interjections of Thelonius Monk’s “Trinkle Tinkle” and Wayne Shorter’s “Masqualero.” The second act is where the album begins to fray at the edges, and becomes all the more mystical for it. At first, experiments like “Departure From Planet Earth” seem to stray into unnecessarily weighty territory. Yet with each listen, they tell us more about their travels. And while Corea’s often-discussed religious predilections (I dare not invoke the “S” word here) may give us even greater insight into the music’s enigmatic borders, in this instance such forays into biographical details provide little advantage. Either way, Corea reacclimates into “A New Place.” This is polyglot music, of which each melody its own tongue. Though some are more readily interpretable than others, we always know what is trying to be said.

ECM Records



After spending a year with the avant-garde quartet Circle, Chick Corea's desire to communicate to a wider audience led to him deciding to break up the unit. His first post-Circle recordings were two LPs of piano solos. Vol. 1 features six of his originals including the eight sketches of "Where Are You Now?," and the debut of the future standard "Sometime Ago." These performances are sometimes a bit precious, but they succeed in being acccessible and serve as a transition between Circle and Return to Forever.

Scott Yanow - All Music Guide



What’s most remarkable about Piano Improvisations—both discs culled from the same April, 1971 recording session at Arne Bendiksen Studio in Oslo, Norway—is how much of it would appear on later recordings. “Song for Sally” ultimately appeared in Gary Burton’s repertoire as “Sea Journey,” but is already fully formed on this earlier solo version, and is an early demonstration of Corea’s highly charged, percussive approach to the piano. Lyrical, but with powerful forward motion and a harmonic sensibility that combined the sophisticated language of jazz with Latin concerns and a touch of European classicism, it’s a song more closely associated with Burton and his quintet record with legend-in-the-making guitarist Pat Metheny, Passengers, but is also one of Piano Improvisations Vol. 1‘s highlights. Another is the enduring “Sometime Ago,” where Corea’s Latin roots are displayed even more prominently, and which exceeds Return to Forever’s version on its 1972 debut in length, scope and effortless freedom. Corea revisits “Song of the Wind,” from The Complete IS Sessions, but here, while swinging in its own unique way, it’s a more impressionistic reading that demonstrates just how much the pianist’s voice had evolved in just two years.

But the ultimate high point of Vol. 1 is the eight-part suite, “Where Are You Now?,” where the pianist runs the gamut from the expressive beauty of “Picture 1″ and joyous “Picture 4″ (which foreshadows Return to Forever’s dancing “What Game Shall We Play Today”) to the more oblique freedom of “Picture 3,” and its inside-the-piano musings, and the quirkily tempestuous “Picture 6.” Released only a few months apart, the distance between Corea’s more left-of-center proclivities on A.R.C. and his newfound ability to mesh unfettered improvisation with engaging, singable writing on Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 couldn’t have been more profound.

AllAboutJazz
 

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