A highly productive disc with the two keyboardists complementing each other's line in an almost Bach-like way. Sort of a contemporary fugue, never more so than on Eleanor Rigby taken much faster than the original Beatles tempo. It hasn't such a dark sense of foreboding as the original but instead is more urgent and less poignant as if the lonely Eleanor has at last found a life!
Hot House is present day bebop - Imagine if say Parker and Gillespie, at Massey Hall, had played their solos simultaneously. The result may have been similar to this. Monk's Light Blue - a new one on me - is an excellent composition and both guys do it justice.
Perhaps the most interesting track is Corea's own, Mozart Goes Dancing. Helped along by the Harlem String Quartet this is like MJQ on Speed. In fact, because of the piano/vibes set up much of the disc creates an MJQ feel but with less gentility and more urgency. This isn't a criticism of either - both groups have their place in the upper echelons.
My Ship is given a less maudlin treatment than it gets from vocalists and Richard Rodgers' tune benefits from its lack of words.
Two Jobim tunes - Once I Loved and Chega de Saudade entered the duo's individual repertoire when they worked at different times with Stan Getz back in the 1960s.
Brubeck's Strange Meadowlark, Bill Evans' Time Remembered and Can't We Be Friends are three well known jazz standards that serve as the icing on a very nicely cooked musical cake - the latter tune being, for me, very tasty indeed!.
Hot House by Chick Corea and Gary Burton is released by Concordjazz on April 2 prior to their live concert at The Barbican on April 11.
It can be pre-ordered from Amazon (£11.05) post free.
Lance.
Richard Rodgers didn't compose "My Ship" - it was Kurt Weill. Take more care, please.
ReplyDeleteSir! I stand corrected!
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