Chick Corea doesn't care what I think

[Gentle Giant]

Excuse the provocative title; this isn't meant as a Chick-bashing forum. I'm a big fan. It's just that I heard recently that he was playing in Boston soon and I went online to check out the deal, and it turns out it's the Elektric Band. For me, that was a tremendous letdown, and I know Senor Armando doesn't care what I think (nor should he), but if he happens to read this thread, my message is this: the Elektric Band ain't happening. Do anything else in the world you want to do (except that crappy Mozart project with Bobby McFerrin), but leave the Elektric Band in the '80s where it belongs.

I'm curious about the multi-disc set that's coming out from the series of shows he did in NYC last year, reuniting various of his groups. I read that the Three Quartets group, with Eddie Gomez, Steve Gadd, and Michael Brecker, was awesome, and that the musicians were interested in doing new material. I was hopeful something would come of that, but for some reason, Chick seems to want to do the Elektric Band (and without Patitucci, for crissakes). I'm listening to My Spanish Heart right now, and damn but Chick and Gadd were a great combo.

I like Chick's electric work just fine, don't get me wrong. I dig Return to Forever, I like his Leprechaun and Touchstone albums a lot, and I'll hear him play electric piano until the cows come home. But when he straps on that Jan Hammeresque portable keyboard and tries to lay down a jazz-funk thing with the Elektric Band, it makes my skin crawl. (And what's with the K in electric, anyway? Makes me gag, kind of like the awful poetry he writes as liner notes. Is that what Dianetics teaches you?)

This is starting to sound like a Chick-bashing thread, and believe me, I do love the guy. I'd be appalled if he read what I've written about him. I really consider him a brilliant player and composer. I just wish he would focus more on the good stuff, and retire the Elek--- that other group.

[Paul B]

The original "Three Quartets" album is a classic of its genre...I've been digging it for years. Would that all four players involved were still doing work of that caliber. Alas....

Bye-ya.

[shrugs]

I dug Origin as long as Steve Davis wasn't soloing.
Early Circle on Blue Note is excellent. I think I saw a copy on e-bay....


and his appearance on Joe Farrell's Skateboard Park is not to be missed. A nice Corea original on it as well.

[blawless]

I'm not too up on Chick, but what happened? I've heard some Circle and dug it a lot, but the rest of his discography--er, what I know of it, which is very little--might as well have been played by someone else. Is that a fair assessment? Did Scientology do him in?

[Gentle Giant]

His playing is still excellent, but he jumps around so much, from classical to post-bop to duets to Origin (which I agree is a strong group, I'm definitely a fan of Steve Wilson and Avishai Cohen), that sometimes you wish he'd dig one really deep hole that you can spend some time in instead of multiple divots that satisfy his curiosity but can wear on his audience.

In recent years, he's revisited his solo acoustic work, launched a Bud Powell tribute project, resurrected an acoustic (Akoustic) trio, did a new duet album with Gary Burton, toured and recorded with Origin, joined an all-star session with Burton, Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, and Roy Haynes, wrote and recorded a concerto, and L. Ron knows what else.

As I said, as a composer he's generally brilliant, and aside from maybe Wayne Shorter he perhaps has written more contemporary standards than anyone else in the last 30-40 years. I think he's someone who's been able to draw rock-star crowds in the past, and he seems to make artistic choices sometimes that pander to the marketplace more than an artist of his talent should.

As for the influence of Scientology, it's not my thing to talk down about people's spirituality choices (teasing is one thing, but...), and he did some of his best work (like My Spanish Heart, which I highly recommend) while a devotee. I think he just likes posing with the strap-on.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant


and he did some of his best work (like My Spanish Heart, which I highly recommend) while a devotee. I think he just likes posing with the strap-on.

LOL! My brothers and I used to call that album "My Spanish Fly" and we also said Al DiMeola would have been a better model for the cover photo.

[Peterdubya]

I like Chick a lot too, never liked the Elektric Band, there is talk of an acoustic quartet tour with Jeff Ballard, John Benitez, and Steve Wilson. I would like that a lot.

[shrugs]

is Friends really not that bad of a record?
I know Penguin blames the Smurfs for scaring people off.

[Pete C]

Origin was a great group--nice voicings & compositions. I'm a big acoustic Chick fan. I recently saw a great set he did with Haynes & Pattitucci. He retains a recognizable piano sound.

After the Flora/Airto version of RTF, I never followed his electric work.

I found the Bud Powell project pretty much a bore, I must say.

[Captain Hate]

Although I think Scientology is a haven for total morons and a true cult in every negative sense of the word, Chick's Return to Forever band and his subsequent duet work with Hancock provided a nice bridge between rock and improvised music for me. And the Circle stuff is absolutely great.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

I understand the problem. Even back when I was a serious fusion head (the '70s) Corea's electric stuff didn't turn me on. The occasional acoustic LP he'd record really whetted my appetite.

Maybe it was what I was looking for from fusion back then. I wanted it to either really rock (Mahavishnu) or to be hardcore funk (Headhunters). RTF and Corea's other bands were just too "cutesy".

[Reid]

Shrugs,

Ignore the cover of *Friends*. That's a solid album. (Jazzooo should be coming in here shortly to say the same thing.)

--------

I' ve never really checked out his Electrik band stuff. I think someone told me there's a live album that's supposed to be pretty good.

[walto]

FWIW, I don't think he's much of a classical player. I've heard him butcher a couple of not-terribly-difficult concertos.

Loved him with Miles, mostly.

[Jazzooo]

Reid's right--I was just trying to get to the end of the thread so I acould tell you that I generally love Friends. Some of the tunes are a little poppy, but played with such vigor that I never mind it. Joe Farrel has many good moments, as do Gadd and Gomez.

Walt, I heard Chick play a Mozart piece with an orchestra and it was outstanding. He did make it his own here and there, which is what I wish more classical players would do.

[shrugs]

Which classical players do you listen to? And remember, the man with the baton has a lot to do with it as well.

[Jazzooo]

"Which classical players do you listen to?"

No one on a regular basis, and it's true that I am only a step beyond a classical neophyte. But I know music and also what I enjoy. My comment was about players taking creative liberties with harmonies and phrasing, which is what Chick did with this Mozart piece. It was still mozart, but taken at a tempo I didn't expect, with a few interesting harmonic twists in key places that really made it come alive for me. I've heard many fine classical artists whose performances didn't sound radically different from each other's. (For example, at one point I owned four recordings of The Four Seasons and three were practically interchangeable. I sold those and kept the fourth.)

Often, the more room for personal interpretation, the better. Whether it comes from the conductor or the individual performer. Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations speak to me more than the two other versions I've heard of the same pieces.

Without blathering on too long about this: even as a 9 year old taking piano lessons, I felt like asking my 120-year old teacher "How do you know that Beethoven really expected this piece to be played at that precise tempo with this precise phrasing for the rest of history?" Yes, he notated it that way but come on--now generation after generation has to do it exactly that way and never question it? I wondered if the composer might have been sick of it by now.

When i saw Immortal Beloved, the most amazing scene was when Beethoven was trying out his client's piano while she was supposedly out of the house. He didn't want anyone to know he was deaf so he sent them all away.

The first thing he did was sit at the piano and stare, then he smashed his hands onto the keyboard, lowered his head onto the sounding board and felt the vibrations through his body. Keeping his ear glued to the top of the piano, he started to play Moonlight Sonata, but not with the fossilized reverence of every single piano student from every single country from every single generation since his death as done it...more like when i sit down to play one of my compositions, I often play it at a different tempo just to...see how it feels! He played this wonderful piece that I hardly even recognized--a bright tempo with dramatic halts...beautiful. And I said "OF COURSE!" He's not mired in the reverence, and the tradition of "THIS IS HOW BEETHOVEN MUST BE PLAYED."

So why should I be? Or Chick?

[Tom Storer]

I think Corea is an amazingly good musician, even if I don't always dig his projects or, for that matter, his compositions. He can be a little precious sometimes. But he can also be as hip as anyone around. I don't return often to the Bud Powell hommage he did, but when I saw them live he and Roy Haynes were feeding off each other, faking each other out, trading ideas, just cooking away. You could forget the soloists and just listen to them and it was worth the price of the ticket.

[walto]

I agree, Tom. He's a great technician and a talented improviser.

FWIW, though, I don't agree that players should take harmonic liberties with Mozart (except during cadenzas). Gotta play the actual notes in the given rhythms, IMHO. Of course, they can do Mozart-style improvs whenever they want.

[shrugs]

Those are some interesting observations on classical piano but it is funny that you would bring up Beethoven's Moonlight sonata. I have recordings with Kempf, Richter, Gilels and De Larrocha and they all play it differently.
Look at the Schumann Piano Concerto. It takes Rubenstein two sides of a record to play it where Moiseiwitsch(sp?) and Richter do it in one.
Or Ciccolini and De Leeuw playing Satie. Very, very different.
I guess my point is that there are a lot more differences with classical music than people say. I have read a lot of posts here and elsewhere that classical is just a bunch of guys playing the charts note for note and I guess it can be that way but there are some differences especially with conductors and soloists. I have to admit that I do need to learn a lot more but I am a little behind because I bought into that bs about classical.
Walt, are there only certain composers you feel that way about. I can see where one would want most of Mozart to be played with "actual notes in given rhythms". But what about Beethoven? Take the Pastoral for instance. Listen to Klemperer and then listen to HVK and there is quite a difference in tempo during certain areas.

[Pete C]

Originally posted by walto
FWIW, though, I don't agree that players should take harmonic liberties with Mozart (except during cadenzas). Gotta play the actual notes in the given rhythms, IMHO.

As far as I'm concerned, the more liberties, the better, if someone can pull it off. There are plenty of people who will continue to do it "straight." I don't consider anything in art sacred.

[bluenoter]

Originally posted by walto
FWIW, though, I don't agree that players should take harmonic liberties with Mozart (except during cadenzas). Gotta play the actual notes in the given rhythms, IMHO. Of course, they can do Mozart-style improvs whenever they want.

I'm with Walt. It's a question of labeling. Music that isn't what Mozart wrote shouldn't be labeled Mozart, which is not to say that reinventions of Mozart works shouldn't exist. (It's a bad example for me, because I can't imagine why anyone would want to reinvent Mozart.)

[walto]

Dave, I agree wholeheartedly with your post, and I think messing with tempos, dynamics, etc. is absolutely required!

But if you change the notes or the rhythms (say, dotted eighths to, I don't know, quintuplets) in a Mozart sonata (whether or not the piece is "sacred"), I don't think you're really playing Mozart. You're just doing some kind of homage to him or riffing on him or something. I have no problem with that but, if I, say, call my current typing of this message a performance of a Holmboe string quartet, somebody could certainly reply that either it isn't or it's a terrible terrible performance.

[Pete C]

When Billie Holiday sang "I Loves You Porgy" or "Summertime" and "fiddled" with the melody, was she singing Gershwin?

[walto]

Yes.

[Pete C]

Why?

[walto]

Well, the identity criteria for pieces of music can be fuzzy, but I don't think there's much question in those cases.

You thinking of claiming in a law suit that she ripped you off?

[Pete C]

If she did an aria from Cosi Fan Tutte in her style would she have been singing Mozart? The 2 Gershwin examples I gave were from an opera, after all.

[walto]

Yeah, probably. As I said about my performance of Holmboe above, I'm content to have it called bad Holmboe. If you want to call Corea's noodling "bad Mozart" I won't quibble. Obviously, there are limits though. I mean, is my lunch a performance of Beethoven just because I say it is? (After all, I made it.)

[Pete C]

Originally posted by walto
I mean, is my lunch a performance of Beethoven just because I say it is? (After all, I made it.)

It might get you into the Whitney Biennial.

[bluenoter]

The band or orchestra might be adhering to the harmonies of the piece behind Billie, and their doing so would go a long way toward preserving the identity of the piece. Even if that's not occurring, in a jazz treatment of a song, we have the expectation that there may be such thoroughgoing improvisation and reinvention that the piece will be transformed. But not all forms of music carry that expectation, and I see nothing wrong with having some forms that carry it and some that don't. Porgy and Bess was originally billed as a folk opera.