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Beat street

Chick Corea: Now He Sings, Now He Sobs

Blue Note/ Virgin Records; CD; Rs. 295

Born in 1941, Chick Corea worked with various well-known jazz musicians before replacing Herbie Hancock as pianist in Miles Davis’s quintet in August 1968. This album, one of his first as a leader, was recorded in March of that year and firmly established him as a great new talent.

Corea was joined for the session by the great Roy Haynes, 16 years his senior, on drums and Miroslav Vitous, Czech-born and like him a rising talent, on bass.

After growing up in hard bop, Corea was already moving into free improvisation at this time. Most of the pieces here are made up of alternating solo improvisations by Corea and Vitous, the former usually longer, with an occasional drum solo thrown in to accentuate Haynes’s role, already very strong in his accompaniment.

Corea, who usually throws in the bare bones of a theme as punctuation in his improvisations, takes composer credit for all but the last two tracks, Thelonious Monk’s “Pannonica” and Mellin and Wood’s “My One and Only Love”.

These two and three others, including “Matrix”, which later became a great hit, were the only ones to have the recognised structure of a theme and several improvised solos, but even on these two the theme is strongly reworked.

Corea’s prodigious talent in free improvisation comes through well in the opening piece, also the longest, “Steps – What Was.” Two longish piano improvisations are bridged by a spectacular drum solo. The second piano improvisation contains hints of a theme that later became Corea’s celebrated composition “Spain”.

Equally interesting is “Now He Beats the Drums, Now He Stops”, nearly half of which is an unaccompanied piano improvisation. Then, with Vitous and Haynes joining in, we have piano and bass improvisations with hints of another famous tune, Irving Berlin’s “How Deep Is the Ocean”. The fast-paced “Matrix” too is a delight, with its catchy theme, followed by solo improvisations on piano and bass and exchanges between piano and drums. The abstract improvisations on all the numbers are beautiful rather than daunting for the lay listener.

The consummate musicianship of the trio comes through very well. An amazing body of music, 69 minutes for just Rs. 295, it’s a steal.

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