[Review] Chick Corea: Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 (1971)
An intimate collection of short studies at the acoustic piano, recorded in Oslo.
Kronomyth 5.0: Etudes, Brute?
I’ve known about this and its companion work, Piano Improvisations Vol. 2, for years but never got around to it listening to it because of the whole “improvisation” thing. They might as well have called it Stuff That I Made Up on the Spot and Am Now Charging You Ten Dollars for Because Honestly You Don’t Know the Difference. That would be hard to fit on the album’s spine, I realize, and so we have the succinctly titled Piano Improvisations Vol. 1. Even in that they couldn’t hide the hubris of assuming that audiences would pay money to hear a second volume of improvisations. (Both volumes, in case you’re wondering, were recorded during the same sessions but released about one year apart.) That unpleasantness out of the way, Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 is better than it sounds. Yes, it’s improvised. So, presumably, were many of Chick Corea’s solos, and those were hardly fluff. The first side features five songs of varying weight. Noon Song captures the mood of sunlight streaming through a window, Sometime Ago sounds like a piano dancing with itself. I feel like I’ve heard Song for Sally before with its Latin charm, and Song of the Wind swings along nicely. Ballad for Anna is short and seems the most improvisational of the five. The second side takes a different approach, serving as eight etudes, some very brief, that feature different fingering techniques. I don’t know if Corea had piano studies in mind when he created them, but many of the pictures (e.g., two, five, six, seven) feel like warm-up exercises. Improvisation is, for me, a problematic word. It implies the act of artistic creation, which is an equal mix of inspiration and chance. Now, chances are that a consummate musician like Chick Corea knows his instrument well enough to produce pleasing sounds from it. You might even say that, in the act of spontaneous creation, there’s an intimacy and transparency that scripted music doesn’t afford. If Chick Corea offered to play the piano in your home for forty minutes, I don’t think you’d begrudge him a ten-dollar meal. The results might sound the same as Piano Improvisations Vol. 1, and I’m sure you’d count it a magical evening. Is the experience the same as hearing Return to Forever in concert? No, it is not. But if you don’t count forty minutes and ten dollars too dear, it’s a chance worth taking.
Original elpee version
A1. Noon Song (4:00)
A2. Song for Sally (3:45)
A3. Ballad for Anna (2:25)
A4. Song of the Wind (3:10)
A5. Sometime Ago (8:20)
B1. Where Are You Now? (A Suite of Eight Pictures)
B1a. Picture 1 (4:53)
B1b. Picture 2 (2:03)
B1c. Picture 3 (2:30)
B1d. Picture 4 (2:40)
B1e. Picture 5 (0:32)
B1f. Picture 6 (3:55)
B1g. Picture 7 (1:55)
Bih. Picture 8 (1:35)
All compositions composed by Chick Corea.
The Players
Chick Corea (piano). Produced by Manfred Eicher; engineered by Jan-Erick Kongshaug.
The Pictures
Photo by Valerie Wilmer. Cover design by B & B Wojirsch.
The Plastic
Released on elpee in 1971 in the US (ECM, ECM 1014) and Germany (ECM, ECM 1014ST).
- Re-issued on elpee in 1983 in Brazil (ECM, 2301 014).
- Re-issued on cassette in the US (ECM 1014).
- Re-issued on compact disc in the US (ECM, ECM 1014) and Germany (ECM, 811 979-2).
- Re-issued on compact disc on August 16, 2006 in Japan (ECM, UCCU-9269).
