Trio Music

by

Chick Corea and Miroslav Vitouš

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This is the album involving the same personnel as the classic "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs" -album. "Now He Sings" is now recognized as one of the most important trio records of all time (regardless of the fact that DownBeat critics gave it one star back in -68, but what do the critics know?). Therefore it's quite difficult to top the groups prior achievment. Roy Haynes on drums and Miroslav Vitous on bass are splendid players but for some reason they don't play as tightly as in "Now he Sings". The members had never played before the sessions of the first record, neither had they between the first and this one. This can be heard, I think. Of course everything still happens on a very high level. This is a double album. The first one is entirely Monk- standards. Corea is well aquainted with the personal expression of T.S. Monk and treats his tunes with his usual wit and intelligence but at the same time showing great respect. Up-tempo "Rhythm-a-Ning" and brightly colourful "Round Midnight" stand out in my opinion. This album proves (as if it's not allready proven) that Monk tunes can be treated a million ways and still they remind you of Monk. A blessing and a curse, perhaps. The other record is totally improvised free music. The tunes are left unnamed. The big ears and enormous musicality combined with super-sharp reflexes of all the players make these short pieces quite interesting. They have a well-balanced sense of form not to extend the tunes too much and have picked improvisations different from one another (I don't know how many they recorded, probably a lot). This is not perhaps the very finest of Corea, but still I would seriously recommend it to anyone interested in this major pianist.

With players like Chick Corea, Miroslav Vitous (from Weather Report) and Roy Haynes, you'd think that this would be an awesome album. It certainly has its moments, but overall it seems to be a bit empty. The first half of the disc are improv pieces that seem to blend into one another. The second half (the stronger half) is a collection of Monk tunes. If the Monk covers would have been inserted between each of the improv pieces, it would have been a more enjoyable listen. The tracks would be a bit easier to distinguish from one to the next.

This is for fans of Chick Corea only. The general audience may be a bit turned off by this one. ...