Chick Corea: Solo Piano, Improvisations and Children's Songs | CD reviews

This is three Corea solo piano albums, from 1971 and 1983, reissued as a box, the first pieces being recorded for ECM when the pianist was still at work in the adventurous free-jazz group Circle. The 1983 music is from Corea's Children's Songs album. The beautifully performed 1971 music aside, this collection is a fascinating piece of history, because it was ECM boss Manfred Eicher's idea to reignite a solo piano jazz-improv tradition more or less abandoned since the era of Art Tatum and Errol Garner, and he asked Corea, Paul Bley, and Keith Jarrett to attempt it. A 27-year-old Corea got there first – it would be another year before Bley recorded Open, to Love, and another four before Jarrett's huge Köln Concert hit. Prototypes of Corea's Latin-inflected Return to Forever music are plentiful (Sometime Ago makes its debut here); the second album has a version of Monk's Trinkle Tinkle in which Corea's free-jazz links are reflected in the bold stretching of the song shape; and though the Children's Songs have a tendency to coyness compared with the liquid fluency of the early material, it's a pretty special set.