This 2010 ECM collection Solo Piano Improvisations/Children’s Songs brings together three of pianist Chick Corea’s ’70s solo piano recordings. Included are 1971′s Piano Improvisations, Vol. 1, 1972′s Piano Improvisations, Vol. 2, and 1984′s Children’s Songs. These reflective, atmospheric, but quite technically agile recordings found Corea exploring and discovering new ways of expressing himself alone at the piano. In that sense, Corea was bucking the electric fusion and avant-garde “free” jazz of the time with these ruminative acoustic sets that influenced much of what was to become the defining sound of ECM. This is a typically well-crafted set from ECM and features new liner notes and period black-and-white photographs of Corea. – Matt Collar
more »