eMusic Review 0
This expansive, 19-song recording is a genuine event for many reasons. For one, it captures Chick Corea live in a small club during a two-week period (at the Blue Note in May of 2010) – a circumstances that rarely happens with Corea anymore. For another, it plumbs the vast and influential legacy of the late modal pianist Bill Evans. Among the tracks is a newly unearthed and previously unrecorded Evans original, beautifully fleshed out by the trio – which includes two longtime Evans sidemen: bassist Eddie Gomez and Paul Motian on drums. Motian’s subsequent passing in November 2011 makes his advanced and typically distinctive interpretations of Evans’s catalogue that much more precious.
But the best reason to celebrate this release is that it doesn’t freeze-dry the instantly familiar Evans approach to the piano trio. The press materials accurately warn that it is “less about reminiscence” and more of “a journey into the imaginations of three musicians.”
Corea immediately sets that imagination to work on “Peri’s Scope,” one of Evans’s later standards, capturing the pianist-composer’s subtly cubist ruminations, but flecking the august, mahogany-toned ambiance Evans deployed with more impulsive gusts.
There are originals by every trio member, and covers of Monk, Berlinand Van Heusen,… read more »
