Chick Corea & Gary Burton
Released March 20, 2012
Grammy Nominee for Best Jazz Instrumental Album 2013
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=1N9C4hKP5KM&list=OLAK5uy_kzi6Ho20tYXavyLbO0Py-Y4f0gNmwwa7c
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0BL87u2gZCYQ2Qd2ztLtP9?si=WupM25yZSVWgBxOeWsQ09w
About:
Since their first time playing together at the 1972 Munich Jazz Festival, Jazz piano legend Chick Corea and vibraphone pioneer Gary Burton have toured the world and recorded six albums as well as a live record together. Continuing their joint efforts, the pair released Hot House, their seventh collaborative studio album, on September 4, 2012. Hot House includes standards from eight well-known composers—from Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans to Lennon and McCartney—but Burton explains “we chose songs that are generally not that well known; the composers’ names are probably more familiar than the songs to most listeners.” Hot House also features the Harlem String Quartet on a new Corea original titled “Mozart Goes Dancing,” a track originally planned for the duo’s next record together.
Track Listing:
1. Can’t We Be Friends (Paul James / Kay Swift) 7:26
2. Eleanor Rigby (John Lennon / Paul McCartney) 7:01
3. Chega de Saudade (Antônio Carlos Jobim / Vinícius de Moraes) 10:46
4. Time Remembered (Bill Evans) 6:13
5. Hot House (Tadd Dameron) 3:54
(Gary Burton, Grammy Award for Best Improvised Jazz Solo 2013)
6. Strange Meadow Lark (Dave Brubeck) 7:05
7. Light Blue (Thelonious Monk) 6:04
8. Once I Loved (Antônio Carlos Jobim / Vinícius de Moraes) 7:22
9. My Ship (Ira Gershwin / Kurt Weill) 11:53
10. Mozart Goes Dancing (Chick Corea) 7:13
Personnel:
Chick Corea: piano
Gary Burton: vibraphone
Ilmar Gavilán: violin (10)
Melissa White: violin (10)
Juan Miguel Hernandez: viola (10)
Paul Wiancko: cello (10)
Recorded at Avatar Studios, New York and Mad Hatter Studio East
Producers: Chick Corea, Gary Burton
Recorded and Mixed by Bernie Kirsh
Recording Assistant Engineer: Bob Cetti (1 – 9), Bob Mallory (10)
Mixing Assistant Engineer: Gloria Kaba
Mastered by Greg Calbi, Steve Fallone
Photography by Ernest Gregory, Julie Rooney
Review:
With a partnership lasting longer than most marriages, pianist Chick Corea and vibraphonist Gary Burton know what it takes to keep things fresh. Since the release of Crystal Silence (ECM, 1973), they have toured virtually every year, but record far less frequently, with only six albums to their credit, most recently The New Crystal Silence (Concord, 2008). With the pianist especially busy these days—his The Continents: Music for Jazz Quartet & Chamber Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon, 2012) just out and a live set from his 2011 Return to Forever IV tour, The Mothership Returns (Concord, 2012), on the near horizon—anytime Corea enters the studio with Burton is worthy of celebration.
Traditionally, the duo has focused largely on music from the pianist’s pen and from Burton collaborators like bassist Steve Swallow and composer/arranger Michael Gibbs. Shifting gears for Hot House, the pair covers music from the 1940s through the 1960s, by well-known names ranging from pianists Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Tadd Dameron and Thelonious Monk to The Beatles’ Paul McCartney and Antonio Carlos Jobim—though the songs chosen by the vibraphonist and pianist are a little further off the beaten path. While not exactly unfamiliar, “Eleanor Rigby” hasn’t received much interpretation in the jazz world. Still, after Tatum’s jovial opener, “Can’t We Be Friends”—the pianist moving from facile swing to strong-handed stride—it demonstrates Corea and Burton’s seemingly effortless ability to draw music from external sources into their own complex yet accessible musical universe. A relentless left-hand pattern gives the song a far brighter pulse than the original, with Corea’s right hand mirroring Burton before leading to a solo that demonstrates how, as he approaches 70 in 2013, the vibraphonist has lost none of his impeccable ability to shape flawless long-form narratives with exhilarating spontaneity. Corea, too, solos with the same kind of reckless in-the-moment spirit.
Two Jobim tracks run the gamut from the effervescent “Chega de Saudade” to “Once I Loved,” which begins in ethereal atmospherics, but assumes a more propulsive stance in short order. It’s no surprise to hear Corea play with quirky tongue in cheek on Monk’s “Light Blue,” but Burton is equally idiosyncratic, while a relatively brief look at Dameron’s fiery title track is the result of Burton and Corea being uncertain as to who is to solo first, with a result that’s all the more impressive for their ability to interact in rapid-fire fashion without ever stepping on each other’s toes.
Two Corea originals close the set: “My Ship” has been expanded significantly from Expressions: Solo Piano (GRP, 1994), a brief descending pattern redolent of “Falling Alice,” from the pianist’s The Mad Hatter (Polydor, 1978). Augmented by The Harlem String Quartet, the episodic “One for Mozart” harkens back to the duo’s Lyric Suite for Sextet (ECM, 1982), while presaging the duo’s next CD, which will return to that expanded format.
Another CD already in the planning stages is terrific news from one of the longest-lasting partnerships in jazz. Familiarity needn’t always breed contempt and Hot House proves it needn’t spoil the thrill of discovery either—or the ability to just have some flat-out fun.
John Kelman (All About Jazz)