Chick Corea
Children’s Songs
ECM Records/Warner Bros. (US) 1984
ECM 1267 (LP)
sleeve : EX-(CC, SRW)
media : EX-/EX-(some light noise)
Released on ECM in 1984, this solo piano album is by Chick Corea, the jazz pianist personally selected by Miles Davis to appear on landmark recordings including In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, and On the Corner, and who later sparked a major fusion movement with his own 1972 masterpiece Return to Forever. The work consists of twenty short pieces. Corea wrote the first chapter the year before Return to Forever was released, then continued composing the cycle over the following twelve years, completing the final chapter in 1983. A masterpiece filled with beautiful melodies that evoke a wide range of inner landscapes, it is remarkable not only for Corea’s richly expressive playing but also for the sheer quality of the compositions themselves—music so complete in its own right that it hardly requires the adjective “jazz.” It rewards deep, concentrated listening, yet there is also something about the music that blends naturally into its surroundings, almost like “furniture music,” making it equally enjoyable as background listening.
A1: Children Songs Nos. 1
B1: Children Songs Nos. 12