Chick Corea: Chick Corea: The Ultimate Adventure

The PR bumf connects this disc to Corea’s work in the 1970s, both in terms of personnel and stylistically. I did indeed find myself mentally dusting off The Mad Hatter and Secret Agent in terms of overall feel if not in terms of detail, but this music is neither retro nor dated. The fact is that Corea not only wrote the fusion agenda but has packed it to the margins with things to do and possibilities to explore, so that 30-odd years on he’s still not repeating himself.

Our rating

4

Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:59 pm

COMPOSERS: Chick Corea
LABELS: Stretch
ALBUM TITLE: Chick Corea: The Ultimate Adventure
WORKS: Chick Corea: The Ultimate Adventure
PERFORMER: Chick Chorea; Touchstone; with Hubert Laws (flute), Airto Moreira, Steve Gadd (drums)
CATALOGUE NO: 319 0452

The PR bumf connects this disc to Corea’s work in the 1970s, both in terms of personnel and stylistically. I did indeed find myself mentally dusting off The Mad Hatter and Secret Agent in terms of overall feel if not in terms of detail, but this music is neither retro nor dated. The fact is that Corea not only wrote the fusion agenda but has packed it to the margins with things to do and possibilities to explore, so that 30-odd years on he’s still not repeating himself. This snappy sequence of 19 near-miniatures featuring old and new musical associates is full of energetic, inventive twists and turns but remains almost unreasonably coherent. The sound is fine, too, with the pianist’s burbly Rhodes well to the fore. The music is apparently a ‘sonic landscape’ relating to L Ron Hubbard’s novel of the same name, but we can take or leave that. Roger Thomas

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