Here’s Chick Corea’s first collection of entirely new material in quite awhile, and It shows just about every facet of the multi-hued Mad Hatter. Corea himself mixes it up with acoustic and electric here, with some wonderfully intimate fingering on the acoustic “Planet Chia” as well as the rollickingly energetic and electric “Galaxy 32 Star 4.” The team of Tim Garland/woodwinds, Charles Altura/g, Hadrien Feraud/b, Marcus Gilmore/dr and Paernell Saturnino/perc are joined by Stanley Clarke and Ravi Coltrane for a 17+ minute opus “Pledge for Peace” that builds up from a ruminating rubato to something like a churgling volcano before finally erupting. Gayle Moran Corea’s vocals on “Outside of Space” have a Mediterranean folksy quality to them, while the closing “Legacy” summarizes the sonic vision of this master of moods. A sumptuous bouquet of many colors, mixing folk, jazz, fusion and the future.
Concord Jazz