Chick Corea: Piano Improvisations, Vol. 1 [VINYL]

ECM's pioneering documentation of solo piano music was one of the genre-changing experiments of the early 1970s, and this beautifully recorded session, capturing Chick Corea in Oslo's Bendiksen Studio in April 1971, marked the beginning of this new development. Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 has long since acquired the status of a classic. It includes, in "Sometime Ago", a foretaste of the richly melodic and Latin-tinged music Chick would introduce a year later in the first Return To Forever band, but most of the pieces here were simply pulled from the aether. Corea, it transpired, had the uncanny ability to shape fully formed compositions in real time. Corea: "This was an intense period of discovery for me. The Piano Improvisations recordings were made spontaneously in the studio. I took the next idea that came to mind and played it down - then titled it later. This was a new way to create for me at the time. I wasn't sure what the outcome would be - but just got into the joy of trying it out to see what would happen..." That sense of joy is palpable in the recording, produced by Manfred Eicher. The Luminessence vinyl edition of Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 adds a gatefold sleeve with Chick's performer's note and a text by Neil Tesser reflecting on the impact of the music in its historical context.