YouTube Overview of Chick Corea's Music Career

YouTube Overview of Chick Corea’s Music Career.

The following collection of Youtube videos represents Chick Corea’s progression as a musician. It parallels his development as portrayed in Grove Music Online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkHdleWs9Lw

Mongo Santamaria, Latin Band– 1962 – Early Start

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWRxmg8RYPE

Willie Bobo, Latin Music - 1962-1963 – Early Start

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCwVZM9j8W0

Blue Mitchell, 1964-1966 – First recordings as a leader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCzRXyZL_hc

Stan Getz, – 1967 – First recordings as a leader

Miles Davis, – 1968 – Marked the beginning of his exploration of free improvisation

Two Important Jazz Rock albums

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUOGehr-4CA

            In a Silent Way – 1969

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJk69zvgBhU

            Bitches Brew -1970

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTfGWZTetdw

The Band Circle – 1970 – with Dave Holland, Barry Altschul and Anthony Braxton – Took off from Miles Davis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgyaHB3kPIM

Chick Corea Solo Album – Improvisation – 1971 – An urge for more lyrical context for his music.

Return to Forever– with Stanley Clarke and Airto Moreira

Chick Corea’s main focus during the 1970’s. Though he kept the band name the same, the members of the group changed three times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdsK9YIf3U4

A.) Latin Rhythms – Early 70s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6jLYKPnxD4

B.) Powerful Rock Band – Mid 70s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abxVoeeJm9I&playnext=1&list=PL4C6B78FD9F6DA5F6&feature=results_video

C.) Small string and Brass ensembles with Latin, Spanish, and Classical Traditions– Late 70s

Throughout the 1980’s, Chick Corea had many significant collaborations with different artists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvD2Z4-_sLU&playnext=1&list=PLF33DEAB5BE48B0E5&feature=results_video

Gary Burton – 80’s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIp4hLGTjDU

Herbie Hancock – 80’s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms2hPjyPBv0

Mike Brecker 80’s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xb2hscHFts

Trio Music – 1981

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rI9fevwT2s

Elektric Band – Late 1980’s with John Patitucci and Dave Weckl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hon6sqXNiN4

Bobby McFerrin -1990s 

Stravinsky’s Symphonic War in Three Movements

            If tasked to create a theme fitting for 20^th century warfare, a composer could include bombastic timpani booms that mimic properly placed explosions. Such a composer could also employ complementary yet almost conflicting wind and string ensembles that create a chaotic and exceptionally urgent tone.  Russian composer Igor Stravinsky achieved this venture in his “Symphony in Three Movements”, written between 1942-1945.

            Haven’t heard of Stravinsky? Maybe the “Rite of Spring” comes to mind. Stravinsky reminisces of a 20^th century Stella Sung, who is known for her piece “Atlas’s Revenge.”  His sheer power is equal to that of Richard Wagner’s “Flying Dutchman.” Stravinsky is known for pushing the musical boundaries of musical design by having primitive rhythmic drives and innovative motifs that appear throughout a piece. “Symphony in Three Movements” is no exception.

Some emphasis should be noted about the title of the piece: symphonies are usually structured to be played by an orchestra and have four movements, not three. Potentially this could indicate what critiques should expect during a listen through: Stravinsky didn’t care to appease anyone.

            Written in response to the Second World War, this piece seemed to personify the struggles faced by an invaded country.  To one’s ears, the first movement narrates the dynamic between an invading army and its victim.  Immediately into the piece, the violins, the brass section, and the timpani force their way into your eardrums. Once deployed, the interplays between the woodwinds and the violins as well as the trumpets and violins imitate a sense of on and off seek and destroy. The movement then transitions into the aftermath after fighting has concluded where a softer tone, led by the slow bowing of the violins and the interludes of the clarinets and oboes, exists. Still though, there is a sense of urgency and confusion. Towards the end of the movement, the battle seems to be over, yet the war continues on. This enemy army filled with timpani blasts and brass battalions moves on to the next victim.

            Searching for a piece that embodies raw power? Look no further Blazers and Blazerettes. The repeating motifs presented are quite enjoyable, though not overwhelming, and the subtle plucking of the cellos and double bass carries a rhythmic flavor through the movement. Stravinsky’s first movement of the “Symphony in Three Movements” is yours to enjoy.

           

            

A Review In Three Paragraphs (or so)

Stravinsky was a Russian, French, and American pianist, composer, and conductor, and was one of the most influential composers of the 20^th century.  The first symphony after he moved to the United States, the “Symphony in Three Movements,” was composed using a large amount of work from scrapped movie projects he had been working on up until then: the writing took place from 1942 to 1945, and debuted in New York in 1946. The piece shall be described from the objective/descriptive, the interpretive, and the personal/evaluative views.

            When describing the song objectively, the first theme noticed were the parts that made up the overarching dramatic, dark mood in the whole piece: lots of suspense, clashing instruments, disharmonies, sudden changes from loud to soft, deep, nightly drum kicks, quick staccato notes, lots of horn activity present, and the fast paced tempo.

            The second way to describe the piece involves viewing the work through the interpretive ear-camera-lens, to find a more angry, emotional theme. I saw the emotional level permeated with thoughts and ideas of: dark, mysterious, stressful nights, like a bloody battle scene; a war full of slaughter and destruction occurring during the latest hours of the night; the gruesome, terrifying fight scene from the final battle of a movie; or the final murder of a crazed killer in an old horror movie. All of the instruments sound as if they are denying the main rhythm or tempo of the piece and playing off to their own beat, in an insane, chaotic, disjointed manner.

            The final descriptive medium for this work involves my own subjective, personal view of the piece. While I found it to be a very enthralling piece full of action and contrasting instruments and such, it has its place in old black and white movies of the earlier half of the 20^th century, and not on my modern-day vehicle’s sound-system. However, it would make the perfect edition in an antiquated silent WWII movie or in the atrium of a fancy Ritz-Carlton hotel.

            Please, take a minute or two to put my judgments and descriptions aside to listen to this piece yourself, and come up with a description of your own. Done successfully, that would make for a perfect test of thinking for yourself and believing what you believe in regardless of what others tell you.

A Harmonic Rendezvous of the Saxophone and the Electric Guitar

After a brief glance at some articles on the topic of Jazz Fusion, and an extensive experience listening to some of the most talented, better known producers in the field, I have discovered that Jazz fusion can best be described as the freeform elements of Jazz, and the absolute freedom that that art-form gives the producer, combined with the electronic, dancing, jumping, overwhelming POWER present in all rock and roll tracks and the instruments that produce them. The fusion of rock and jazz music was popularized under the name “Jazz Fusion” by popular jazz and rock artists who utilized different elements from the two genres in their works, and much of the essential Jazz Fusion music was produced from 1970 to 1990, during the upturn period of rock and roll, when every band was experimenting with sound and trying to find their own distinct style. One of the more interesting points Jazz Fusion has to make, includes the absolute disparity that lied between Rock and Jazz up until the two fused together into the ironic genre. Jazz was all about the free expression of the artists, using their instruments as their pens and the audience as their paper. In fact, many popular Jazz songs are merely improvised on the spot by the musicians, most of whom have enormous skill on their respective instruments, and the classical knowledge to back it up. On the other hand, Rock music was more about adhering to a certain structure when writing songs, and while two separate Jazz and Rock songs could have as much energy as each other, the casual listener would always state that Rock was more energetic simply because the Jazz song’s energy is more mysterious, more enigmatic, and difficult to understand. The Rock song always contains sort of a “punch-in-the-face” kind of energy. The artists who found the style of Jazz Fusion most appealing were bands such as Miles Davis, Weather Report, Spyro Gyra, Herbie Hancock, and famous pianist Chick Corea. A majority of them do not place any actual vocals inside their songs, so that the listener has to listen to the cry of the guitar, the scream of the saxophone, the dancing on the piano, and the sounds of all the other prevalent instruments in order to get some kind of emotional meaning out of the song. 

Curation of a few Jazz Fusion music links: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnSC0tRmya4 (Chick Corea performing “Armando’s Rhumba”)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot6j7Jf9al0 (Miles Davis performing “Fusion”)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqashW66D7o (Weather Report performing “Birdland”)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebaM6SN7EO8 (Spyro Gyra performing “Incognito”)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrgP1u5YWEg (Herbie Hancock performing “Cantelope Island”)