Now He Sings, Now He Sobs

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Now He Sings, Now He Sobs
Studio album by Chick Corea

Publication
(s)

1968

Label (s) Solid State , Blue Note Records

Format (s)

LP / CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

5/13

running time

40:24 (LP), 68:50 (CD)

occupation

production

Sonny Lester , Michael Cuscuna

Studio (s)

A&R Recording Studio, New York City

chronology
Tones for Joan's Bones
(1966) 		Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is
(1969)

Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is a jazz album by Chick Corea in a trio with bassist Miroslav Vitouš and drummer Roy Haynes , recorded in New York City on March 14, 19 and 27, 1968. The recordings were initially on published on the United Artists sub-label Solid State ; from the 1980s they appeared on the Blue Note Records label .

Prehistory of the album

Now He Sings, Now He Sobs was Corea's debut album Tones for Joan's Bones (1966), which Downbeat awarded 4½ out of 5 stars in 1968, the second album by the now 26-year-old pianist, who accompanied Sarah Vaughan at the time and six months later - through Tony Williams - became a member of Miles Davis' band ( Filles de Kilimanjaro ).

He got to know his trio colleagues better in 1967 - Haynes when he played with Stan Getz ( Sweet Rain ) and Vitouš when he had worked for Donald Byrd ( The Creeper ).

The music of the album

Steps - What Was , the first track, almost 14 minutes long, plays with the tempo and the timbre is clearly influenced by Claude Debussy . The solo contains allusions to pianists like Horace Silver or Bill Evans . Roy Haynes has the opportunity to do an extended drum solo. The musicians' solos are followed by a passage that Corea has been playing under the title Spain since 1972 , although its melody has not yet been formally presented as a theme.

Matrix is an altered blues with a Monk-like theme on which Corea played a long solo of 16 choruses . Corea later created frequently played jazz standards with the first recording of Matrix (and also with the waltz Windows , which was initially not published) .

The standard, How Deep Is the Ocean , is radically revised in the title track Now He Beats the Drum, Now He Stops . The song begins with a march-like intro and leads into a jazz waltz , in which the complex, extended melody is introduced. Corea plays the solo using a simplified, 16-bar sequence. Vitouš responds with agile and imaginative bass lines before a drum solo shows the "enormous versatility" of Haynes.

He had already recorded the piece Samba Yantra , which was only published later, in a session with Donald Byrd; Bossa is a calm, impressionistic piece that is reminiscent of Bill Evans. Gemini is a free bass-piano improvisation , followed by a longer bass solo by Miroslav Vitouš. Except for the two standards Pannonica by Thelonious Monk and My One and Only Love by Guy Wood , the other results (such as The Law of Falling and Catching Up or Fragments ) of the three March sessions were improvisations by the three trio members in the field of tension between post- Bop and free jazz created. Chick Corea expanded this playing stance from August 1968 as a keyboardist in the Miles Davis Band and continued it in 1970 - after the Bitches Brew sessions - with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul in the Trio Circle .

In 1999, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame .

review

Chick Corea ( Deauville 1992)

According to Stuart Nicholson , when the album was released it set a standard among contemporary musicians for its "free-flowing, yet highly disciplined presentation"; many pianists would have studied the recordings note by note. Now He Sings, Now He Sobs also highlighted Corea's skills as a composer.

Scott Yanow gave the album 4½ (out of 5) stars and commented on the recordings that the 26-year-old pianist got more attention in the jazz world; Corea introduces herself here “with a very powerful trio”. The music from eleven original compositions by Corea and the two standards Pannonica and My One and Only Love is "essentially demanding hard bop with an open attitude to free jazz "

Cook / Morton rated the sound carrier - like the next trio album The Song of Singing (1970) with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul - with four stars; the trios offer the best "insight into Corea's musical and philosophical trajectory". Sings / Sobs is "fine, solid jazz with some well-handled standard material."

Ian Carr pointed out that the album showed Corea's “perfect ability”, but also his increasing interest in the freer and more European aspects of the contemporary avant-garde. Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is "one of the great albums of the 1960s"; his trio with Vitous and Haynes was “an excellent unit; Corea himself as a musician and composer is bursting with fresh ideas. ”The eleven compositions range between semi-free and totally abstract music; "Haynes and Vitous handle this with a great variety of approaches and a breathtaking aplomb ."

Edition history

Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (SS 18039), that only the five titles Steps - What Was, Matrix, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, Now He Beats the Drum, Now He Stops and The Law of Falling and Catching Up contained , first appeared on the Solid State label , which producer Sonny Lester had built up in 1966 with Phil Ramone and Manny Albam as a sub-label of United Artists . With the purchase of the Liberty and Blue Note catalogs by United Artists, Solid State's jazz catalog, and with it the Corea album, was reissued by Blue Note Records. The complete recordings of the three sessions in March 1968 then appeared on the LPs Best Album (Blue Note BN-LA 395-H2) and the double LP Circling .. In (1975) (Blue Note BN-LA 472-H2). The remastered new edition of the recordings on Blue Note (1988) initially contains the five titles of the original edition, followed by eight bonus tracks.

Roy Haynes live at Carnegie Hall , September 2007.

List of titles

Original album
  • Chick Corea: Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (Solid State SS 18039)
  1. Steps - What Was - 13:50
  2. Matrix - 6:28
  3. Now He Sings, Now He Sobs - 7:03
  4. Now He Beats the Drums, Now He Stops - 10:35
  5. The Law of Falling and Catching Up - 2:28
CD edition
  • Blue Note CD 7243 5 38265-2 (2002)
  1. Steps - What Was - 13:50
  2. Matrix - 6:28
  3. Now He Sings, Now He Sobs - 7:03
  4. Now He Beats the Drums, Now He Stops - 10:35
  5. The Law of Falling and Catching Up - 2:28
  6. Samba Yantra - 2:38
  7. Bossa - 4:41
  8. I Don't Know - 2:40
  9. Fragments - 4:01
  10. Windows - 3:09
  11. Gemini - 4:20
  12. Pannonica ( Monk ) - 2:57
  13. My One and Only Love (Mellin-Wood) - 3:33
  • The compositions are by Chick Corea unless otherwise stated

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Bobby Hutcherson recorded the title four months later on his album Total Eclipse .
  2. ↑ In the original: essentially advanced hard bop with an open-minded attitude toward free jazz.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Max Harrison , Eric Thacker, Stuart Nicholson: The Essential Jazz Records. Vol. 2: Modernism to Postmodernism London, New York: Mansell 2000, pp. 460ff.
  2. ↑ a b Review of the album Now He Sings, Now He Sobs by Scott Yanow at Allmusic (English). Retrieved June 12, 2011.
  3. ↑ a b Michael Cuscuna , Liner Notes 2002
  4. ^ Grammy Hall of Fame
  5. ↑ Cook & Morton, Penguin Guide to Jazz, 6th Edition, 2003. pp.
  6. ^ Brian Priestley , Digby Fairweather , Ian Carr: Jazz: Rough Guide. Rough Guides 1995, ISBN 1-84353-256-5 . P. 138 f.
  7. ↑ Information from Doug Payne
  8. ↑ Blue Note discography 1967/68 at jazzdisco.org