Appreciating the Beauty of a Hot Chick Corea and Gary Burton Gig -- Chicago Jazz Review



Photos not from reviewed performance

 Jazz Review

Chick Corea and Gary Burton
accompanied by the Harlem String Quartet
North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, Skokie, IL
December 6, 2012
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Should my delusions of self-importance ever reach the point where I publish Seth Saith’s Rules for Life, one of them will be:

Any time you have the chance to see a jazz musician whose name you know—especially for relatively little cost and effort—do so.

Wednesday’s passing of the great pianist, Dave Brubeck, reminded me that on multiple occasions over the past decade I had noted appearances of his at Orchestra Hall and Ravinia Festival, but for one reason or other, I never opted to attend any of his concerts. Now I’m sorry that I didn’t.

I can’t quite call myself a jazz aficionado, but I enjoy the art enough that I try to get to a couple performances each year. Typically, these are by the few surviving artists considered all-time greats—Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett—or the handful of contemporary players I’ve come to be aware of, such as Joshua Redman and Miguel Zenon.

It isn’t coincidental that all the names I’ve mentioned so far are either saxophonists or pianists, as those are the instruments—i.e. vehicles for superstar band leaders—I most favor. And with the death of Brubeck, I think that leaves only Tyner, Jarrett, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea among the ranks of legendary jazz pianists that casual jazz fans are likely to know. (Perhaps also Ramsey Lewis, though I’m not a huge fan of his style. A few younger pianists I’ve heard and like include Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Benny Green and Ryan Cohan.)

So although I wasn’t necessarily planning to see Chick Corea with Gary Burton (a famed vibraphonist) and the Harlem String Quartet on Thursday night at Skokie’s North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, three things conspired to convince me that I should:

1) Brubeck’s death; 2) Half-price tickets on Hottix.org and 3) The fact that the venue is 5 minutes from my home.

And thus I reiterate: Any time you have the chance to see a jazz musician whose name you know—especially for relatively little cost and effort—do so.

For while I doubt that I would have gone down to Symphony Center to catch the performance, nor paid the $60 & up that tickets were priced at before HotTix sliced them in half, I’m glad the stars aligned to see Corea and Burton when the opportunity presented itself.

If nothing else, I now have a better understanding as to why Corea has been nominated for 56 Grammy Awards—including 5 more just announced—and has won 18 over his illustrious career (Wikipedia).

Three of the current nominations are tied to Hot House, Corea’s latest album with Burton, with whom he has collaborated for 40 years. Selections from the album, on which Corea and Burton mostly put their spin on compositions by others, comprised the bulk of Thursday’s performance.

Burton explained that this was atypical—their concerts primarily mine Corea’s own works—but all I know is that everything they played sounded good to me.

Early in the first set, Corea and Burton did an exquisite rendition of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” which is on Hot House, and I loved the unique interpretation, with Burton lyrically channeling “all the lonely people” on his vibraphone (somewhat akin to a xylophone; see the photo below and video at bottom for a better sense).

While that was the only piece played for which I had a discernible point of reference, other interesting covers from Hot House included the title track (written by Tadd Dameron and made famous by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie) and “Chega de Suadade” by Antônio Carlos Jobim.

The first set ended with Corea and Burton paying touching tribute to Brubeck with “Strange Meadow Lark” from his famed Time Out album (it is also performed by the duo on Hot House). Corea noted that Brubeck was a friend and something of a mentor, and that while in the ’60s Brubeck may not have been deemed “cool,” his innovations helped pave the way for jazz fusion.

After intermission, Corea and Burton were joined by the Harlem String Quartet, who they had met while recording the only Corea composition on Hot House, “Mozart Goes Dancing,” which has now earned a Grammy nom.

Hearing the string quartet was sublime on that song, as well as on a beautiful take of Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight” and Corea’s own “Brasilia.”

I certainly don’t know enough about jazz piano virtuosity to critique the technique, level of difficulty, originality, etc. of what I heard. I just know that I liked it. Corea was never as thunderous on the keys as Tyner, whose style I prefer, but even a dilettante like me couldn’t help but marvel at his dexterity. I can’t intelligently explain why Chick Corea is one of those (few remaining) name-brand names of jazz—though having played with Miles Davis surely helped—but at least I got a sense of why he deserves to be.

And from what I’ve now read about Gary Burton (Wikipedia), his legacy is nearly as legendary. While I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a live vibraphone before, I sure enjoyed the way it sounded in complementing Corea and the string quartet.

Once upon a time, top jazz musicians were like rock stars. Nowaways, when even most rock stars aren’t like rock stars, jazz players seem to exist on the fringes and there are only a few of the old greats left. So any time I can abide by my own Rule of Life at top, I intend to. For not only am I glad I saw Chick Corea, I learned another name worth knowing in Gary Burton. And though it isn’t exactly incisive criticism, their live introduction to Hot House was pretty damn cool.

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As mentioned above, here is a clip of Chick Corea and Gary Burton performing “Eleanor Rigby” a few months back: