Regular readers we know that we love Chick Corea at YATM so when we heard of NuNorthern Soul's project with Maarten Goetheer and Pong Nakornchai 'Suite For Chick' to say we are excited....
And to back track a little, to say Chick Corea was a 'keyboard virtuoso' is a huge under statement as his career was near on six decades when he excelled as a straight jazz artist to bebop, post bop, avant-garde, fusion, Latin, jazzdance, chamber music, children's song and even more.
Indeed, we need to take a moment for the 'fusion' period as we're not talking any old fusion, he was in Miles Davis' Isle of Wight 1970 festival band with Keith Jarrett (two electric pianos!), Gary Bartz (sax), Dave Holland (bass), Airto Moreira (percussion) and Jack DeJohnette (drums); no doubt Miles' own virtuoso ability deserved such a band but that must have been amazing. And if you don't know about Chick's part in Return To Forever, you need to research.
Somebody that's done his research and it clearly a super fan is Maarten Goetheer who had a bit of a head start on most as his Dad, Gerard Goetheer was a jazz pianist (who no doubt saw Chick live at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Den Haag Congresgebouw days) and as the jazz-acorn didn't fall far from the tree, this is an eight track collection of re-interpretations with Maarten backed up by Thai drummer Pong Nakornchai.
There's 'City Gate Rumble' (original, reprise and dub reprise versions), 'Romantic Warrior' (original and dub reprise versions), 'Time Track' (original and dub reprise versions) and 'Hymn Of The Heart'.
Apart from Return To Forever's classic 'Romantic Warrior' these tracka were originally Chick's Elektric Band period and it's clear 'City Gate Rumble' was a return to synthy moogy fusion jazz wallowing with an up front busy drum pattern with really suits Pong's style that's as much South East Asian as Rober Glasper's side man Chris Dave and BRUK.
Combined with Goetheer mastery of Moog bassline, ARP twiddles, Wurlitzer chords on a Rhodes foundation, this is so inspriational and relentlessly listenable.
Maarten originally moved from Amsterdam to Hong Kong/Bangkok as a DJ after hearing a Masters At Work remix of Tania Maria's classic 'Come With Me' [so gives us hope of a 'Suite For Chick 2' with a re-interpretation of 'Spain'?] and I love the fact Maarten has done a very jazz/DJ thing by including reprise and dub versions - or even gamelan remixes?
NuNorthernSoul is a very adventurous and broad with its remit having releases by some of our other favourites like Ilija Rudman (see review HERE), Andre Espeut (see review HERE) and most recently, Blair French (see review HERE) plus specials by one of Japan's jazz-funk-fusion trailblazers Ryo Kawasaki!
Blimey! there's a thought, Maarten Goetheer and Pong Nakornchai, 'Suite For Ryo'?
Artist: Maarten Goetheer
Title: Suite For Chick ft. Pong Nakornchai
Release date: 29th November, 2024
Label : NuNorthernSoul
Catalog Number : NUNS066D,
Format: Digital / Bandcamp
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