Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Chick Corea / Stefano Bollani: Orvieto

272

Chick Corea / Stefano Bollani: Orvieto

By

View read count
Chick Corea / Stefano Bollani: Orvieto
If the combination of two chordal instruments—guitar with piano, or vibraphone with guitar, say—can prove a significant challenge in improvised music, then surely the piano duo is the most demanding of all. No other instrument has a seven-and-a-quarter octave range, played with eight fingers and two thumbs, creating far greater risk of harmonic, melodic and rhythmic train wrecks.

Pianist Chick Corea has been mining the vast harmonic potential of the piano duo more than most, beginning with An Evening with Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea: In Concert (Columbia, 1978), which came as something of a surprise for those more familiar with both pianists' funk and fusion escapades of the time. Corea had, however, been mixing it up stylistically since the early part of the decade, and if his electric albums with Return to Forever were selling like hotcakes, so, too, were classics, like his celebrated duet record with vibraphonist Gary Burton, Crystal Silence (ECM, 1973). Since his duo with Hancock, Corea has also recorded with other pianists—ranging from Friedrich Gulda and Nicolas Economou to Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Japanese upstart Hiromi—but none have taken such unmitigated risk and yielded such joyful rewards as Orvieto, his first album with Stefano Bollani..

Nearly half Corea's age, Bollani's star has been on the rise over the past decade, first with trumpeter Enrico Rava and then for his own ECM recordings, in particular 2007's Piano Solo, which joins the German label's heralded cannon of solo piano recording begun by Corea with Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 (1971) and Vol. 2 (1972). A pianist of rare invention, what distinguishes Bollani from his peers is a puckish ability to combine outrageous playfulness with virtuosity and encyclopedic knowledge, as capable of pushing his partners into near-musical slapstick as he is resonant depth and, oftentimes, profound beauty.

Bollani's effervescence dovetails perfectly with Corea's mischievous approach on this set of improvisations, standards spanning seven decades, and originals like Corea's often-recorded "Armando's Rhumba," here taken to glorious extremes as the two pianists manage the impossible, finishing each others' thoughts, coming together in uncanny unison, and accompanying both themselves and each other in ways that belie their avoidance of rehearsals. Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz" has rarely sounded this alive, swinging with unfettered energy as they effortlessly move between individual and in-tandem soloing; then again, given these performances' unrelenting spontaneity, it's less about the individual and more about the collective, which moves with unconstrained freedom amidst the loosely defined structures.

Unlike most duo recordings, Bollani and Corea are not split into left and right channels; instead, the two instruments converge towards the center of the mix from lower register to upper, giving Orvieto an even greater "you are there" feeling—but "there" isn't in the audience, it's right up there with the pianists. Those familiar with either player will have no difficulty in identifying them here; for those who aren't, does it really matter? Instead, it makes Orvieto all the more appreciable for its remarkably empathy, telepathy and synchronicity—symmetry, even, at times—less a duo, and more the remarkable melding of musical minds for a most singular purpose.

Track Listing

Orvieto Improvisation No. 1; Retrato Em Branco E Preto; If I Should Lose You; Doralice; Jitterbug Waltz; A Valsa Da Paula; Orvietio Improvisation No. 2 / Nardis; Este Seu Olhar; Darn That Dream; Tirititran; Armando's Rhumba; Blues in F.

Personnel

Chick Corea: piano; Stefano Bollani: piano.

Album information

Title: Orvieto | Year Released: 2011 | Record Label: ECM Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.