Recently (2008-07-19), I’ve been at a concert of the reunion tour of Return to Forever. It was a great concert and I enjoyed each second individually. Right now I’m listening to an audio CD called “Electric Chick” (which has nothing to do with "fried chicken"
, I hope ;-). It’s music recorded between 1976 and 1978, released on 2008-05-06. The pieces have been taken from the albums Secret Agent
, Friends
, My Spanish Heart
, The Leprechaun
and The Mad Hatter
. The latter one is one of my “all time favourite” albums.
The selection of pieces is excellent, though I hoped to get some alternative takes. If you ever wanted to know why Chick Corea is such a great composer and musician, why the Minimoog is such an excellent instrument and how Chick creates a perfect symbiosis between electronic and traditional instruments – this CD will provide you an answer. Listen to Joe Farrell‘s outstanding flute playing in "Sicily"
and "Friends"
, the interesting harmonics of "Fickle Funk"
, the MiniMoog solos in "Love Castle"
respectively "Wind Dance"
and, finally, "The Mad Hatter Rhapsody"
, featuring “just another” marvellous synth solo and Gayle Moran‘s Scat Singing.
The best of all: The price tag for this sampler is about 6 EUR – much value for a less than reasonable price :) .