So it’s 2013 and the second night of Chick Corea’s The Vigil playing Ronnie Scott’s.
It’s also 1969. Kind of.
Why? Well this remarkable video clip, which Twitter user @AdrianDeliu has just posted, tells part of the story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uW0SRgmxkY
And that’s not all. As the quintet on the road made these recordings just released by Columbia.
Fast forward to this very day and keeping the Vigil tonight at Ronnie Scott’s before the band moves over to the Blue Note in Milan, Corea will be joined on the stage of the Frith Street jazz shrine by Tim Garland, Hadrien Feraud, Marcus Gilmore, and Charles Altura.
The club dates come just less than a year since New Crystal Silence arranger and former Chick band member Garland joined the Return To Forever man on stage as a surprise guest at the Barbican, when Corea had earlier performed in front of a big concert hall audience that night with Gary Burton.
Garland played soprano sax during the encore “jamming” on Chick’s classic composition ‘La Fiesta’ and Monk’s ‘Blue Monk’.
The terminology ‘third great Miles Davis quintet’ is just starting to be used by the record company guys and fans. But you can understand why if you’ve heard the triple album/DVD set even if it’s lesser known than the second great quintet, which Wayne Shorter was also a member of; and the distant, but equally acclaimed, first great quintet with John Coltrane.
Of the five musicians making the recording, well Miles is Miles: the next big thing will be a new re-imagining of his screen image via the vision and determination of Don Cheadle with the score written for the film by Herbie Hancock. After Tavernier’s Round Midnight everyone thought of the individual personas of Lester Young and Bud Powell (via the fictionalised persona whose story the film told) differently. Hancock was there at the time acting a little, and wrote the music, which would win him an Oscar. How will we view Miles when eventually we get to see the film and hear the music? The Davis legend will without a shadow of a doubt move to a different level entirely no matter how successful or otherwise the film turns out to be.
As for Wayne Shorter well, he’s on fire with ‘Pegasus’ and much else (the rest all live) on Without a Net, and was last in this country playing in Birmingham with the quartet towards the tail end of last year.
[Without a Net background http://marlbank.tumblr.com/post/37908086641/256]
Jack DeJohnette put out a fine album late last year [more at http://marlbank.tumblr.com/post/32873499206/40688], but Dave Holland has slipped off the radar a bit, although he is expected to release a record by the Prism band at some stage following some non-UK touring last year with the stellar outfit. Details are very scarce.
And lastly Chick Corea won two Grammys last month. Birthing The Vigil means for him it’s all about 2013 no matter how brightly 1969 still burns. SG
Chick Corea, top, yesterday, inside Ronnie Scott’s
Photo: via @Chick Corea