Sundance is Chick backed with Hubert Laws, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Woody Shaw, Horacee Arnold, and an uncredited Bennie Maupin.  The first half is two sets of complex acoustic bebop.  It's good, but mightier is the flipside, which throws down "Converge"-- building nicely off Chick's slow-stepping Rhodes pattern into this intense collision of free sounds-- and the title cut, a shuffle with a great Ra-like theme (ain't nobody can touch Sonny for killer melody lines, but this approaches) and some very fine collective improvisation. [DW]

[On the reissue of Light As A Feather], the sound is good and the disc of alternate tracks has some good stuff on it. Airto and Flora are a bit more dominant on some of the alternate tracks, especially the one I'm not quite sure why it's on this CD since the final version was on the first RTF album, "What Games Shall We Play Today."  I found the liner notes pretty interesting because Chick Corea's scientology is made much more explicit and named the inspiration for his song titles and Potter's lyrics ("Like Hancock's buddhism," say the notes). In general that 1950s sci-fi cult as religion makes me queasy, but to avoid me casting too many stones I thought it was interesting that to Corea it was the same kind of thing as all the other alterna-religion folks were doing. I don't love his playing, it's too bouncy and high for me generally, but hey, it is electric piano with acoustic accompaniment and that counts. Stanley Clarke sounds GREAT on the alternate tracks especially where he's not buried behind Corea. (There are snippets of dialogue on the disc and in one Corea stops Clarke because he's too dominant. heh heh). [ISH]

"Bliss!" originally is a record by Pete LaRoca from 1967, called "Turkish Women At The Bath". A then relatively unknown Chick Corea played as a sideman; it was re-released in 1973 by Corea under the title "Bliss!". Great album!

And this is a great site with much of the music I love the most! :) So much stuff - I might never leave ...
[Thelema]

ps-my email is mattp6307@adelphia.net
[matt]

can i get a copy of the liner notes from somehwere?
[matt]

Two other essential Chick Corea LPs that need a mention are BLISS on the Muse label and THE LEPRECHAUN on Polydor. Bliss is an acoustic quartet recording with John Gilmore, Walter Booker and Pete LaRoca. It boasts the hauntingly melancholy Dancing Girls driven by the most infectious of piano riffs. By contrast THE LEPRECHAUN is a big budget fusion piece complete with strings and features the monstrous 13 minute composition Leprechauns Dream. With Gadd on drums, Jackson on bass and Farrell on soprano, flute and horn it really doesn't get better than this. Truly cosmic vibes!
[JC - Here & Now Recordings]

Return to Forever was the album that started it all off for me. I heard it on holiday in Miami and the world stopped. There is nothing like this album for me for groove and edge. My world is somewhere in this music. Everyone, Airto, Flora, Joe, Stanley, Chick have spirits in them. My most played album.
[Maniark]

'light as a feather' is quite simply as close to perfection as jazz can get, the aural equivalent of eating potatoes roasted in goose fat while being massaged by a naked scarlett johanssen. it is the very essence of beauty, and can only enrich your life.
[dr funk]