With this line-up, one expects an hour-plus of top-quality contemporary mainstream music, and that is exactly what is delivered. The lovely spring in Corea’s touch and phrasing during the development of his solo opening to Peacock’s lyrical original Up typifies the spirit of this live festival set: the mood is indeed ‘up’, the playing positive and hot throughout. When Corea is in this sort of form, one can forgive him (well, almost) all kinds of the sort of high-tech, riff-heavy fusion which he has occasionally seen fit to indulge. Henderson, typically weighty in multi-layered tone, is rhythmically urgent and oblique in equal measure (the 3/4 Psalm especially) while Peacock and Haynes combine elegance and directness to smile-inducing effect.
One of my favourite memories from the mid-eighties is of seeing Corea and Haynes (with Miroslav Vitous) burning up London’s Royal Festival Hall, so I can easily empathise with the pleasure that the Montreux audience reveals here, in reaction to such particular delights as the ‘grandstanding’ power of the stretched-out blues of Canary, the floating nuances of Quintet or the intricate mindgames of Monk’s Trinkle. Enjoy!
Discography
Introduction; Hairy Canary; Folk Song; Psalm; Quintet No. 2; Up, Up And. ..; Trinkle, Tinkle; So In Love; Drum Interlude; Slippery When Wet/Intro Of Band (73.39)
Chick Corea (p); Joe Henderson (ts); Gary Peacock (b); Roy Haynes (d). Montreux, summer 1981.
(Stretch Records GRS 00122)
