Jazz breaking news: Chick Corea unveils The Vigil at Ronnie Scott's
Thursday, March 7, 2013
It was during the penultimate song of a five tune set that Chick Corea began to roll his sleeves up as this slow burning club gig finally began reach gale force intensity.
Launching his new quintet, under the banner of The Vigil, Corea and his mainly youthful new crew were fresh from cutting their debut album, and even though this was a two-night, four-set stand, this high-octane group took their time to settle into its groove. Not surprising really when you have the raw power of drummer Marcus Gilmore and frighteningly adept bass star Hadrien Feraud just waiting to hit the afterburners, with powerful guitarist Charles Altura and great Brit multi-reedist Tim Garlard bringing more firepower to the frontline. Corea controlled all of this with his easygoing grin and laid back stage manner, belying the steely intelligence that fuels his often-complex music. They opened with a latinised take on the Parker/Gillespie bop classic ‘Hot House’, the piano maestro peppering montuno piano lines and elongating the head so that the tune sounded closer to Return to Forever’s Spanish flourishes than a heated 52nd Street bop standard. If that pensive feel had the band simmering, then the brooding 6/4 groove of the Roy Haynes-dedicated ‘Royalty’ also kept things bubbling rather than boiling over.
Avoiding some of the densely plotted charts of his Elektrik band, the presence of Garland and Feraud seemed to add both European and Mediterranean flavours to the mix. Yet it was the open, Weather Report-esque ‘Pledge For Peace’, where things finally began to lift off. Feraud has an almost unmatched command of the bass guitar – so much so he acted like a hyperactive left hand for Corea throughout, while also moving into guitar territory with chords and lightning fast solos – leaving Altura looking a little redundant on some songs. The open, blues-tinged ‘Pledge For Peace’ saw the bassist move to the fretless, evoking Jaco but taking his legacy well into the 21st century, as he set up a quicksilver dialogue with Corea. Garland switched to soprano and opened up in gloriously impassioned style too, dispatching tightly woven lines in heated cascades of notes. The closing, unnamed, knotty electro-funk workout was the highlight of the set, (before the inevitable, but artfully rejigged encore of ‘Spain’) with Corea shifting between Fender Rhodes and wailing retro synth sounds, the full contrapuntal powers of this promising new band coalescing with thrilling results. As world premieres go this was pretty special, a high-profile showcase of some extraordinary world-class talent, albeit with a few rough edges, yet this only added to the joy of hearing the band climb the heady heights of greatness.
– Mike Flynn