“Piano solo is not something I do very often, I enjoy it, it gives me a chance to do whatever I'm going to do. I have no plan for this evening, so welcome to my living room,” says Chick Corea at the outset of CD 1 of this two CD set. Recorded live, these discs break with the tradition of ‘piano solo’ albums in that they include Corea's genial spoken introductions, indicative of the easy rapport he has with his French audience and the tacit understanding between performer and audience that as one of jazz's great musicians, he can do more or less what he wants. From noodling beginnings, “I have to begin by getting a feel for this piano… seeing how it feels,” Corea improvises into a themeless ‘How Deep is the Ocean’, that presages a wholly absorbing concert of Corea classics, jazz standards, classical pieces (Scriabin and Bartok), children's songs and impressionistic portraits of Krakow, Casablanca, Easton (Maryland) and Vilnius. There are high spots along the way – Monk's ‘Round Midnight’ is affectionately brought alive, along with ‘Blue Monk’ – and several of the 12 ‘Children's Songs’ performances have a brevity that brings to the fore Corea's inherent melodicism, a feature of his playing that has contributed to making his style so timeless.