Eliane Elias: Mirror Mirror
Editor's Choice
Author: Peter Quinn
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Chick Corea (p) |
Label: |
Candid Records CCD 30042 |
Magazine Review Date: |
November/2021 |
Media Format: |
CD, DL |
RecordDate: |
Rec. date not stated |
Asked to name some of the great jazz piano duo albums and you might think of An Evening with Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan’s Our Delights, or maybe Kenny Barron and Mulgrew Miller’s The Art of Piano Duo – Live. To that list must now be added Mirror Mirror, a stunning collaboration that sees Eliane Elias team up with the late Chick Corea and Chucho Valdés.
The album is bookended by standards performed with Corea, an energising interpretation of his own ‘Armando's Rhumba’ plus a consummate take on the Harry Warren/Mack Gordon evergreen, ‘There Will Never Be Another You’. Of the other two tracks recorded with Corea, both have strong associations with the tenor saxist, Joe Henderson – the Kenny Dorham standard ‘Blue Bossa’ originally featured as the opening track on Henderson’s 1963 Blue Note album, Page One, while the album’s title track (composed by Corea) similarly acted as the title track on Henderson’s 1980 quartet album on MPS which featured Corea on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. The three tracks recorded with Valdés – the heart-meltingly lovely voicings of Armando Manzanero’s ‘Esta Tarde Vi Llover’, the risk-taking in Alejandro Sanz’s trademark flamenco-influenced ballad, ‘Corazón Partío’, and the gorgeous bolero ‘Sabor A Mi’ penned by the Mexican composer and singer Álvaro Carrillo – are characterised by a hyper-romantic outpouring of notes in which Cuban and Brazilian rhythms intertwine in a loving embrace. Usually combining her mellifluous, understated vocals with her towering pianism, this is Elias’s first piano-only recording since her 1995 album with Herbie Hancock, Solos and Duets. It’s an album that immediately installs itself as one of the brightest jewels in her remarkable discography.
Jazzwise Full Club
- Latest print and digital issues
- Digital archive since 1997
- Download tracks from bonus compilation albums throughout the year
- Reviews Database access
From £9.08 / month
SubscribeJazzwise Digital Club
- Latest digital issues
- Digital archive since 1997
- Download tracks from bonus compilation albums during the year
- Reviews Database access