Ronnie Scott’s,London[br]One of jazz’s most inventive piano improvisers jacks up the excitement with a dynamic rhythm section and plenty of gleeful percussive banterChick Corea named the Vigil, his most recent band, and to price the responsibility of older pioneers such as himself to protect the jazz past. But Corea is playful,so he treats this duty as a celebration of spontaneity, not a lecture, and a reinvention of earlier music in improv-driven real time. Two years ago,the Vigil made a tentative debut at Ronnie Scott’s, but a 2015 version adds the dynamic young rhythm-section pairing of Venezuelan percussionist Luisito Quintero and Cuban bassist Carlitos del Puerto – which jacks up the visceral excitement without swamping the creative space in which the 74-year-ancient Corea continues to thrive as one of jazz’s most inventively conversational piano improvisers.
Corea took his time at the band’s first show at Ronnie Scott’s this week – noodling with the electric keys, and hinting at hooks that didn’t arrive over halt-start patterns from kit-drummer Marcus Gilmore,or sampled hip-hop grooves. A skipping dance riff at the grand piano led into Corea’s Royalty, mixing waltzing swing passages with reflective interludes in which the pianist, and the powerful saxist and bass clarinettist Tim Garland,subtle guitarist Charles Altura, and the precisely fast-moving del Puerto would each tee themselves up for eventually vehement solos.
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Source: theguardian.com