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Classic Recordings, Chick Corea - Children's Songs

As I sit down to listen to Chick Corea’s Children’s Songs (1984) from beginning to end, I’m struck by a strange familiarity within the album’s first few seconds. My initial thought is that I’ve heard this music before, that’s for certain — Corea had already performed the composition, entitled ‘Children’s Song’, with vibraphonist Gary Burton on Crystal Silence (1972), the first studio recording made with his lifelong duo collaborator for ECM, as well as on Return To Forever’s venerated debut, Light As A Feather (1973), with its unmistakable melody transposed to flute — but never in the unaccompanied setting as it appears here.

“I wrote the first song in 1971 to convey simplicity as beauty, as represented in the spirit of a child,” marked Corea in the preface to the published edition of the album’s transcriptions. For all its earnest simplicity, the pianist’s vision is one akin to a spiritual journey or quest, all the way from the birth of the soul to the awakening of consciousness. The key to understanding this unassuming collection, comprising twenty short pieces of progressive difficulty and technical skill, is to comprehend the late musician’s intentions for recording it in the first place. 

Away from the romantic ideals of a work like Schumann’s Kinderszenen, in which the German composer sought to depict childhood’s uncomplicated nostalgia through a batch of thirteen piano movements for adult performers, Corea’s opus is another kettle of fish altogether. Long inspired by various transcendental and otherworldly themes after converting to Scientology in 1968, soon the fusion master’s career would be touching on everything from esoteric spirituality to full-blown sci-fi. Listeners have their favourite ‘phases’ of Chick: Return to Forever, the Elektric Band — heck, even the flamenco material ain’t half bad! — but it’s in this solo context where his unique keyboard wizardry takes centre-stage, however, that I believe the flame of his eternal spirit burns the brightest. 

Chick Corea
Image: Concord Records

As for the opening number, which sets the tone perfectly for the series that follows, its hushed phrases are both gentle and persuasive; a protective ostinato, held afloat by a confident pedal in the bass. By way of introduction, it’s akin to an infant opening its eyes to catch a glimpse of the new morning, slowly learning what to make of the day to come. With one mystifying idea at a time, Corea begins to brandish his originative flair, revealing a compositional palette of atypical dimensions.

This repetitious motif lulls the listener into an odd sense of relaxation, allowing the main tune to draw our attention further. A delicate contrast of alternating colours orbits around the piece’s tonal centre — not quite modal, note quite chromatic, either — before giving way to a disarming mimicry between the two melodies; Corea’s fingers quickly interlock, yet they still remain independent from one another. The left-hand pattern corresponds with those ever-questioning refrains from the right, culminating in that eponymous feeling of juvenile wonder. Like so, it all draws to a subdued close in just under 2 minutes. 


Image: Toshi Sakurai

I wonder if Chick’s love of Bartók — a major influence on him since birth, practically — had any part to play as a guiding light throughout this work. Of course, there’s the distinctive manner in which he employs various “mikrokosmatic” devices as the programme unfolds. Despite their brevity, each sequence captures an assortment of opposing atmospheres, ranging at times from whimsical to introspective. Corea’s creative use of pentatonic scales allows him to craft melodies as a composer that seem simple but captivating, while his incorporation of unusual time signatures and cross-rhythms adds layers of rhythmic complexity and charm to his performance.

Finding specific words to describe the music of Children’s Songs would probably result in a list as multifaceted as the recording itself. I can think of three: curious, playful and naive. These songs weren’t necessarily composed for children, nor were they written about them. Nevertheless, each one of Corea’s twenty pieces is a child in its own way, with every musical puzzle bearing similar glimmers of untouched possibility, actively imaginative and fertile in delight.

In a relatively short time, Chick Corea expresses intricate emotions within a compact form. That’s the thing about childhood — it's over before you know it. And, where it ends… poetry begins. 

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

Available Format: Sheet Music