Spanish

Throughout his storied career, iconic pianist/keyboardist Chick Corea has explored a wealth of music from across borders both geographical and stylistic. Time and again over the decades he’s returned to what he calls his “Spanish Heart” – the Spanish, Latin and flamenco traditions that have indelibly shaped his unmistakable sound. Now, with his new album Antidote, recorded with his brand-new Spanish Heart Band, Corea once again delves deeply into the Latin side of his musical heritage with a stunning collection of musicians from Spain, Cuba, Venezuela and the U.S.

This 1976 release features Chick Corea in what was then, and remains, a unique musical setting. While it is truly an electric jazz fusion record, it is also the only solo recording of Corea's on which he attempted to truly explore the Latin side of his musical heritage. My Spanish Heart marks a full-scale yet thoroughly modern exploration in the musical lineage Corea sprang from. Making full use of synthesizer technology, a string section, and synth-linked choruses – and of two voices, his own and that of Gayle Moran – as well as percussionist Don Alias, drummer Steve Gadd, a full brass section, and the sparse use of Jean-Luc Ponty ("Armando's Rumba") and bassist Stanley Clark, Corea largely succeeded in creating a Spanish/Latin tapestry of sounds, textures, impressions, and even two suites: "Spanish Fantasy" and "El Boro."

This 1976 release features Chick Corea in what was then, and remains, a unique musical setting. While it is truly an electric jazz fusion record, it is also the only solo recording of Corea's on which he attempted to truly explore the Latin side of his musical heritage. My Spanish Heart marks a full-scale yet thoroughly modern exploration in the musical lineage Corea sprang from. Making full use of synthesizer technology, a string section, and synth-linked choruses – and of two voices, his own and that of Gayle Moran – as well as percussionist Don Alias, drummer Steve Gadd, a full brass section, and the sparse use of Jean-Luc Ponty ("Armando's Rumba") and bassist Stanley Clarke, Corea largely succeeded in creating a Spanish/Latin tapestry of sounds, textures, impressions, and even two suites: "Spanish Fantasy" and "El Boro."

Stephen Hough’s latest solo album takes us on a colourful tour of Spain and all things Spanish: a kaleidoscope of slants and angles on the soul and character of a once exotic and remote country. Antonio Soler (whose innumerable sonatas were considered sufficiently outlandish to earn him the sobriquet ‘the devil dressed as a monk’) sets the scene for a sequence of impressionist wonders by Granados, Albéniz and Mompou (a disc of whose pianistic micro-masterpieces—CDA66963—won for Stephen Hough the 1998 Gramophone Instrumental Award), and Federico Longas’s insinuatingly virtuosic charmer Aragón.