SONG PREMIERE: Chick Corea Luminously Takes On Thelonious Monk’s Classic “Blue Monk”

Concord Jazz is set to release Chick Corea‘s new live album, Plays on August 28. On this spirited 2-CD/3-LP solo set, the acclaimed pianist engages with several of his favorite composers — from Mozart to Monk, Jobim to Stevie Wonder – as well as with enthusiastic audiences in concert halls across the Europe and U.S..

“Blue Monk is a blues that Monk wrote that has become kind of an anthem. ‘cause its a real simple lick. It kind of embodies — it distills a lot of what Monk is about into a simple blues, “remarks Corea. “I’ve been playing it for a lifetime but it’s a go to tune that just opens up worlds somehow on this basic form of the blues — no one better than Monk to pen something like that.”

Glide is honored to premiere Corea’s live take of “Blue Monk” (below) off of Plays, an encapsulating version where one master’s tone and elegance rival those of the original legendary composer.

“I’m part of a lineage,” explains Corea. “The thing that I do is similar to what Monk did, to what Bill Evans and Duke Ellington did, and moving back into another era of music, what Bach and Mozart and Beethoven did. These were all pianists who were composers at heart, who gathered their own musicians together to play. I feel so proud to be a part of that tradition.”

The composers featured on Plays represent the wide spectrum of Corea’s keyboard influences. He delves far back into the classical repertoire for pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Domenico Scarlatti, Alexander Scriabin and Frédéric Chopin that alone represent 300 years of musical history. His formative jazz influences include Bill Evans and, of course, Thelonious Monk, with the bossa nova beauty of Antônio Carlos Jobim adding the always-important Latin tinges that have long accented Corea’s music. The Great American Songbook offers the Gershwins and Jerome Kern, while Stevie Wonder appears to hint at a more modern pop sensibility.

Plays Track Listing:

Disc 1: