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My Spanish Heart

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AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Albums:

My Spanish Heart

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  • Artist: Chick Corea
  • Rating: StarStarStarStarHalf Star
  • Release Date: 1976 10
  • Total Time: 67:33
  • Type: Instrumental
  • Genre: Jazz

Review

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 -- 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 Bozo." The string quartet performs its intricate and gorgeously elegant arrangements with verve and grace on "Day Danse" and on the suites, with Corea's contrapuntal pianism creating a sharp yet warm contrast to the shifting tempos, wild interval leaps, and shimmering timbral balances that occur. The only pieces that sound dated on this double-album-length set are the fusion pieces, which are, with their production and knotty stop-and-start modulations and key signature equations -- complete with aggressive arpeggios and scalar linguistics -- destined to be limited in expression by the voice of their use of technology. Thus, "Love Castles," "The Gardens," and "Night Streets" suffer from their rather cheesy production despite their tastefully done double fusion semantics (jazz to rock to Latin music). There is no doubt that Corea's musicianship was up to any task he chose at this point in time. Simply put, he was compositionally and intellectually at the top of his game, and this record, despite the many of his that haven't aged well, still surprises despite its production shortcomings. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

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Wikipedia on Answers.com:

My Spanish Heart

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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
My Spanish Heart
Studio album by Chick Corea
Released 1976
Recorded October, 1976 at Kendun Recorders Burbank, California
Genre Jazz
Length 77:03
Label Polydor Records
Verve Records (reissue)
Chick Corea chronology
The Leprechaun
(1976)		 My Spanish Heart
(1976)		 The Mad Hatter
(1978)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 4.5/5 stars[1]

My Spanish Heart is an album recorded by Chick Corea and released in 1976.

The album combines jazz fusion pieces and more traditional Latin music pieces. The album includes use of full brass and string sections on some tracks. "El Bozo" suite relies heavily on the use of synthesizers while "Spanish Fantasy" suite is mostly acoustic. The first four tracks form a suite as well.

My Spanish Heart is among the most successfully received Corea's albums among music critics. It received a five star review from Down Beat magazine.

Contents

Track listing

All tracks composed by Chick Corea

Side one

  1. "Love Castle" – 4:45
  2. "The Gardens" – 3:12
  3. "Day Danse" – 4:27
  4. "My Spanish Heart" – 1:37
  5. "Night Streets" - 6:08

Side two

  1. "The Hilltop" – 6:16
  2. "The Sky" – 4:57
  3. "Wind Danse" – 5:00

Side three

  1. "Armando's Rhumba" – 5:19

El Bozo - 12:02:

  1. "Prelude to El Bozo" – 1:34
  2. "El Bozo, Part 1 – 2:52
  3. "El Bozo, Part 2" – 2:03
  4. "El Bozo, Part 3" – 5:03

Side four

Spanish Fantasy - 20:42

  1. "Spanish Fantasy, Part 1" – 6:06
  2. "Spanish Fantasy, Part 2" – 5:14
  3. "Spanish Fantasy, Part 3" – 3:06
  4. "Spanish Fantasy, Part 4" – 5:16

Bonus track

  1. "The Clouds" – 4:33

Note: "The Sky" was omitted in CD editions released during 1980s and 1990s due to efforts to make the whole double-LP to fit to one CD. This track is included in recent CD editions (the absolute length of audio CDs has increased over the years due to more efficient designing systems) along with the previously unreleased track "The Clouds". Due to consolidation in the record industry over the later part of the 20th century, recent issues of the album are now on Verve Records, a label that specializes in jazz.

Personnel

Charts

Chart (1976) Peak
position
Billboard Top Jazz Albums 2
Billboard Top Pop Albums 55

References

  1. ^ Jurek, Thom (2011 [last update]). "My Spanish Heart - Chick Corea | AllMusic". allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r137064. Retrieved 3 July 2011. 
v · d · eChick Corea
As Leader
Tones for Joan's Bones  • Now He Sings, Now He Sobs  • Is  • Sundance  • The Song of Singing  • The Leprechaun  • My Spanish Heart • The Mad Hatter  • Secret Agent  • Friends  • Tap Step  • Three Quartets  • Touchstone  • Again and Again  • Summer Night - live  • Chick Corea Akoustic Band  • Alive  • Time Warp  • Rendezvous in New York  • The Ultimate Adventure  • Super Trio  • Five Peace Band Live
Solo albums
Piano Improvisations Vol. 1  • Piano Improvisations Vol. 2  • Delphi I  • Delphi II & III  • Expressions  • Children's Songs  • Solo Piano - Originals  • Solo Piano - Standards
Collaborations
An Evening With Herbie Hancock & Chick Corea: In Concert  • CoreaHancock  • Chick Corea & Lionel Hampton in Concert  • Voyage  • Play  • The Mozart Sessions  • The Enchantment  • Duet
with Gary Burton
with Circle
Circling In  • Circulus  • Circle 1: Live in Germany Concert  • Paris Concert  • Circle 2: Gathering
with Miles Davis
with Elektric Band
The Chick Corea Elektric Band  • Light Years  • Eye of the Beholder  • Inside Out  • Beneath the Mask  • Elektric Band II: Paint the World  • Live From Elario's (First Gig)  • To the Stars
with Joe Farrell
with Stan Getz
with Herbie Mann
Latin Mann Afro to Bossa to Blues  • Standing Ovation at Newport  • The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd  • Monday Night at the Village Gate
with Blue Mitchell
with Origin
Live at the Blue Note  • A Week at The Blue Note  • Change  • corea.concerto – Spain For Sextet & Orchestra – Piano Concerto No.1
with Return to Forever
with Others
Flute By-Laws  • Moto Grosso Feio  • Turkish Women At The Bath  • The Creeper  • Merry-Go-Round  • Going to the Rainbow  • Round Trip  • Echoes of an Era  • Big Band
Compilations
The Complete "Is" Sessions  • Chick Corea/Herbie Hancock/Keith Jarret/McCoy Tyner  • Best of Chick Corea  • Very Best of Chick Corea  • Herbie Mann-Chick Corea The complete Latin band Sessions
Soundtracks
Related

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