Chick Corea - Chick Corea Elektric Band (Pochette ouvrante) [2 vinyls]

The Chick Corea Elektric Band is where a jazz legend went all-electric and assembled a band good enough to make it the start of a whole new career, now on 2LP.

Corea had already reshaped fusion once with Return to Forever, but in 1986 he wanted something faster and more virtuoso, so he formed a band with musicians still mostly unknown outside the session circuit: Dave Weckl on drums, John Patitucci on bass, with guitar handled by Scott Henderson or Carlos Rios depending on the song. Weckl and Patitucci would go on to become two of the most influential rhythm section players of their generation, and you can hear exactly why on this album, technical to the point of bordering on exhibitionism but never losing the underlying groove.

Rumble opens the album at full speed, keyboards and rhythm section tuning into something closer to a sprint than a song. Got a Match? allows Patitucci's bass to carry real melodic weight rather than simply marking time, Cool Weasel Boogie earns its ridiculous title with an approach that refuses to take itself too seriously, and Elektric City closes the album with Corea's most purely synthetic statement here.

The band Corea built for this album stayed together for years. This is where this story begins, all velocity and unapologetic.