The Chick Corea Elektric Band

I've only listened to this disc once since receiving it. My first Elektric Band CD I bought in 1988: _Eye of the Beholder_. By then Chick had a more or less permanent lineup until after _Beneath the Mask_. I think the addition of Frank Gambale after the CD in question made a huge difference for the better in the band's career. In my opinion, the best disc by this version of the Elektric Band is _Inside Out_, released I believe in 1990. The tightness of the band at that point is what is suggested by the pinball game on the cover: machine-like, which to some will be offensive, but to others will be something superhuman and awesome. I'm a bass player, and it's nice to hear where Patitucci got his start; but if you want to hear him realizing his own vision, I suggest especially his first two solo albums (_Patitucci_ and _On the Corner_). His experiments with world music also merit attention. The first two Patitucci albums happened before he moved from the Smith-Jackson Contrabass to the Yamaha stuff. If nothing else, the first Elektric Band album is a good place to hear a bit of that Ken Smith bass - though I was disappointed that some tracks seemed to lack bass guitar entirely. On the whole, a lot of tight bebop riffs and stuff, but I'd move on to _Eye of the Beholder_ and _Inside Out_ if I were you.

This album is such great music that words just don`t express. I`ve been a fan of CCEB for a long time and up to this day I had all the albums of this great band except for this one. Not that I wasn`t aware of it, but I remember hearing it 20 years ago and not enjoying it the way I enjoyed Beneath the Mask and Light Years in the early 90`s.Since I'm into music and fusion and jazz again and after reading all the great reviews about this album on Amazon, I decided to give a second chance and it really is fantastic.It is the most elektric of them all (the first five albums at least) and though I`m not a fan of eletronic music, I`ve got to say that the eletronics here pleased me very much. Weckl`s Simmons Kit is outstanding and combined with Chicks elektric piano sounds like moving to a new level, I must say.The adittion of John, Scott Henderson and Rios gives some depth to the music. The album sounds good and there is no compression of the sound here.All selections are great, there isn`t a single music that is not good!Recommended.

If you like fusion this is a great CD to have. An eclectic collage of jazz, funk, salsa, etc. with an all-star cast of some of the best professional musicians in the business. I am always amazed or in awe when I listen to the playability these guys lay down. I have Just about everything Chic Corea! You won't be disappointed!

Ah, the 80's - famously, tied with the 90's for jazz music's worst decade. One must admire musicians like Chick Corea for boldly branching out into electric instrumentation when it was still new to the scene; a brave choice which, sadly, proved to be a grave miscalculation. The production on this record is, frankly, ludicrous. Corea, one of the greatest jazz pianists to come up in the late 70's, has no room to flex any sort of musicality on his dinky keytar. The synth drums, while played impressively, nevertheless sound incredibly silly to the contemporary ear. Listening to Corea's electric band is the surreal, slightly annoying experience of listening to virtuoso musicians play an entire album's worth of material on toy instruments. With the exception of "Got a Match?" the charts are really very cheesy as well. For those getting into Corea's music, I recommend Akoustic Band as a vastly more-tasteful showcase for these master musicians.

chics albums have always had the best musicians & song writing,I own most of his material & other albums he has contributed his talents to,this artist is a bullseye for great music,& also a great sample of learning material for the musician trying to learn play jazz

WOW! My favorite Elektric Band album by Chick, strong effort. Hope he does some more of these.

Nice!!!!

By the time the mid 80's came along,it seemed Chick Corea's music career was at something of a stand still. Any chances of revisiting Return To Forever in any way was not a possibility. And so far the 80's had found Corea either absent from music and releasing only the occasional acoustic set here and again. In 1986 he re-emerged seemingly out of nowhere with the Elektric Band. This group consisted of Corea,bassist John Patitucci,drummer David Weckl and guitarists Scott Henderson and Carlos Rios. At this point in time,daring and explosive fusion music was giving way to something more poppier and melodic. It would one day be known as smooth jazz. And in many ways GRP was a major center in the development of that particular music. Chick Corea had something else in mind. In a similar manner to Herbie Hancock,he'd really become interested in the electric jazz medium even if he first encountered the music as reluctantly as Keith Jarrett had. But if he didn't have anything to say he would play some type of acoustic jazz just to keep up his playing ability. After a searching time,it finally seemed that he found what he was looking for in the way of a new electric jazz sound. Even though instrumentation and production had changed,Chick's style hadn't. Even though the music sounds different,the compositional style isn't far removed from RTF in it's heyday. You hear that especially on numbers like "Rumble","Side Walk" and "King Cockroach". There's a mixture of contemporary electronic drums and digital synthesizer programming playing challenging and very improvised fusion with strong,clever melodies and often quick tempos. On "Cool Weasel Boogie","No Zone" and "All Love" there's a slower pace to it all,allowing the melody to really build up. It also showcases the band on some non digital instrumentation as well. On "Got A Match" there's some extra swinging jazz quality to the music as well,along with some very explorative electric keyboard soloing from Corea. My own favorite song on this particular album is "Elektric City",basically what amounts up to a combination of post disco electro funk with what essentially amounts up to a melodic samba rhythm. There's also "India Town",with it's very Arabic style melodic exchanges and the closing "Silver Temple",which really gives John Patitucci to show his meddle as bass player. Miles Davis once said that electricity would'nt ruin music but rather bad music would do that. Meaning that musicians without the necessary abilities and skill to play music well would'nt make good music no matter what they played. And he's right. The musicians on this album were so strong and inventive,they were able to take instrumentation people too easily malign as "cheesy" and bought out the very best in what digital sounds had to offer. Now it's very much in the contemporary idiom of the day in terms of the sound of the instruments for sure. And that's one of it's really special qualities. Not only that but the compositions are extremely inventive and strong: they don't need any electronic flash to make it sound better than it really is. You could likely play these songs with purely acoustic instruments and they'd still sound strong. To my ears,this album has aged extremely well for those reasons. It brings Chick Corea into the digital synthesizer/drum sequencer era without sacrificing any of the musical qualities he is most known for. But even still I'd count this as one of the best albums Chick has been creatively associated with.

I bought this as a gift for my son. I was very pleased to be able to access the Chic Corea shop, as the main cd was over £100 and this was a fraction of that. My son is very pleased with it. It is slightly different to the norm. I gather as most of Chic's music isn't played on the electric guitar. I believe the style is classed as Fusion.

Great

Very good perhaps a tad down from earlier RTF albums

A very good jazz-rock album

Good