68:48 CD reissue"},"label":{"wt":"[[Solid State Records (jazz label)|Solid State]]
SR 3157
[[Blue Note Records|Blue Note]]
1988 CD reissue {CDP 7 90055 2}"},"producer":{"wt":"[[Sonny Lester]]"},"prev_title":{"wt":"[[Tones for Joan's Bones]]"},"prev_year":{"wt":"1968"},"next_title":{"wt":"[[Is (album)|Is]]"},"next_year":{"wt":"1969"}},"i":0}}]}" id="mwAg">1968 studio albumby Chick Corea
Now He Sings, Now He Sobs | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | December 1968 [1] | |||
Recorded | March 14, 19 and 27, 1968 | |||
Studio | A&R Studios, New York City | |||
Genre | Jazz, post-bop, free jazz | |||
Length | 40:24Original LP 68:48 CD reissue | |||
Label | Solid State SR 3157 Blue Note 1988 CD reissue {CDP 7 90055 2} | |||
Producer | Sonny Lester | |||
Chick Corea chronology | ||||
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Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is the second studio album by Chick Corea, released in December 1968 on Solid State Records. It features Corea in a trio with bassist Miroslav Vitouš and drummer Roy Haynes. In 1988 it was reissued on CD by Blue Note with eight bonus tracks recorded at the same sessions. [2] [3]
All of the tracks on the original album are improvisations based on Corea’s ideas, with some being entirely free improvisations (such as "The Law of Falling and Catching Up" and "Fragments"). [4] Vitous and Haynes would reunite with Corea as an acoustic trio on Trio Music (ECM, 1982), Trio Music, Live in Europe (ECM, 1986), and The Trio Live From The Country Club (Stretch, 1996). [5] [6] [7] The trio also backed saxophonist Toshiyuki Honda on the album Dream (Eastworld, 1983). [8]
The bonus tracks released on the CD include a cover of Thelonious Monk's composition "Pannonica" and the Wood/Mellin standard "My One and Only Love". All eight pieces had originally been issued in 1975 on Circling In , a Blue Note “twofer”. [2]
According to Corea, the album title comes from the I Ching , which contains a section called "Now He Sings; Now He Sobs — Now He Beats The Drum; Now He Stops." He recalled: "The poetry of that phrase fit the message of the trio's music... the gamut of life experiences — the whole human picture and range of emotions." [9]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
MusicHound Jazz | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
DownBeat's reviewer awarded the original release zero stars, refusing to assign a rating because he didn't know what to think of it. [14] [15]
In 1999, the single "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs" was given the Grammy Hall of Fame Award. [16]
In a review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the album as "the place where [Corea] put all the pieces in motion for his long, adventurous career," and wrote: "There's an intellectual rigor balanced by an instinctual hunger that makes for music that's lively and challenging while also containing a patina of comfort... it captures the pianist at the brink: it's kinetic, exciting, and filled with endless possibilities." [10]
The authors of The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings awarded the album a full 4 stars, calling it "a fine, solid jazz set with some intelligently handled standard material." [12]
The editors of MusicHound Jazz awarded the album a full 5 stars, and writer Ralph Burnett noted that it "features Corea's best original writing and a superb trio." [11]
Will Layman of PopMatters included the recording in his article "The 11 Best Chick Corea Albums," and stated: "Can an artist sum up their career in what was essentially a debut? Yes." [17] On a similar note, The Guardian's John Fordham included the album in his list of Corea's "10 Greatest Recordings," noting that it "found him at a crossroads, pulled between the swing of the classic acoustic jazz-piano trio and the more free-associative future he would soon briefly explore," and praising his "powerful and intuitive partners," who "follow his every move." [18]
Author and drummer Michael Stephans called the album "a piano trio classic," and commented: "Many musicians and listeners alike believe it to be one of the greatest modern jazz trio records ever made. Corea is in top form, and Haynes and Vitous are responsive, supportive, and daring in their accompaniment and solos." [19]
Writer and historian Loren Schoenberg remarked: "it is refreshing to go back to this... to hear how original his style sounded bounding out of the context of the 1960s... Corea's compositions and free-flowing concept set him apart from the pack even at this early date." [20]
The singer Bilal named it among his 25 favorite albums, explaining: "I think that's just one of the best jazz trio albums ever. Mostly every jazz musician I talk to love that album. It's just a classic." [21]
All tracks are originals by the performers, except where noted.
Original release
1988 CD release
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba" and "Windows" are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, Corea is considered to have been one of the foremost pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.
Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš is a Czech jazz bassist.
Brian Blade is an American jazz drummer, composer, and session musician.
Roy Owen Haynes is an American jazz drummer. He is among the most recorded drummers in jazz. In a career lasting over 80 years, he has played swing, bebop, jazz fusion, avant-garde jazz and is considered a pioneer of jazz drumming. "Snap Crackle" was a nickname given to him in the 1950s.
Barry Altschul is a free jazz and hard bop drummer who first came to notice in the late 1960s for performing with pianists Paul Bley and Chick Corea.
Return to Forever is a jazz fusion album by Chick Corea recorded over two days in February 1972 and released on ECM September that same year—Corea's fourth release for the label. It is the debut of a quintet featuring singer Flora Purim, flautist/saxophonist Joe Farrell, bassist Stanley Clarke and percussionist Airto Moreira, who would go on to record under the name Return to Forever.
Tones for Joan's Bones is the debut album by American jazz pianist Chick Corea, recorded in 1966 and released on Vortex Records—a subsidiary of Atlantic—in April 1968. The quintet features saxophonist Joe Farrell, trumpeter Woody Shaw, and rhythm section Steve Swallow and Joe Chambers.
In Concert, Zürich, October 28, 1979 is a live double album by pianist Chick Corea and vibraphonist Gary Burton recorded at the Limmathaus in Zürich and released on ECM the following year—the duo's third release for the label, following Crystal Silence (1973) and Duet (1979).
Chick Corea (1941–2021) was an American jazz pianist and composer born on June 12, 1941, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Corea started learning piano at age four. He recorded his first album, Tones for Joan's Bones, in 1966. Corea performed with Blue Mitchell, Willie Bobo, Cal Tjader and Herbie Mann in the mid-1960s. In the late 1960s he performed with Stan Getz and Miles Davis. The National Endowment for the Arts states, "He ranked with Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett as one of the leading piano stylists to emerge after Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner, and he composed such notable jazz standards as 'Spain', 'La Fiesta', and 'Windows'."
Rendezvous in New York is an album by American pianist Chick Corea that was released on April 22, 2003 by Corea's label, Stretch Records. The recording took place at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City over the course of three weeks. Corea reunited with members from nine bands that he played with in the past. Musicians included Terence Blanchard, Gary Burton, Roy Haynes, Bobby McFerrin, Joshua Redman, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Miroslav Vitous.
Akoustic Band is the first album by the Chick Corea Akoustic Band, featuring Chick Corea with John Patitucci and Dave Weckl. The group was nominated and received the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Group at the 32nd Annual Grammy Awards.
Universal Syncopations is an album by Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš recorded between 2002–2003 and released on ECM later that year.
Circling In is a double LP collection by jazz pianist Chick Corea featuring performances recorded between 1968 and 1970, including the first recordings by the group Circle, which was first released on the Blue Note label in 1975. It contains trio performances by Corea with Miroslav Vitouš and Roy Haynes recorded in March 1968, which were later added to the CD reissue of Now He Sings, Now He Sobs as bonus tracks, and performances by permutations of the band Circle recorded in April and July 1970 some of which were later released as Early Circle.
Trio Music is a double album by Chick Corea, recorded in November 1981 and released by ECM Records in October of the following year. The trio features bassist Miroslav Vitous and drummer Roy Haynes.
A.R.C. is an album by American jazz pianist Chick Corea, British jazz bassist Dave Holland and American jazz drummer Barry Altschul, recorded over January 11–13, 1971 and released on ECM later that year.
Paris-Concert is a live double album by the short-lived jazz band Circle recorded at the Maison de l'O.R.T.F. in Paris on February 21, 1971 and released on ECM the following year. The quartet consists of reed player Anthony Braxton and rhythm section Chick Corea, David Holland and Barry Altschul.
Trio Music, Live in Europe is a live album by American jazz pianist Chick Corea recorded in Switzerland in September 1984 and released on ECM in October 1986. The trio features rhythm section Miroslav Vitouš and Roy Haynes.
"Windows" is a jazz composition in 3
4 time by Chick Corea. It has become a jazz standard, and is among the earliest of Corea's compositions to have achieved this status.
Marcus Gilmore is an American jazz drummer. In 2009, New York Times critic Ben Ratliff included Gilmore in his list of drummers who are "finding new ways to look at the drum set, and at jazz itself", saying, "he created that pleasant citywide buzz when someone new and special blows through New York clubs and jam sessions".
Trilogy 2 is a live album by Chick Corea with Christian McBride and Brian Blade. It was first released in 2018 in Japan on the Universal Music label, and in 2019 by Concord Records. The album is a follow-up to Trilogy, which was issued in 2013.