Dazed and confused? Not me. I’m just Lost in the Cheese Aisle.

Monday, April 9, 2018

INNER SPACE

As I was driving around the back roads of North Cobb County a few days ago, I decided to listen to some music. Old music. Music from my Semi-Degenerate College Years. And I didn’t have to lift a finger: I simply said, “Hey, Siri - play Chick Corea.” And Siri complied, pulling up one of my favorite Chick Corea compositions: “Guijira,” from the Inner Space album.

Inner Space was my first introduction to Corea’s work. I first discovered it in the spring of my sophomore year of college, back in 1972, when it was a newly released vinyl double album. Most of the tracks had actually been recorded six years earlier.

It was fascinating. Real jazz - modern jazz, but nothing like the jazz-rock fusion that was becoming popular among my age cohort. And the personnel! Hubert Laws, Woody Shaw, Joe Farrell - each one hugely talented individually, but together in the ensemble directed by Corea, greater than the sum of their parts.

“Guijira” was a particular favorite of mine, a track that featured Hubert Laws’s flute, Chick Corea’s masterful piano, and a soaring trumpet solo by Woody Shaw, all with a subtle Latin foundation. Forty-six years later, and it still gives me the shivers.

All those years ago, I would gently pull the LP from its sleeve, place it on my turntable, and carefully drop the tonearm onto the spinning vinyl - and music would soar forth from my speakers. But no more. My copy of Inner Space is gone, having been deep-sixed along with all my other vinyl LP’s earlier this year... a casualty of the Great Purge.

And yet I still have my Inner Space. Now it resides on my computer’s hard drive and in my mobile devices in the form of a string of ones and zeroes. And I can call it forth with the touch of a button... or with the simple command, “Hey, Siri.”

2 comments:

treppenwitz said...

I have a similar obsession with his 'Light As A Feather' album. I've woned it on vinyl, cassette, CD (not sure if it was ever released on 8-track) and now is part of my apple music library.

Flora Purim's haunting vocals combined with the incredibly tight execution of Chick's legendary creative ideas, still have the power to make me stop whatever I'm doing and become completely immersed in the music.

Elisson said...

I had that one on vinyl for 45 years (!) since it went the way of all vinyl. Great album!