Chick Corea – Children’s Songs

Supertrain Music is proud to announce the availability of Maki Namekawa’s new digital release, Chick Corea’s CHILDREN’S SONGS. Known as one of the great jazz musicians of the last 50 years, Chick Corea frequently interacted with the world of classical music and published a number of pieces including a large collection of 20 pieces for piano which he called “Children’s Songs” meant, in the composer’s words, “to convey simplicity as beauty, as represented in the spirit of a child.” Corea began work on the set in 1971 and completed them in 1984 when he released his own recording of them. Seizing on the most playful of the pieces, Namekawa chose to record a subset of seven pieces (Nos.4,6,11,14,16,18 and 20) which she selected for their particular beauty.

Namekawa stated in January 2022, “Last year, during the second winter Corona lock-down when artists and performers everywhere were struggling with questions about purpose and identity, I stumbled upon a stimulating posting by Pianist and programmer Rico Gulda, the youngest son of the legendary Austrian pianist/composer Friedrich Gulda. Rico talked about the friendship and musical connection between his father and and the recently deceased Chick Corea, and included a video of his father‘s 1987 performance in Madrid of five “Children’s Songs”. I was mesmerized by the music and by Gulda’s joyful, uninhibited performance, as if I were myself listening in that Madrid hall. I immediately ordered the music, and upon opening the score, was stunned by the subtle skillfulness and simplicity of the notation, thinking back to Friedrich Gulda’s colorful and charming interpretation. Later I found a line from Chick Corea which helped unlock the puzzle: this idea “to convey simplicity as beauty, as represented in the spirit of a child”.

The “Children’s Songs” have become a kind of “Corona Project”, but I continue to feel pure joy each time I hear or play this wonderful music.

The release new recording marked the one year anniversary of the great Chick Corea’s death on 9 February 2021.