Spain

Like all my blogs, this one is only going to appeal to a small percentage of the people,
and that's perfectly OK with me.

I come from way back, when music actually had a melody, indeed, a complex one.
And musicians were very proficient with playing their instruments.
People actually came to listen & see musicians play excellent music.
Music was much more than some monotonous unmelodic chant of simplistic rhyme.
Indeed, vocalists were just another instrument, not the main focal point,
and it was music, not costumes, dance, nor special effects that were the main attraction.

As a young child, I began to explore music. Like a sponge, I absorbed it and simply wasn't fully
satisfied with what was spoon fed to us with commercial pop radio stations.
Being a youngster, I was into rock music.
Initially, for me commercially, the best I could find on the radio was Jimi Hendrix
and Frank Zappa. I also listened to the Allman Brothers, Yes, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
I explored their roots, bands they were in before becoming famous. I not only had a complete collection
of the albums recorded by the bands mentioned, but also the bands they came from, like the Strawbs,
The Turtles, and King Crimson.

But, not being a rich kid, I also explored discount record bins where I could find new records for $1, or less.
There was really where I discovered much better music, that wasn't watered down for the masses.
It was a real life example of following the path less explored making all the difference.
It's where I discovered the blues. My first B.B. King album led me to explore that genre
quite extensively, and I am vert thankful for that. I still listen to the blues.

It was also there, where I found a Return To Forever album, which was my first introduction to jazz,
I was simply amazed at how superior those musicians were. Man, they could play !
I remember some months later the first time I listened to
'Live at Massey Hall', which is sometimes termed "the best concert ever".
I literally fell to the floor from exhaustion listening to the complexities of the solos.
That certainly never happened with rock, or pop.

The history of the album itself is interesting. It tool place in Canada during a Joe Louis prize fight
and what happened was that one of the musicians would take a solo, while some of the other
musicians would actually in the middle of that solo, leave the stage and go to a bar across the street
to see what was going on with the fight.
It left the soloist to fully explore musical possibilities and those great musicians took full advantage
of the uninterrupted opportunity to do so.

Anyway getting back to how I first got into jazz, it was a jazz rock fusion band, entitled Return to Forever.
The leader & composer of the music was the excellent keyboardist, Chick Corea.
Originally it also had excellent bassist, Stanley Clark, and terrific guitarist, New Jersey native, Al DiMeola. Lenny White was on drums. Later they added Joe Farrell and vocalist Flora Purim
and replaced the drummer..

Here's one such song from this later group, Spain. Early on it features the flute of Joe Farrell and later Chick on electric piano at about 5:15. Yes, that's one pianist, playing a complex rhythm with his left
hand and a dynamic melody with his right hand.

It later became somewhat of a jazz standard with several people doing it.
Here's the original;