Chick Corea - My Spanish Heart (Originally released by Polydor as double vi… Read Full Bio ↴Chick Corea - My Spanish Heart
(Originally released by Polydor as double vinyl album in 1976)

Allmusic review by Thom Jurek
This 1976 release features Chick Corea in what was then, and remains, a unique musical setting. While it is truly an electric jazz fusion record, it is also the only solo recording of Corea's on which he attempted to truly explore the Latin side of his musical heritage.

My Spanish Heart marks a full-scale yet thoroughly modern exploration in the musical lineage Corea sprang from. Making full use of synthesizer technology, a string section, and synth-linked choruses -- and of two voices, his own and that of Gayle Moran -- as well as percussionist Don Alias, drummer Steve Gadd, a full brass section, and the sparse use of Jean-Luc Ponty (Armando's Rumba) and bassist Stanley Clarke, Corea largely succeeded in creating a Spanish/Latin tapestry of sounds, textures, impressions, and even two suites: Spanish Fantasy and El Bozo.
The string quartet performs its intricate and gorgeously elegant arrangements with verve and grace on Day Danse and on the suites, with Corea's contrapuntal pianism creating a sharp yet warm contrast to the shifting tempos, wild interval leaps, and shimmering timbral balances that occur. The only pieces that sound dated on this double-album-length set are the fusion pieces, which are, with their production and knotty stop-and-start modulations and key signature equations -- complete with aggressive arpeggios and scalar linguistics -- destined to be limited in expression by the voice of their use of technology. Thus, Love Castles, The Gardens, and Night Streets suffer from their rather cheesy production despite their tastefully done double fusion semantics (jazz to rock to Latin music).

There is no doubt that Corea's musicianship was up to any task he chose at this point in time. Simply put, he was compositionally and intellectually at the top of his game, and this record, despite the many of his that haven't aged well, still surprises, despite its production shortcomings.

Track listing

Side one
1. "Love Castle" – 4:45
2. "The Gardens" – 3:12
3. "Day Danse" – 4:27
4. "My Spanish Heart" – 1:37

Side two
1. "Night Streets" – 6:08
2. "The Hilltop" – 6:16
3. "The Sky" – 4:57
4. "Wind Danse" – 5:00

Side three
1. "Armando's Rhumba" – 5:19
El Bozo - 12:02:
1. "Prelude to El Bozo" – 1:34
2. "El Bozo, Part 1 – 2:52
3. "El Bozo, Part 2" – 2:03
4. "El Bozo, Part 3" – 5:03

Side four
Spanish Fantasy - 20:42
1. "Spanish Fantasy, Part 1" – 6:06
2. "Spanish Fantasy, Part 2" – 5:14
3. "Spanish Fantasy, Part 3" – 3:06
4. "Spanish Fantasy, Part 4" – 5:16

Bonus track
1. "The Clouds" – 4:33

Note: "The Sky" was omitted in CD editions released during 1980s and 1990s due to efforts to make the whole double-LP to fit to one CD. This track is included in recent CD editions (the absolute length of audio CDs has increased over the years due to more efficient designing systems) along with the previously unreleased track "The Clouds".
(All songs composed by Chick)

Personnel

* Chick Corea - Piano, Organ, Synthesizer, percussion, vocals, Production, Arrangement, Composer
* Stanley Clarke - Double bass, Bass Guitar
* Steve Gadd - drums
* Narada Michael Walden - drums, Handclaps
* Don Alias - percussion
* Jean-Luc Ponty - Violin
* Gayle Moran - vocals
* String quartet
o Connie Kupka - Violin
o Barry Socher - Violin
o Carole Mukogawa - Viola
o David Speltz - Cello
* Brass section
o Stuart Blumberg - Trumpet
o John Rosenburg - Trumpet
o John Thomas - Trumpet
o Ron Moss - Trombone