JAZZ REVIEW : At Coach House, Corea Shows He’s Best in Triplicate

Pianist Chick Corea, who gained his widest audience with electronic jazz/rock bands in the ‘70s, recorded his first trio album in 1967. Since then, he has periodically used the format as a measure of his artistic progress, exploring the fringes of the avant-garde in 1971 as part of Circle (which later added a fourth musician, Anthony Braxton, on saxophone) and interpreting Thelonious Monk on 1981’s “Trio Music.”

It’s fitting, then, that his current Akoustic Band (he also fronts a larger Elektric Band) is a trio. The group’s first set Sunday at the Coach House was a showcase of virtuosity, demonstrating that Corea has neatly synthesized the various directions his music has taken over the years and has come up with one of the keyboard’s most individual voices.

Opening the evening with the statement that the crowd was in for an hour of “fooling around,” Corea jumped into John Coltrane’s “Chasin’ the Trane,” moving easily across the landscape set by bassist John Patitucci and drummer Tom Brechtlein.

Patitucci scored early with a frantic, ants-in-his-pants solo that brought the evening’s first wild ovation. The bassist, who has a rich tone and a strong supportive walk, prefers to improvise in the upper reaches of his instrument’s range. Though he hits these notes with the same clarity and speed he shows when providing accompaniment, his solos could use some of the richness that he pulls from the bass’s lower register.

Corea and Patitucci demonstrated their empathy during the standard “How Deep Is the Ocean,” intertwining their sounds in a warm, sensitive show of interplay. Corea’s improvisation showed a carefree abundance of technique that he applied with imagination and a sense of humor.

Brechtlein, using his cymbals for punctuation, played to the beat, taking time to adjust his sound to avoid burying the other two musicians. A recent addition to the threesome, the drummer showed a savvy way with the timekeeping chores and an all-out attack during solos, which saw him concentrating on tom-tom pounding, something that might have been more appropriate for the Elektric Band. There were times when the drummer could have showed more subtlety--he never once used brushes, even when the material and tempo seemed to call for it, as on a relaxed “Sophisticated Lady.” But his spirit and drive were surely crowd pleasers.

Corea was at his spotless best throughout. His unaccompanied intros were masterful mixes of classically influenced figures and jazz rhythms that slyly suggested the upcoming tune. Smooth romantic lines gave way to swirling clusters of clashing dissonance or droning single-key pounds. His crisp right-hand runs were paced by spare, sharply stated chords from the left. At times, he reached inside the keyboard to pluck the strings with his fingers, creating almost electric tones that he used in support of Patitucci.

Ironically, the group closed its set with Corea’s “Quartet No. 2, Part 2,” but the lack of a fourth instrument was no hinderance. Patitucci began a long solo with his bow before switching to a pizzacato burst, sliding double-stop chords and plucking some funky gut-bucket swing, during which he kept rhythm by slaps on the neck of his instrument.

The encore tune, Corea’s well-known “Spain,” saw Brechtlein trading theme-and-variations with his keyboard player, who has always been at his most rhythmic when playing Latin-tinged numbers.

It’s time for Corea to face facts. Three is his lucky number.