There were a lot of different directions in jazz being tried out at that time. It was a period of exploration with several great exploratory leaders like Miles, Coltrane, Ornette, Mingus, and many more. I was into that atmosphere of trying out new approaches. And I was also checking out Bartók, Stravinsky, Stockhausen, Alban Berg, and some other composers who were also trying new things. – Chick Corea in regards to this album. 

Chick Corea was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1941. (Real name, Armando Anthony Corea.) His father was a jazz trumpeter who played around Boston. Chick sat down at the piano for the first time at four years old. He also played drums, including in a drum and bugle corps, but keys have been his primary instrument.

After moving to NYC and spending time at Juilliard, Chick started to play professionally in the ’60’s. What I did not know till I researched this post is that his first professional gig was with Cab Calloway, a jazz and big band leader.

Corea quickly fell in with the cream of New York musicians, first recording an album called Tones for Joan’s Bones in 1966. He was accompanied on this album by, among others, trumpeter Woody Shaw. Prior to recording his second album, he did work with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and, in 1967, Sarah Vaughn.

But it was the release of his 1968 album, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs that really put Corea on the map. (I find it interesting to think that while much of the world was at that point absorbing the Beatles’ White Album, there was a whole cadre of musicians for whom it might as well not have even existed.)

I’ll skip the long introductory tune “Steps – What Was,” to give you a shorter taste of this album. (But if you dig this stuff, check out the whole album on the Spotify link below.) The song is “Matrix” and Chick is accompanied by drummer Roy Haynes and Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous. Haynes, a fellow Bostonian, has played with everybody and his cousin from Charlie Parker to Stan Getz.

Vitous was a founding member of Weather Report and also has a lengthy resume of greats. Of his work on this album, Wikipedia says,”{It] shows his strong rhythmic sense, innovative walking lines, and intensity and abandon as an improviser.”

Next up, the title track. This song won a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999. Some bloggers like to describe how this instrument interacts with that instrument or what a player is “doing.” I suck at that. Suggest just listening to it, draw your own conclusions.

As to the name of the album and inspiration for songs, Corea told the Grammy Hall this: “The title Now He Sings, Now He Sobs comes from I Ching, an ancient Chinese book that I was into in the ’60s when I was studying different philosophies and religions. It’s also known as the “Book Of Changes.”

And it has a section named “Now He Sings; Now He Sobs — Now He Beats The Drum; Now He Stops.” The poetry of that phrase fit the message of the trio’s music on Now He Sings, Now He Sobs to me. You know, the gamut of life experiences — the whole human picture and range of emotions.”

Chick went on to play with Miles Davis (replacing Herbie Hancock) on the seminal fusion albums Bitches Brew, Filles de Kilimanjaro, and In a Silent Way among others. He later formed the great and super-popular fusion band Return to Forever whose most well-known incarnation included Corea, guitarist Al DiMeola, bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White.

As of this writing, Chick and drummer Steve Gadd are touring Europe with what sounds like a hot band. See ’em.