Septet is a fully written chamber work in five movements by Chick Corea, scored for string quartet, piano, flute and French horn and released by ECM. It was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Corea played it in concert between 1982 and 1984 before recording it. The album, released in 1985, closes with a separate fourteen-minute piece for the same group, The Temple of Isfahan.
According to Corea's own sleeve note, the septet was first played in Miami in June 1982, then in New York in January 1983. The New York run ended with a Live From Lincoln Center broadcast on PBS. In the autumn of 1984 he re-formed the ensemble for a tour of the United States and recorded it at the end. The strings are Ida Kavafian and Theodore Arm (violins), Steven Tenenbom (viola) and Fred Sherry (cello). The winds are flutist Steve Kujala and hornist Peter Gordon. The session took place in October 1984 at Mad Hatter Studios, Los Angeles, with Bernie Kirsh engineering. Corea produced it himself.
The first two movements are brief, under two and a half minutes each, and the weight falls on the last three. The third opens with abstract solo piano before the horn moves to the front. The fifth, close to ten minutes, is the longest and most varied, with a piano interlude and some of Kujala's most individual flute lines. The Temple of Isfahan is built as a chain of scenes, with a Spanish colour and passing quotations, among them a snatch of Sidney Bechet's Petite Fleur on the horn.
Reviewers treated it as concert music rather than jazz. Reviewing a live performance, The New York Times found "powerfully insistent rhythms and rich embroidery" in Corea's keyboard work. In Jazz Journal (March 1986) Richard Palmer called the writing "arresting and melodious, with an unquestioned orchestral skill", though he also found it derivative. His verdict was "For myself, I like it; but jazz it ain't." Kujala had just recorded the duo album Voyage with Corea, also issued by ECM.
This is the CD edition of ECM 1297 (also numbered 827 258-2), first released in 1985, with Corea's notes in the booklet.
