1976 was a great year for Chick Corea. Not only that he released with his band 'Return to Forever' the great 'Romantic Warrior', he still found time to write, arrange, perform and release the 'my Spanish Heart' album, which is one of his great creations ever.

This is a concept creation which expresses Spanish elements and flavours, as the name suggests. Some of the elements are flamenco, Spanish rhythms and scales, instruments and percussion sounds such as clapping that reminds of Castanaetas, so the Spanish feeling is all over. As for the heart, it presented strongly at the music, which is very moving. Indeed the Spanish roots are something in the faint of heart for Chick Corea.

The original format for this creation is the good old double LP, and like many progressive 2LP albums at that time, is done for 4 sides, that function as four parts of the creation. Each part, that takes one side, is different from each other by mood and style, while the whole 4 parts creating one unity.

In side I – there is line of short Spanish pieces. The main instruments here are Chick's piano, Stanley Clarke's acoustic bass, sometimes bowed, string quartet and clapping. In addition there are some trumpets touch at the opening track 'Love Castle', and the closing track 'Night Streets'.

Side II is the shortest of all, but full of content: Two pieces, one for piano and contrabass, ('The Hilltop'), and one for piano solo ('The Sky'). The atmosphere is etheric and floaty. It breaks wonderfully into the fusion piece 'Wind Danse', which evolves Steve Gadd on drums, Gayle Moran on vocals, and Chick's synth and moog. BTW please avoid purchasing a CD version from the 90's that drop the piano piece 'The Sky'. It just ruins the whole thing.

Side III opens with the 'hit' 'Armando's Rhumba' which is dedicate to Chick's father, and features Jean Luc Ponty on violin. On the cover Chick thanks Ponty for finding time to come to the studio and perform this piece. Yes I must admit it's really good that he did so.

The rest is something different though: An electronic suite called 'El Bozo', divided into 3 parts, featuring mainly Chick's synth and moog, in some beautiful sounds, some chirps, twits, glisses and whistles. Steve Gudd's drums are also in, with some rock\fusion roles, and percussive touch toward the end of this suite.

Side IV is dedicated to the closer suite, 'Spanish Fantasy' in 4 parts, a very moving piece which brings the 'Spanish heart' to its edge. A denser and richer orchestration, which contain prominent trumpets and strings. Great drumming and Spanish rhythms from Steve Gudd. All goes wonderfully up to the climatic end, and back to a quiet and solemn mood.

In addition to all the merits mentioned before, I'll mention also the reach instrumentation, the wide compositional techniques, from carefully written music to freely improvised music, which unified Corea's work at that time. A great Corea release from those years.

This is the first album from a serious of three albums by Chick Corea which holds a complicate concept creations, with large variety and reach instrumentation. Other albums on that serious are 'my Spanish heart' and 'the mad hatter'. The overall style is sometimes jazzy-improvised, sometimes classical, and sometimes prog-inspired. It is really hard to categorize this music in just one of the disciplines.

The concept in the entire album is not very clear but gives a flavor – the leprechaun, an Irish mythology creature that is quite mischief and naughty. The atmosphere is sweet, optimistic, but never too kitschy.

The creation is performed by large ensemble, including bass – drums, electric synth and devices, piano, female voice, jazz – acoustic instruments such as flute and saxophone, string quartet and some brass. All this richness does not exposed at once, but developed through the whole album. Some instruments come and go, some tracks are very short, consists of very few instruments, while others are larger orchestrated, and more widely developed. And the closer track, 'the Leprechaun's dream', is the climax: A very rich and wide track, that varied from a jazz-rock band, to string quartet, to some brass, and all together. The maneuvers between all these different sounds and styles are phenomenal, and present very well Corea's geniuity.

A bit of track – by – track description:

1 – 'Imp's welcome': a short track, performed by Chick's synths, and some percussion, in a sort of eastern tune.

2 – 'Lenore' – a longer track, which adds piano, drums, bass, and female voice, performed by Gayle Moran.

3 – 'Reverie' – a short prelude, performed by Chick's piano, and a bit of Gayle's voice.

4 – 'Looking at the world' – a song with words, but more complicate than an ordinary one. An impressive overture, coda and interludes. Here we are exposed to the string quartet for the first time with very brief lines at the start.

5 – 'Nite sprite' – some very bouncy jazzy tunes with fast lines and improvised interplays between soprano sax and synth.

6 – 'Soft and gentle' – another song with words. Toward the end, the brass section joins in together with the string quartet. Structurally this track is wider and more developed than the previous ones.

7 – 'Pixiland rag' – another short track, in rag style. Mainly for piano, bass synths, and some things sounds like vibraphone.

8 – ' Leprechaun's dream' – the complicate and richer track of all, which summarize the whole creation (not motivically BTW, all motives are new and not taken from previous tracks). All instruments are in, plus a flute and a piccolo. All methods are used: jazz – improvised sections along with classical written sections which lead to the climatic end.

For me this is one of Corea's best works. The composition, the execution, and the musicianship are all incredible, on the highest quality.

I did not mention players names on this review, because for now the details missing on this site, and also from my old Israeli-press vinyl. I guess Joe Farrell is here on the flute and saxophone, Stanley Clarke on bass, and Steve Gadd on drums, and these are just part of the instrumentation. Excellent musicianship from all as mentioned before.