A few years back I pulled a Chick Corea album, Exstasis, out of the bargain bin at Academy Records on 18th street. A Spanish pressing with a flimsy, black-market-feeling sleeve, no personnel listed, Deadhead/Santana type of groovy cover, three bucks. What the hell. I threw it on my office deck and dropped the rock, expecting… Return to Forever-like soft-fusion retro. Instead I got a wild ride. Like Coltrane Quartet playing an early 70’s Italian film soundtrack. What the hell is this thing? I thought.
Some research quickly yielded a crazy story (sometimes the internet giveth). Exstasis is the Spanish version of a 1973 Muse release titled Bliss! which was in fact a rebranding of a 1967 record called Turkish Women at the Bath with drummer Pete La Roca as the credited leader and sole composer of all seven tracks. The title comes from an Ingres painting, which according to La Roca inspired each of the compositions. The band features La Roca on drums, Chick on piano, Walter Booker on bass, and the great John Gilmore on tenor in a rare non-Ra recording (Gilmore had just left Blakey’s band, a tenure with the Messengers that yielded only one bizarre record, S’make It).
Turkish Women at the Bath was released by Alan Douglas’s label Douglas Records but later sold to Muse, who looked to capitalize on Corea’s breakout success with Return to Forever by repackaging the record as a Chick Corea album. La Roca, rightfully pissed, sued to block the release and won, forcing Muse to recall all of the pressings of Bliss!
Despite his ambitions as a composer and bandleader, La Roca only released three records under his name during his lifetime, so one can only imagine what a slap in the face it was to see one of them released as another dude’s album. His 1965 album Basra is a fascinating and explosive modal outing of the Coltrane ilk with a wonderful band – Joe Henderson, Steve Kuhn and Steve Swallow (Blue Note, BLP 4205). Basra has always been a favorite of mine, and honestly Turkish Women is possibly better overall although (as seems to be the calling card of Alan Douglas joints) not the best recording. Then again, I have what feels like a cut-rate Spanish pressing with a deeply ugly Santana cover. Maybe the original sounds better? In any case, I recommend checking it out, and when you do, no matter what pressing or file you dig up, remember… it’s Pete La Roca’s session!
