Chick Corea & Gary Burton - Hot House (Concord Jazz Records 2012)

The 40-year-old piano/vibraphone partnership of Chick Corea and Gary Burton returns with new variations on composers from Art Tatum to Tadd Dameron, Jobim, Brubeck and McCartney. Corea and Burton are devotees of the shapely, symmetrical and song-rooted – so this album is flawlessly graceful, even if some episodes (the intricate piano ostinato under Eleanor Rigby) border on the distractingly clever. But their musicianship and empathy win out, particularly on a 10-minute account of My Ship simmering with time changes, a tender examination of Thelonious Monk's solemn Light Blue, and a rumination on Time Remembered that draws on Corea's imaginative devotion to its composer, Bill Evans. The only non-duo track is Corea's own Mozart Goes Dancing, an ornate fusion of his trademark rumba groove and some willowy Mozartian gliding from a string quartet. This is beautifully executed mainstream-to-modern jazz from two stars who clearly still enjoy each
 John Fordham    guardian.co.uk,