Chick Corea
b.12 June 1941, Chelsea, Massachusetts
Biography
English Deutsch
Considering the staggering volume of his recorded output over the past 40 years, it is no overstatement to call Chick Corea one of the most prolific composers of the second half of the 20th century. From avant-garde to bebop, from children’s songs to straight ahead, from hard-hitting fusion to heady forays into classical, Chick has touched an astonishing number of musical bases in his illustrious career while maintaining a standard of excellence that is simply uncanny. A restlessly creative spirit, he continues to explore and generate new material for a number of different vehicles, including his dynamic Elektric Band and his flamenco flavored Touchstone band. Other recent projects include a new piano concerto unveiled in Austria on July 1, 2006 (shortly after Corea’s 65th birthday) as part of Vienna’s Mozart Year festivities.
Born Armando Anthony Corea in Chelsea, Massachusetts on June 12, 1941, he began studying piano at age four. Early on in his development, Horace Silver and Bud Powell were important piano influences while access to the music of Beethoven and Mozart inspired his compositional instincts. An interesting, little known fact is that Chick’s first major professional gig was with Cab Calloway, which came before early stints in Latin bands led by Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo (1962-63). There followed important tenures with trumpeter Blue Mitchell (1964-66), flutist Herbie Mann and saxophonist Stan Getz before Chick made his recording debut as a leader in 1966 with Tones for Joan’s Bones (which featured trumpeter Woody Shaw, tenor saxophonist and flutist Joe Farrell, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Joe Chambers). During these formative years, Chick also recorded sessions with Cal Tjader, Stan Getz, Donald Byrd, and Dizzy Gillespie.
After accompanying Sarah Vaughan in 1967, Corea went into the studio in March of 1968 and recorded Now He Sings, Now He Sobs with bassist Miroslav Vitous and drummer Roy Haynes. That trio album is now considered a jazz classic. In the fall of 1968, Chick replaced Herbie Hancock in Miles Davis' band. In September of that year, he played Fender Rhodes electric piano on Miles' important and transitional recording Filles de Kilimanjaro, which pointed to a fresh new direction in jazz. Between 1968 and 1970, Corea also appeared on such groundbreaking Davis recordings as In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Live-Evil and Live at the Fillmore East. He is also a key player in Davis' electrified ensemble that appeared before 600,000 people on August 29, 1970 at the Isle of Wight Festival in England (captured on Murray Lerner's excellent documentary, Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue). Shortly after that historic concert, both Chick and bassist Dave Holland left Miles' group to form the cooperative avant-garde quartet Circle with drummer Barry Altschul and saxophonist Anthony Braxton. Though its tenure was short-lived, Circle recorded three adventurous albums, culminating in the arresting live double LP Paris-Concert (recorded on February 21, 1971 for the ECM label before Corea changed directions again. His excellent Piano Improvisations, Vol. 1 and 2, recorded over two days in April 1971 for ECM, was the first indication that solo piano performance would become fashionable.
Toward the end of 1971, Chick formed his first edition of Return To Forever with Stanley Clarke on acoustic bass, Joe Farrell on soprano sax and flute, Airto Moreira on drums and percussion and his wife Flora Purim on vocals. On February 2 and 3, 1972, they recorded their self-titled debut for ECM, which included the popular Corea composition "La Fiesta." By September of that year, Corea was back in the studio with Return To Forever to record the classic Light As A Feather (Polydor), a collection of melodic Brazilian flavored jazz tunes including new versions of "500 Miles High" and "Captain Marvel" along with Chick's best-known composition, "Spain." In November of 1972, Chick also recorded the sublime Crystal Silence (ECM), his initial duet encounter with vibraphonist and kindred spirit Gary Burton.
By early 1973, Return To Forever had taken a different course. Following the addition of electric guitarist Bill Connors and thunderous drummer Lenny White, the group was fully fortified to embrace the emerging fusion movement with a vengeance. Their August, 1973 recording, “Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy” (Polydor), instantly elevated them to the status of other fiery fusion bands of the day like John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Larry Coryell's Eleventh House and the Joe Zawinul-Wayne Shorter-led juggernaut, Weather Report. By the summer of 1974, with the 19-year-old speed demon guitarist Al Di Meola replacing Connors in the RTF lineup, the transformation to a bona fide high-energy jazz-rock concert attraction was complete.
Shortly after disbanding RTF, Chick and Herbie Hancock teamed up in early 1978 for a tour playing duets exclusively on acoustic pianos. Their chemistry was documented on two separate recordings -- 1978’s Homecoming (Polydor) and 1980's An Evening With Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea (Columbia), a two-LP set which featured renditions of Chick's "La Fiesta" and Herbie's "Maiden Voyage" along with expressive takes on Bela Bartok's "Mikrokosmos" and the Disney staple, "Someday My Prince Will Come."
In the late '80s and early '90s, Corea returned to the fusion arena with a vengeance with his Elektric Band, featuring drummer Dave Weckl, saxophonist Eric Marienthal, bassist John Pattitucci and guitarist Frank Gambale. Together they recorded a string of five hard-hitting offerings for the GRP label that ranked with the best fusion of the latter half of the '80s. To balance out his forays into electric music, Chick also formed his Akoustic Band, a highly interactive trio with Elektric Band members Pattitucci on upright bass and Weckl on drums.
By 1992, Corea had realized a lifelong goal in forming Stretch Records, a label committed to stretching musical boundaries and focusing more on freshness and creativity than on musical style. Among its early releases were projects by Bob Berg, John Patitucci, Eddie Gomez and Robben Ford. His first release for his new label, which he had formed with manager Ron Moss, was 1997’s Remembering Bud Powell, an all-star outing that featured young talent like tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman, trumpeter Wallace Roney, alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett and bassist Christian McBride along with jazz drumming legend Roy Haynes (who had performed on the bandstand beside Powell in the early ‘60s). Also in 1997, Chick released a recording with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with Bobby McFerrin as conductor. Their second collaboration, entitled The Mozart Sessions (Sony Classical) followed on the heels of their first duet Grammy Award winning recording, 1991's Play (Blue Note).
Chick ushered in the new millennium with 2000's Corea Concerto (Sony Classical), a grand encounter with the London Philharmonic Orchestra which featured a new symphonic arrangement of “Spain” as well as the premiere of his “Piano Concerto No. 1.” At the time he said of this mammoth undertaking, “For my concerto I chose almost the exact same instrumentation as the Mozart piano concerto orchestrations. I figured that I could perform the Mozart and my own piece with the same size orchestra, and that would be a good practical start for me. So, with the spirit and sound of Mozart’s piano concerto music, I wrote this piece and dedicated it to the spirit of religious freedom which, for me, is on the same level as the creative freedom that is the basic right of all people.”
In 2001, Corea unveiled his New Trio, featuring drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Avishai Cohen, on Past, Present & Futures (Stretch). By the end of that year, Chick was engaged with his ambitious three-week career retrospective at the Blue Note, which yielded the two-CD set Rendezvous in New York and the 10-DVD set documenting nearly eight hours of performances with Origin, the Akoustic Band, New Trio, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs Trio, Remembering Bud Powell Band and Three Quartets Band, as well as duets with Bobby McFerrin, Gary Burton and Gonzalo Rubalcaba.
In 2004, Chick reunited his high-powered Elektric Band for a tour and subsequent recording based on L. Ron Hubbard’s science fiction novel To The Stars. And in 2005, he returned to Hubbard for musical inspiration, this time interpreting The Ultimate Adventure. An exotic blend of passionate flamenco melodies, North African and Middle Eastern grooves and adventurous improvisation, Corea’s latest score was inspired by Hubbard’s romantic novel set against a backdrop of scenes and characters from the ancient tales The Arabian Nights. This scintillating suite of world-jazz reunites Chick with key colleagues from the past, including flutist Hubert Laws, Brazilian percussionist Airto Moriera and drummer Steve Gadd.
