Chick Corea

• Born: June 12, 1941
• Birthplace: Chelsea, Massachusetts
• Died: February 9th, 2021
• Place of death: Tampa Bay, Florida

American jazz pianist and composer

A keyboardist of prodigious technique, Corea was at the forefront of several musical movements, including modal jazz, Latin jazz, avant-garde, and fusion. His compositional style melds large-scale, formal structures and classical developmental processes with the harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary of jazz.

Member of Return to Forever; the Elektric Band; the Akoustic Band; Origin; Circle; the New Trio; Touchstone

The Life

Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea (koh-REE-ah) was born into a musical family in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on June 12, 1941. His father Armando, a composer and arranger who played trumpet and bass, performed in the Boston area during the 1930s and 1940s. Corea began playing piano at age four and drums at age eight. While still in high school, he played piano in his father’s band.

Living in New York City after graduating from high school, he briefly attended Columbia University and then the Juilliard School, but he left school to play professionally. In the 1960s his reputation as a gifted pianist grew, and he worked as a sideman with a number of established musicians. In the late 1960s, primarily through his first recordings as a leader, he gained a reputation as a creative and innovative composer.

In 1968 he replaced Herbie Hancock in Miles Davis’s band, and he worked with Davis for two years, performing on the recordings and concerts that defined the emerging style of jazz-rock fusion. His work with electronic instruments, for which he would later become legendary, began at this time. His tenure in Davis’s band gave him the stature and recognition he needed to strike out on his own as a bandleader. Corea’s strong personal association with Scientology also began at this time.

After working with an avant-garde trio in the early 1970s, he formed the highly influential jazz fusion ensemble Return to Forever. Throughout the 1970s, he recorded and toured with various groups of musicians under this name. While jazz fusion was controversial among musicians, Return to Forever was extremely popular with fans and critics, winning a Grammy Award in 1976.

After disbanding Return to Forever in 1978, Corea recorded and performed in a wide variety of settings and styles, with a number of diverse musicians, including Hancock, Michael Brecker, Eddie Gomez, Steve Gadd, Joe Henderson, Gary Burton, and Freddie Hubbard. In the mid-1980s he revisited jazz fusion, forming the Elektric Band, in which he played a vast array of electronic keyboards. Later in the decade, in an attempt to maintain a musical balance and to find a vehicle for his acoustic piano playing, he formed the Akoustic Band.

In the 1990s and later, Corea was active as a performer and composer, releasing numerous critically acclaimed recordings. He has received fourteen Grammy Awards, and The Ultimate Adventure, inspired by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, won Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and Best Instrumental Arrangement.

The Music

Corea strongly influenced jazz piano and composition. While he was heavily in demand as a sideman when he first began performing professionally, most of his career has been marked by long-term associations with such players as Burton, Gadd, Haynes, and Brecker and with a series of ensembles that have been important vehicles for his compositions and playing. His bands Return to Forever, the Akoustic Band, the Elektric Band, and Origin have performed and recorded widely over the last four decades. Corea’s work has been characterized by the freshness and innovation of his writing and the flair and technical prowess of his keyboard playing.

Sideman. In the early 1960s, Corea worked in the Latin jazz idiom as a sideman with percussionists and bandleaders Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo. From 1964 to 1966 he played with trumpeter Blue Mitchell. During this time he worked with flutist Herbie Mann and saxophonist Stan Getz. As Corea’s reputation began to grow, he performed and recorded with a growing roster of first-rate musicians, such as Cal Tjader, Donald Byrd, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sarah Vaughn.

Corea’s most important gig as a sideman came in 1968 when he replaced Hancock in Davis’s band. Corea recorded a number of important albums with Davis, including Filles de Kilimanjaro, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, and Live-Evil. Corea left the band in late 1970, ending his career as a sideman. After his stint with Davis, he was either the leader or coleader of all of his performing and recording projects.

Now He Sings, Now He Sobs.Through his work as a sideman, Corea came to the attention of the major jazz record labels. His first opportunity to act as a leader in the studio came in 1966, when he recorded Tones for Joan’s Bones for Atlantic Records. With this recording he began a long association with saxophonist and flutist Joe Farrell.

In 1968 Corea recorded Now He Sings, Now He Sobs with Haynes and Miroslav Vitous. Considered one of the greatest trio recordings in jazz history, this album has been enormously influential on the development of the contemporary jazz piano and the piano trio. Corea’s linear and harmonic approach represents a distillation and codification of the groundbreaking modal explorations of McCoy Tyner in his work with John Coltrane. The fluidity and inventiveness of his right-hand lines set the standard for jazz piano improvisation in the second half of the twentieth century. His compositions for the recording are wonderfully effective vehicles for the trio’s rhythmic interplay.

Return to Forever.His work with Davis and others and the critical acclaim accorded his first two solo recordings established Corea as an important figure in jazz. After leaving Davis’s band, he formed a quartet with bassist Dave Holland, called Circle, recording several albums of experimental, avant-garde music for the ECM label. He also recorded a number of improvisations for solo piano, released by ECM Records in a two-volume set in 1971.

In 1971 Corea formed the first incarnation of Return to Forever, featuring the Brazilian husband-and-wife team of Airto Moreira on percussion and Flora Purim on vocals, Stanley Clark on bass, and Farrell on flute and saxophone. This group recorded a number of Corea’s compositions that have since become standards, including “Spain,” arguably Corea’s most well-known piece.

The second edition of Return to Forever, formed in 1973, displayed a heavier rock influence, when Farrell’s woodwinds were replaced by Bill Connors’s electric guitar and Moreira’s light Latin jazz drumming was replaced by Lenny White’s funk-rock drumming. Corea added synthesizers to his Fender Rhodes. The group focused on extended compositions, highly complex and difficult individual parts requiring extreme instrumental virtuosity and a broad stylistic palette. Al Di Meola later replaced Connors. Though the group’s recordings—like the entire genre of jazz fusion—were highly controversial, 1975s No Mystery received a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.

The final incarnation of the band included a horn section, Corea’s wife Gayle Moran on keyboards and vocals, and the return of Farrell. In 1977, feeling that the band had run its course, Corea disbanded Return to Forever.

Musical Partnerships. Corea formed a number of partnerships throughout his career, to which he would return at various points. Perhaps the most important is with vibist Burton. Their association began with the ECM recording Crystal Silence in 1972. The duo has won three Grammy Awards. Other important collaborators include Gadd, Brecker, and Gomez, with whom Corea recorded Three Quartets and Friends, another Grammy Award-winning record.

Drawing from his wide circle of musical friends, Corea released a number of unique recordings, including The Leprechaun, The Mad Hatter, My Spanish Heart, and others.

The Akoustic Band and the Elektric Band. In the mid-1980s, Corea drew on the next generation of virtuoso players to form two bands, one a return to jazz fusion and the other an acoustic jazz trio. Drummer Dave Weckl and bassist John Patituci played in both ensembles. For the Elektric Band, Corea added guitarist Frank Gambale and saxophonist Eric Marienthal. This group focused on complex compositions, technical virtuosity, and wide stylistic variety. Both bands recorded and toured until 1993, when Corea moved on to other projects.

Origin and the New Trio.In 1997 Corea formed an acoustic sextet, Origin, which recorded several albums, including a critically acclaimed six-compact-disc release of the group’s performances at the Blue Note in New York City. In 2001 he began recording and performing with the New Trio, an acoustic trio with drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Avishai Cohen. Corea also released a number of diverse recordings, including an extended work for orchestra, several albums of solo piano recordings, another duet recording with Burton, and the Grammy Award-winning The Ultimate Adventure. Later Corea formed a band with drummer Tom Brechtlein, percussionist Rubem Dantas, saxophonist-flutist Jorge Pardo, and bassist Carles Benavent, called Touchstone.

Musical Legacy

Corea’s work is inspiring for its sheer volume and diversity. During his decades-long career, his creativity and output never flagged. As a player, his crisp, fluid lines have been imitated widely by generations of pianists. His codification of the modal language first explored by Tyner has become an important component of the vocabulary of contemporary jazz. His work with electronic keyboards has defined the textural palette of fusion.

His influence as a composer—combining materials and processes from classical music (in particular, extended formal structures) with the methods and vocabulary of jazz—is significant. In both his writing and his playing, he was an important pioneer in fusing the rhythms, textures, and harmonies of Spanish and Latin American music with jazz.

While his writing and his playing exhibit a spirit of playful spontaneity and innovation, the seriousness of his commitment to music has never been questioned, even by those who doubt the validity of the jazz fusion genre.

Bibliography

Case, Brian, and Stan Britt. The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz. 3d ed. New York: Harmony Books, 1986. An extensive well-written entry about Corea, with profiles of many of his collaborators. Includes a detailed discography.

Corea, Chick. A Work in Progress, Volume 1. La Crescenta, Calif.: Chick Corea Productions, 2002. A short but illuminating series of essays about music, playing the piano, and life in general.

Doerschuk, Robert. 88: The Giants of Jazz Piano. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2001. Outlining the history of jazz piano through profiles of important pianists, this book provides details about Corea’s style and puts his work in perspective.

Lyons, Len. The Great Jazz Pianists: Speaking of Their Lives and Music. New York: Morrow, 1983. After a brief introduction to the history of jazz piano, Lyons presents interviews with a number of important and influential pianists, including Corea.

Nicholson, Stuart. Jazz-Rock: A History. New York: Schirmer Books, 1998. A look back at jazz-rock fusion, this book provides historical background and cultural context. Corea’s work with Return to Forever and the Elektric Band are chronicled and critiqued. Includes an extensive discography and separate indexes of musicians, group names, and recordings.

Tirro, Frank. Jazz: A History. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. Although this excellent general history of jazz provides only a small amount of information about Corea, the book places the various styles in which he worked—modal jazz, Latin jazz, avant-garde, and fusion—in historical context.

Principal Recordings

albums:Inner Space, 1966; Tones for Joan’s Bones, 1966; Jazz for a Sunday Afternoon, 1967; La Fiesta, 1967; Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, 1968; Is, 1969; Sundance, 1969; Song of Singing, 1970; A. R. C, 1971; Piano Improvisations, Vol. 1, 1971; Piano Improvisations, Vol. 2, 1971; Crystal Silence, 1972 (with Gary Burton); Return to Forever, 1972; The Leprechaun, 1975; My Spanish Heart, 1976; Corea/Hancock, 1978 (with Herbie Hancock); Delphi I: Solo Piano Improvisations, 1978; Friends, 1978; The Mad Hatter, 1978; Secret Agent, 1978; Tap Step, 1978; Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, McCoy Tyner, 1981; Three Quartets, 1981; Trio Music, 1981 (with Miroslav Vitous and Roy Haynes); Again and Again, 1982; Lyric Suite for Sextet, 1982 (with Gary Burton); Touchstone, 1982; Children’s Songs, 1983; Septet, 1984; Voyage, 1984 (with Steve Kajula); Expressions, 1993; Hot Licks: Seabreeze, 1993; Paint the World, 1993 (with Elektric Band II); Time Warp, 1995; Native Sense: The New Duets, 1997 (with Burton); Remembering Bud Powell, 1997 (with others); Akoustic Band, 1999 (with the Akoustic Band); Come Rain or Shine, 1999; Spain for Sextet and Orchestra, 1999; Waltz for Bill Evans, 2000; Past, Present, and Futures, 2001 (with the New Trio); Rendezvous in New York, 2003; Fiesta Gillespie and Milhaud Jazz, 2005; The Ultimate Adventure, 2006; Chillin’ in Chelan, 2007; The Enchantment, 2007 (with Bela Fleck); From Miles, 2007; Duet, 2008 (with Hiromi Uehara).

albums (with the Elektric Band): The Elektric Band, 1986; Light Years, 1987; Eye of the Beholder, 1988; Inside Out, 1990; Beneath the Mask, 1991; To the Stars, 2004.

albums (with Return to Forever): Light as a Feather, 1972; Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy, 1973; Where Have I Known You Before, 1974; No Mystery, 1975; Romantic Warrior, 1976; Musicmagic, 1977.