R.I.P. Chick Corea

[fredblue]

Here’s a link to Quad SACD “Return to Forever.”

https://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=CDSML8528

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i shall be blasting this wonderful SACD later at full volume in his honour

 

[Petr Kropotkin]

Ah, very sad. What a great musician, whether with Miles, Return To Forever, or all his other piano compositions and collaborations.

Vale, Chick, you've given me a lot of musical enjoyment, and it will continue.

 

[mandrix]

As with so much jazz, I was first introduced to Chick on Dan Sanborn's radio show back in the 80's.
A really good musician, and though he did not like being classified, he was yet a Jazz muscian of the first order.

 

[~dave~~wave~]

Copenhagen, November '69, touring BB with Holland, DeJohnette, Shorter & Miles.
The 70-minute concert is on DVD in the BB 40th box set.
Iconic for his '69 clothes, and playing the show with the top cover removed from the Rhodes.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

I think I mentioned once before in the 70's I had a friend with his own college affiliated NPR jazz radio show, Fridays, 8pm to midnight. It was a great time to join Paul with a bottle of wine & hear him talk & such great music. Of all the gazzilion tracks he played the only one I remember as distinctly as yesterday was from Musicmagic:

"Do you ever think what life will be
Where you will go after you die
Do you ever wonder why were here
Why we were born, you and I"

Well I'm thinking about it now. Paul left this life a couple of years ago & now Chick. For me they'll always be together.

 

[Infomas]

Believe it or not, Chick Corea was my very first purchase of Jazz music. So, I have a sentimental place with him and his music.

My first jazz purchase was Stan Getz's Captain Marvel. All the songs were written by Chick.

 

[Infomas]

The only time I got to see him live was a Return to Forever show in the mid 70s. An amazing night. Not too long ago, I mentioned somewhere about how rock is losing its drummers. First Neil Peart dies and recently both Phil Collins and Bill Bruford have stopped playing live. The same thing is happening with jazz pianists. Lyle Mays passed last year. Keith Jarrett had a series of strokes and will probably never play again. And now we lose Chick. Their music will live on forever though.

 

[Marplot]

Bass players are taking a beating also, Lemmy, Squire, Lake, Prestia to name a few.

 

[Infomas]

Bass players are taking a beating also, Lemmy, Squire, Lake, Prestia to name a few.

Is it guitarists' turn next? Is 2021 finally the year when the predictions about Keith Richards will come true?

 

[DuncanS]

Is it guitarists' turn next? Is 2021 finally the year when the predictions about Keith Richards will come true?

I'm not sure he'd notice!

 

[humprof]

Pianist Ethan Iverson on Corea's 1960s pre-Miles records:

A lot of what Chick Corea played came directly from McCoy Tyner, but his approach had a freshness and a lightness that was distinctive and seductive. There was some kind of basic and intuitive grasp of uptempo clave that sparkled like nobody else. Corea also had serious knowledge of modernist classical music. Indeed, of all the top-tier jazz pianists, Corea may have been the best “student,” someone who checked out and assimilated countless genres from Brazilian to Bartók to the blues on a deep level.​

https://ethaniverson.com/2021/02/12/chick-corea/

 

[4-earredwonder]

I picked up this wonderful 4 disc ECM remastered set a few years ago and consider it one of Chick's finest collaborations {with vibraphonist Gary Burton}.

https://www.discogs.com/Gary-Burton...nce-The-ECM-Recordings-197279/release/2077869

 

[cbmmm3]

I was lucky to have met him in person. What a great musician and down to earth guy. He was on the Elektric tour with a KILLER band. John Patitucci on bass, Scott Henderson on guitars..............small club, great scotch............wow !! One of the best shows I have ever attended He will be missed.

 

[humprof]

Can't stop. ('Cause it just keeps coming.)

Jazz writer Marc Myers interviews Corea about fusion:
https://www.jazzwax.com/2021/02/interview-chick-corea-on-fusion.html
And two curated playlists, with some overlap:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/feb/15/chick-corea-his-10-greatest-recordings
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/arts/music/chick-corea-playlist.html

 

[kap'n krunch]

https://fb.watch/3LVlEgnNZb/

 

[humprof]

Add a pair of posthumous Grammys:
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/11/9760...grammys-success-and-the-kitchen-sink-of-genre

 

[~dave~~wave~]

There will be two tribute concerts this weekend at Lincoln Center.
The link below should get folks through the New York Times paywall as my guests:

Chick Corea, the Master Mixer of Jazz’s Past and Future
An eclectic array of musicians will gather in New York to celebrate the pianist’s legacy.
Five collaborators and admirers discuss his experiments, artistry and generosity.


Chick Corea, the Master Mixer of Jazz’s Past and Future

BÉLA FLECK
It just was all music to him. So I don’t know if there was much of a line between the different styles.
In terms of Return to Forever, for me, I don’t think I would be doing anything I’m doing if it wasn’t for that band.
In 1975, I saw them at the Beacon Theater and I wouldn’t have gone on to try to play the banjo the way I play.
I wouldn’t have had the Flecktones.
Fusion has almost gotten a bad name or something, but if you go back to the original stuff, this music had a lot of intelligence to it.
It was not just rock with jazz. It was its own thing. It really was a fusion.

 

[mandrix]

There will be two tribute concerts this weekend at Lincoln Center.
The link below should get folks through the New York Times paywall as my guests:

Chick Corea, the Master Mixer of Jazz’s Past and Future
An eclectic array of musicians will gather in New York to celebrate the pianist’s legacy.
Five collaborators and admirers discuss his experiments, artistry and generosity.


Chick Corea, the Master Mixer of Jazz’s Past and Future

BÉLA FLECK
It just was all music to him. So I don’t know if there was much of a line between the different styles.
In terms of Return to Forever, for me, I don’t think I would be doing anything I’m doing if it wasn’t for that band.
In 1975, I saw them at the Beacon Theater and I wouldn’t have gone on to try to play the banjo the way I play.
I wouldn’t have had the Flecktones.
Fusion has almost gotten a bad name or something, but if you go back to the original stuff, this music had a lot of intelligence to it.
It was not just rock with jazz. It was its own thing. It really was a fusion.

I agree with Fleck. Fusion has got a bad rep in recent years. It is more than a little rock added to jazz, though that exists as well.

 

[rugene]

Here's a great song tribute to him :

The Alchemist

 

[humprof]

I loved the man and his music, and so did Phil Freeman of Burning Ambulance, so I hope other fans won't take offense at the title or the substance of his blog post, below. But even if he's being deliberately provocative, I think Freeman makes some fair points about the occasional well-meaning missteps of "one of jazz's great populists." And what he has to say about 80s production values in general really resonates with me. (And, of course, marks me as the hypocritical fist-shaking oldster I am.)

https://burningambulance.substack.com/p/chick-corea-man-without-taste

I have a friend, Alfred Soto, who haaaaates to see the descriptor “dated” applied to music. His argument, and he’s right, boils down to: why are Linn drums and Fairlight stabs perceived to mark the songs that feature them as inextricably of their time, when the instrumental tones associated with “classic rock” are not similarly freighted with negative associations? Why is it OK to sound like Led Zeppelin IV, but not Debarge’s “Rhythm of the Night”? The simple answer, of course, is bias — (mostly) white rock being seen by those who shape(d) The Discourse, when it was still up for grabs, as inherently more legitimate (yeah, yeah, stop laughing) than black and Latin pop. And even if I recognize that it’s the result of cultural programming, I can’t deny that my taste leans more toward the analog than the digital, and that certain programmed rhythms, keyboard sounds, and melodic choices will always strike me as both “of the ’80s” and somehow disposable/plastic/kitsch.

The more complicated answer to the question of why certain sounds are “dated” and others aren’t is technological. Analog audio recording, as an art and a craft, reached its peak in the mid to late ’70s. Things were already starting to go awry here and there (Example No. 1: the rubber-band bass sound heard on acoustic jazz albums from about 1973 to the early ’90s), but in general, albums recorded in the 1970s sound fucking incredible, and I’m not just talking about Steely Dan. Even the most replacement-level rock acts — your Foreigners, your Bad Companys, your also-rans I won’t even bother naming — could dial in guitar and drum sounds that were like being wrapped in a warm blanket of sound.

As the old essay exam prompt used to say: Discuss.