Click THE STEREOPHILE INTERVIEW
ARMANDO ANTHONY “CHICK” COREA BELONGS TO THAT ELITE CADRE OF PIANISTS THAT INCLUDES HERBIE HANCOCK, KEITH JARRETT, AND MCCOY TYNER, PIONEERS WHO RESHAPED THE JAZZ ORDER STARTING IN THE EARLY 1960S AND CONTINUED TO MAKE STRIDES INTO THE PRESENT DAY.
THE NOW-78-YEAR-OLD COREA’S ATTAINMENTS ARE MANY: COMPOSER OF THE STANDARDS “LA FIESTA,” “SPAIN,” “500 MILES HIGH,” “MATRIX,” and “Windows”; winner of 22 Grammy Awards (and 64 nods); founder of at least six colossal improvising units (Return to Forever I and II, Circle, the Three Quartets quartet, the Chick Corea Elektric Band, the Vigil Quintet); popularizer of early monophonic synthesizers, and recipient, in 2006, of an NEA Jazz Masters award.
Emerging from New York City’s nascent Afro-Cuban scene, the Bostonarea-born Corea ascended quickly through the jazz ranks, eventually playing on Miles Davis’s innovative Filles de Kilimanjaro, In a Silent Way, and Bitches Brew albums. Corea’s seminal 1968 trio album, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (Solid State), with Roy Haynes and Miroslav Vitous—recently reissued as part of Blue Note Records’ Tone Poet series—remains a landmark jazz recording. Extremely influential early ’70s ECM releases by Corea’s acoustic Return to Forever quartet are also considered classics, followed by the all-electric fusion albums Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy (Polydor) and Romantic Warrior (Columbia).
After fusion fizzled, Corea continued to blaze new vistas including solo and duo piano recordings, trio explorations, and orchestral concertos. These have been interspersed with reunions with Corea-band alumni Paul Motian, Dave Holland, Gary Burton, and Eddie Gomez.
Two things have held true throughout Corea’s career and his whole discography: an instantly identifiable signature
