Mr. Corea, a pioneer of jazz fusion whose most famous group, Return to Forever, brought together genres and styles from across the musical spectrum and around the world, passed away on Tuesday. He was 79 and according to his website, a rare cancer was recently diagnosed.
“I want to thank everyone who helped burn my music fires,” he said in a statement on his website. ‘It is my hope that those who have the idea to play, write, perform or otherwise, should do so. If it’s not for yourself, then for the rest of us. Not only is the world needing more artists, but it’s a lot of fun too. ”
The fun started early for mr. Corea begins. On the way to expanding the vocabulary of jazz, he adopted music and the piano as more interesting alternatives for the rest of his young life.
‘I remember very clearly going to the first grade in Chelsea, going to this fixed environment for the first time in my life, where at some point you had to walk into the room and fold your hands, and then “We had to put our heads down on the desk and do kind of silly things for me,” he told the Globe in 1996. And I thought, ‘Well, that’s quite nice, because I’m with kids my age,’ but it was all like a dream.
“And after walking out of school every day and returning to my family and my piano, I thought, ‘This is a reality. ‘”
By his twenties, he played with jazz celebrities such as Stan Getz, Herbie Mann and Miles Davis. Mr. Corea played on Davis’ transformative album “Bitches Brew” in 1970 – he once recalled that Davis instructed him during a session to switch to electric piano.
Shortly after ‘Bitches Brew’, Mr. Corea founded Return to Forever, which expanded the fusion of rock and jazz elements in ‘Bitches Brew’. On the band’s first album of the same name in 1972, Stanley Clarke on bass, Flora Purim on vocals and percussion, Joe Farrell on flute and saxophone and Airto Moreira on drums.
“Our music has a simple, clear purpose: to convey happiness and truth to people and to create and share beauty with people,” Corea told the Globe in September. “Our journey is a group journey to take the people to a safe and beautiful place, instead of a place of conflict and chaos.”
Over the years, through the 1970s and through reunions that included a tour in 2011, Return to Forever changed the size and staff, at different times, including musicians such as guitarist Al Di Meola, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, percussionist Steve Gadd, and guitarist Earl Klugh.
Mr. Corea also formed the Chick Corea Electric Band and the Acoustic Band of Chick Corea, and over the years he has performed in duet projects with vibraphonist Gary Burton, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, classical pianist Friedrich Gulda and banjo player Bela Fleck.
Globe critic Ernie Santosuosso wrote a solo performance in 1980, writing that Corea’s ‘frenetic flamenco style of keyboard playing almost hypnotizes the listener’.
From a trio performance at the Regatta Bar in 2000, Globe critic Bob Blumenthal wrote that Corea’s’ repetitive vampire was shocked by a cyclotron. The piano solo occurs at the rhythm right from the front. ”
Armando Anthony Corea, born June 12, 1941, was the son of Armando J. and Anna Corea. His father played trumpet in an orchestra.
“While hanging out with my dad and his band, at 5 or 6 years old, I made a very clear decision privately that this is what I want to do – make music,” Corea recalled in the 1996 Globe interview.
He also played enough trumpet as a youth to join a local drum and drum corps as a youth, and played drums in the 1960s when he ‘could not find performances with decent sounds’ But’ piano has always been my main ax ‘, he said in 2018.
“When I was about 8 or 9 years old, my mother or uncle got me a concert at a bar on the corner of Broadway and Everett Avenue in Chelsea,” he said. Corea said. “They had an upright piano, and my mother would bring me there to play. She sat at the piano to protect me, I played about an hour a night and got a fee or two. It was pretty cool. When I was in high school, there was a bar a few blocks from where we lived after we moved to Everett. I had a funky trio there. There was a drummer and an accordion player, and I played the trumpet because they had no piano. ‘
As an artist, he drew inspiration from pianists such as the classical musician Glenn Gould, whom he called his favorite influence. ‘All my contemporaries have had an influence: McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, and formerly Bill Evans. For the spirit of exploration and freedom in jazz, Bud [Powell] and [Thelonious] Monk still remains touching stones. Also Duke Ellington, not only as a pianist, but also as a complete music producer. There’s another one almost to be included at the top – he’s alone in a class – and that’s Art Tatum. ‘
Mr. Corea briefly studied music in New York City at Columbia University and Juilliard School before moving on to full-time professional playing.
Along with his 23 Grammys (and 67 nominations), Mr. Corea was named a jazz master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2006. In 1997 he delivered the opening speech when the Berklee College of Music awarded him an honorary degree.
According to the Associated Press, Mr. Corea, who lives in Clearwater, Florida and was a member of the Church of Scientology, his wife, singer Gayle Moran, and a son, Thaddeus.
A complete list of survivors and plans for a memorial service were not immediately available.
Mr. Corea has influenced generations of musicians through his cross-cultural, genre-blending approach to performance and composition, and with his memorable improvisation.
“When you compose or improvise, you make something up, create something out of nothing, you get an idea and give it back – boom! – so, “he said in 1996.” If you just continue it in a stream, in a stream, it becomes an improvisation. Like when a stand-up comic grabs an idea and he’s gone, and it kind of rolls off of him, it’s improvisation. ‘
Bryan Marquard can be reached at [email protected].