Godspeed Chick Corea

Jazz legend Chick Corea died February 9 2021 at the age of 79. The cause was cancer.

Chick Corea was born Armando Corea in Chelsea, Massachusetts on June 12 1941. His father was a jazz trumpeter and the bandleader of a Dixieland band in Boston in the Thirties and Forties. It was his father who started him on the piano when Chick Corea was only four years old. He was eight he took up the drums. At age eight, Chick Corea studied piano under concert pianist Salvatore Sullo. From when he was very young he was influenced by such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

Chick Corea began playing gigs when he was only in high school. Mr. Corea studied musical education for only a month at Columbia University in New York City and six months at the Juilliard School. Even though he stopped attending both Columbia University and Julliard, Chick Corea stayed in New York City to pursue his music career.

He began his career in the early Sixties and played with such artists as Mongo Santamaria, Stan Getz, Hubert Laws, Miles Davis, and others. He released his first solo album, Tones for Joan's Bones, in 1966. It would be followed by over 75 more solo albums. In 1970 he formed Chick Corea formed the band Circle with bassist Dave Holland. Throughout the Seventies he continued to play as a sideman with other artists, such as Miles Davis and Stanley Clarke. In 1992 he founded his own label, Stretch Records.

Chick Corea numbers among the most talented jazz keyboardists. He had a skill with the keys that few others possessed. He was among the pioneers of jazz fusion, and with Circle he explored free jazz. Among his many talents was a gift for improvisation.