If you want to do a history of post modern jazz, an easy way might be to simply follow the career and six degrees of separation of pianist Chick Corea. Initially working as a sideman with Stan Getz, Willie Bobo, Blue Mitchell and Herbie Mann to later ground breaking work with a plugged in Miles Davis in the late 60s, Corea then started not only his own group, but his own genre of jazz-rock with the supergroup Return to Forever, which headlined places like the Hollywood Bowl (can you really imagine a jazz group doing that today?!?). His own acoustic piano releases are just as influential, such as the seminal Now He Sings, Now He Sobs with Roy Haynes and Miraslav Vitous. Outside of his acoustic and electric groups such as The Electrik Band with John Patitucci and Dave Weckl, he’s made some legendary summit meetings with a who’s who of artists, ranging from Herbie Hancock and Hiromi, to most recently, his pairing with Stefano Bollani on ECM. Lately, he’s reunited with RTF mates Stanley Clarke and Lenny White to create some sparks in a trio format, as well as delving into the Bill Evans songbook with alumni Paul Motian and Eddie Gomez. Most ambitious of all is a two disc set on Deutsche Grammophone which has Corea mixing elements of classical composition and jazz improvisation in a completely fresh way with his most recent band on The Continents (which also includes some solo piano excursions).
More important than the fact that Chick Corea is one of the most important voices in the jazz world, but he’s always been one of the most accessible, keeping his fame in perspective. Back in the mid 70s, at one of the zeniths in his popularity, the pianist took the time to answer a letter from a fledging teenage jazz fan, yours truly, thus sealing a link of admiration for the man as well as his music.
We caught up with the multifaceted Corea, who shared about his latest projects, as well as his motivation for performing. Some projects are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them, for Corea, “the Continents was a great experience for me. It was an interesting and a long cycle. It started in 2006 when I was invited to write a piano concerto for the 250th birthday celebration of Mozart in Vienna. The Austrians devoted a whole year of celebrations to Mozart. You can imagine; he’s their symbol. Austria has one of the best symbols of any country, which is a great musician. And not only a great musician, but Mozart was one of THE greatest musicians.”
“So, I was honored to accept and write a piano concerto in the spirit of Mozart. I wrote a piece for piano, bass, drums and saxophone. Actually for a quartet and a 30 piece chamber orchestra. We travelled around Europe and played 15 concerts, and it was great. But, I never got a real good recording of it, and I’d always planned to do one. That came about last summer, when I put together, with the help of friends in New York, a hand picked chamber orchestra from the NY area. A really great bunch of musicians, all of whom were orchestral musicians, but who also had a jazz awareness and feeling. We spent a week together at the Manhattan Center on 34th Street, with the help of Steve Epstein as producer, and Steve Mercurio as conductor. We got the baby down on tape, so to speak, even though they don’t use tape anymore. And it was a glorious week; the piece finally matured. I had made a bunch of changes in the piece through the years and the piece matured into what you now hear. There it is!”
The music on The Continents is not “classical” per se, and the various movements of each continent’s melody for each piece aren’t united by a similar theme. Instead, like Holst’s The Planets, each composition captures the mood of it’s title, ranging from the rhythmic excitement of “Africa” to the exotic nuance of “Asia.” Corea explains that “the concept I worked with was not to write a piece in the style of Mozart. It was to write more in the spirit of Mozart. To me, the spirit of Mozart is creative freedom. Mozart was a very free thinker for his time. In fact, most of the chamber and orchestral music in Europe was financed by the state, or by kings. They, the royalty had the money, and they used to hire guys to write music for the court. That was where a musician like Mozart could get employment, and Mozart work for these various fellows. But, he really wanted to write music on his own and toward the end he was able to write piano concertos and put his own concerts together and go around and promote them himself. It was a wild period. So, he was a free thinker and a free spirit.”
“That aligns with the way myself and the friends that I played music with growing up. Freedom of expression was our keynote. So, I wrote a concerto in the spirit of fun and creativity, and it came out how it is.”
The collection of improvisations and small group pieces were completely unplanned for the studio. Corea recalls, “the solo pieces were not part of the concert when I first performed the piece in 2006 in Europe. Since it was an actual Mozart tribute, the concert consisted of a combination of my Continents, which consisted of the 6 movements I had written, plus a Mozart Piano Concert that I played. That was the program. But, when we recorded it last June in New York, after we got the recording down, we got it down 1 ½ – 2 days earlier than we scheduled because the musicians were so “on” it. They were so bright and incredible, so they got the thing down sooner than I expected, so I had 2 days left. So, one of the things that I did was to have a jam session with the quintet right after everyone else said goodbye, just to have fun. What was it, four or five tunes? I listened to it later and thought, “Wow! That sounds really nice!” I thought that would be a nice addendum to the strictness of the notation that we followed playing The Continents music.”
“And, even after the quintet tracks went down, I still had another day left. I felt a little bit incomplete about The Continents for one reason or another in terms of the composition of it. I thought that the best way to work that out might be to just sit down and improvise it out. So the last day, I was there with Bernie my engineer and Gayle my wife in this great big historic room, The Manhattan Center, and laid down a bunch of compositions which later on I listened to and thought, “You know, that really completes the whole idea of The Continents.’”
Unfortunately, the only access fans will have of the music will be via the recording, as Corea states, I’m not going to perform it in LA for awhile. The Continents needs a lot of preparation to perform live, so we’re still working out how to do that.”
In the spirit of jazz improvisation, Corea’s trio recording tribute to Bill Evans with Paul Motian and Eddie Gomez was a mixture of planning and spontaneity. Corea remembers, “That happened earlier in the year. That was a whole other thing. I put together this trio for an engagement at the Blue Note in New York. I had been wanting to play with Paul, and I’d already had a long history of playing with Eddie which I love. Every time I work with Eddie, there’s just no way that I can work with him without somehow conjuring up the spirit and music of Bill Evans, as Eddie was THE bassist (along with Scott La faro and Mark Johnson)with Bill Evans for 11 years. Paul Motian has such an interesting concept of music that he’s developed on the drums through the years, and he was Bill’s drummer back in the days that he made those seminal records in the early 60s with Scott La Faro at the Vanguard. I thought to myself, “I don’t think that Scott and Eddie have ever played together before,” and thought how interesting that would be. I love them both, and they’ve both got that deep association with Bill, and I love Bill’s music. So, I thought we should get together an do some further explorations. So, then I thought that would be a good moniker for the trio, Further Explorations. So, we put together a set for the music. Everybody composed, as well as played Bill Evans songs. It was a glorious two weeks, and it has that extra special spiritual edge on it because just a few months later we lost our dear friend Paul.”
Even though Corea and the Evans alumni performed music associated with the iconic pianist, there wasn’t much discussion between the three about Evans himself. “It’s such sacred ground,” Corea explains,” they won’t say anything unless they’re prompted. There wasn’t much talk about Evans, but there was much talk about how to interpret his music in a new day. All of us agreed that this shouldn’t be some kind of a copy of Bill Evans, but just our musical exploration as a tribute to the spirit of Bill. Just playing some of his songs together evoke that very strongly, especially the song that was never recorded before that we called ‘Song Number One.’”
If you looked on paper at all of the projects that Chick Corea has completed, in even just the past year, it would be easy to think that this was one of those “serious” artists who is so deeply involved with his work that he has no time to balance out his life with anything else. One of the most refreshing, and attractive aspects of Corea is that he always seems to not take himself too seriously. He has a perspective on life that is winsome; a rare quality in a world of “agonizing geniuses.” Corea observes, “Most people have an opinion about “what’s serious” that I don’t particularly agree with. To me, there are two definitions of “serious”. One is that you’re really intent on what you’re doing, you’re really dedicated to it, and you’re going to go all the way and accomplish that thing. That is the definition that I like. The other “serious” that’s got to do with being too logical, ponderous and kind of morbid about stuff. I definitely don’t like to live that way. To me, making music is a joyous occasion, and it’s a continual process. It’s not just playing one song or writing one tune, it’s the way you live. To be able to be a musician and to be able to create freely in this society that encourages, quite frankly, the opposite of that, is a pretty rarified place to be, so I consider myself lucky to be able to do what I’m doing. “
It has been this mixture of serious exploration and the joy of the chase that has created a loyal fan base over all these years. Whether his release is solo piano improvisations, hard driving electronics, mainstream or free flowing summit meetings, Corea keeps an eye on the art as well as his audience, “I’m thankful to the fact that they come out and listen. I do my part in trying to entertain my audiences by giving them something that will give pleasure to them. I think that if I played music that was purely 100% my personal taste, no one would listen to it, including my wife! I appreciate the people who come out to listen to me and support me, and make it possible for me to continue to pay my rent and make some more music.”
Keeping life in perspective, not taking yourself too seriously, but just enough so to continue your quest. This is the art of life, and Chick Corea is one of the masters of both crafts.
By George W. Harris