Chick Corea - S&D

I wish I'd seen him live, too. I would have spent a lot of money to see a reunion show by the rip-roaringest Return To Forever lineup (Di Meola, Clarke, White), and that short-lived Five Peace Band he had with John McLaughlin was pretty wild, too.

Roy Haynes will outlive us all

95! I wonder if he still celebrates his birthday at the Blue Note? (Or perhaps celebrated - the club's in trouble and may not be around after the pandemic subsides.)

John McLaughlin is another one who's retired from the road. He's still physically able to perform, so I hope he'll do one-offs like festivals or something.

I was lucky enough to see McLaughlin's final US tour, where he played Mahavishnu Orchestra material with a nine-piece band. It ruled.

And his (for now) final release

At least something recent already in the works...

In 2018, a reunited Chick Corea Akoustic Band played the Detroit Jazz Festival. I sat next to Mark Stryker, who said “This band sounds a hell of a lot better than it did 25 years ago.” Concord Jazz will release an album from that tour on May 21. pic.twitter.com/JzCRKdfyIH

— Nate Chinen (@natechinen) February 12, 2021

hymn of the seventh galaxy is goddamn fucking amazing btw

I want Brad to, in five years, have evolved into a mystic who plays eight keyboards at once.

I'm so ready for an ILX jazz prog band

Random album cover inspiration:

https://progressivelyso.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/eloy-ocean-1.jpg

Lovely thread of memories

Chick Corea and I became very close in the 60s after I first saw him play in Harlem with Blue Mitchell. Chick was a true modest genius. We had many incredible jam sessions together over the years and my memories of him haven’t stopped flooding in since hearing of his passing. 1/8 pic.twitter.com/QDzyaVSLDI

— Mike Garson (@mikegarson) February 19, 2021

Okay, that is amazing.

Great piece by Mark Stryker, on Ethan Iverson’s site:

https://ethaniverson.com/chick-corea-1941-2021-by-mark-stryker/

Extremely informative -- much thanks for that.

Stryker piece is a proper remembrance, not dominated by all the RTF/Eletrik/Akoustik Band stuff.

To that point, it strikes me that there are lot of parallels between Chick and Todd Rundgren. Both were savants whose early works brought a ton of critical praise but also expectations, which they seemingly intentionally ran away from. Both spent decades exploring their own proggy fusoid directions to the horror of critics (and delight of many fans) and never apologized for it. For all that (as the Stryker piece shows), neither really ever lost touch with their respective traditions either – there are a ton of more straight ahead releases and tours littered throughout both men’s catalogues. Lastly, as stuff like the Garson thread demonstrates, both were deeply involved in the success of others along the way.

We need more of these types.

Interesting comparison. I wonder if the fact that Corea was universally regarded as a giant of his genre, while Todd is seen as a minor or cult artist with a handful of hits, can be traced to the differences between rock and jazz (or personality differences).

Good essay, yeah. He's definitely a unique jazz artist in that I love some of his records while finding many others unlistenable. Every respected jazz artist has ok records that merely have good musicianship, without that extra spark or synchronicity of all the factors aligning (band chemistry, material, recording). But I'm struggling to think of anyone with that many records that I truly do not want to hear.

Listening to this NTS show which looks like a cool selection:
https://www.nts.live/shows/in-focus/episodes/in-focus-chick-corea-19th-february-2021

Ok 45 min and I need to take a break, too many notes

So do you people have your Return to Forever records filed along side your Chick Corea. Checking for a friend. I got my Mahavishnu and Weather Report filed as it's own thing, but considering Return to Forever, I can't quite make it work - they just go with Chick's other records.