Chick Corea (12/6/1941-9/2/21)

The most striking thing about Chick Corea on stage was his extraordinary focus. Whether he was playing Mozart with an orchestra, working in an ensemble of almost any size, or performing as a piano soloist, he had an intensity and depth seldom matched by any other musician in jazz. His versatility across genres was unique, and his achievement in each was at the highest level. Testament to this is his 23 Grammy Awards, and the fact that he is the fourth most-nominated Grammy artist in history.

Although Armando Antony Corea was a child prodigy, his achievements also owed plenty to hard work. When, as a young unknown, he started working in New York with Blue Mitchell, he already had all Blue’s records with Horace Silver in the quintet with Junior Cook, saying “I was transcribing the compositions, and Horace’s solos, but also transcribing Blue’s trumpet solos, and playing them not only on the piano but on the trumpet. So he was very much a teacher and a big help to me.” From Blue Mitchell he went to work with Herbie Mann, and wound up making the first discs under his own name for Mann’s Vortex label. This musician-owned label later inspired his own Stretch imprint.

“I was absolutely in love with Miles’s Quintet,” he said, reflecting on his next big career move, after short stints with Stan Getz and Sarah Vaughan. “And I know that Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette and Wayne Shorter shared that enthusiasm. I think for a while Miles was enjoying all these new directions and seeing all these sparks happen.” The next steps took him from some of the free-est playing ever in Miles’s Quintet to the even more free jazz territory of Circle with Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland and Barry Altshul. “It’s pretty wild going up in front of an audience with four musicians who don't have anything prepared!’” he reflected. What they did prepare was the set-up on stage, aiming to achieve the same acoustic clarity and communication as classical players. This remained a key ingredient in all of Chick’s work for the rest of his career, whether in an acoustic or electric setting.

Return to Forever, in which form was an essential ingredient was, as Chick put it, “the complete reverse. I wanted to have a predictable effect, which means a rhythm and a song”. This band had three main incarnations in the 1970s, but continued to enjoy occasional reunions right up until 2011. And longevity was also a feature of his Crystal Silence duo with Gary Burton, which Chick recalled would reunite once or twice a year from the 1970s up until Gary’s retirement in 2017 even if they weren’t touring.

Amid a bewildering variety of projects including his sextet Origin (with UK saxophonist Tim Garland), his Elektric and Akoustic Bands, his New Trio, The Five Peace Band and The Vigil, Chick also led various other trios, of which the versions with Eddie Gomez and Paul Motian, and Trilogy with Christian McBride and Brian Blade stand out. And he enjoyed working in an orchestral setting, too. In the pre-concert talk for the UK premiere of his piano concerto, I asked how he had prepared for playing in a jazz setting with sextet and orchestra, and also performing a Mozart piano concerto. He told me it was about believing you could. And then — briefly — but it was important to him, told the audience that he had been helped in this self-belief by Scientology.

When I last interviewed him in early 2020, when his Barbican concert with Trilogy had to be cancelled, Chick had been looking forward to a summer tour with his Spanish Heart band. Exploring crosscurrents between flamenco and jazz, it had won the Latin jazz Grammy for Antidote. Sadly the tour was cancelled owing to Covid, but until his final illness Chick had been eagerly looking forward to resuming its work later this year.