Chick Corea - A Giant Has Fallen
Chick Corea, one of the greatest jazz pianists and composers of the 20th/21st century and the father of fusion, has passed. Not much can be said in response to this kind of loss other than a giant has fallen. If you are a long-time fan you are among the countless who are broken by this news in their own way. If you are new to Corea’s music then I leave for you a story that may act as a frame for your listening.
I’ve been going back to the NPR Tiny Desk Concert between Corea and Gary Burton. The performance is in a way a retelling between two grandmasters of their first record together.
In the early ’70s, Chick Corea and Gary Burton were part of a European jazz tour for ECM records, at the end of the concert there was to be an organized jam between some of the artists on the tour as an encore. They figured…"why not the Americans.” Instruments like vibraphone and piano aren’t usually paired in jazz because their setups and timbre provide little contrast, this can make music messy — however, Burton and Corea agreed to play a duo over Corea’s composition “La Fiesta.”
After the performances, the manager of ECM kept pushing them to make a record together. Burton and Corea were more than hesitant about sales yet after much pushing they agreed to record at ECM’s studio in Norway. Together they made the 1973 hit, “Crystal Silence.”
When talking about the birth of fusion Gary Burton described jazz as being locked “in a straight jacket - 150 standards-based in the harmonies of Broadway show tunes.” Chick Corea and his contemporaries broke this boundary by looking to harmony from rock, classical, and world music. Corea’s unique harmonic freedom has been looked to by countless following him.
