In Memoriam: Chick Corea
By Jonathan Herrera
Photo by Sakura Toshi
Like so much news these days, my first inkling that we’d lost yet another musical legend arrived via stupefied social media posts: “Is it true? Chick?!” “Has anyone heard??” “OMG, Tell me this is just a rumor!! #RIPCHICK” As that day wore on, the news that 79-year-old Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea had died found its way to increasingly reputable sources and then, finally, to his own official website. One of the 20th-century’s most enthusiastic and influential musicians was gone, falling victim to a cancer diagnosis he had only received recently.
It isn’t remarkable that the news arrived via social media—that’s 2021 for you—rather, it was who among my friends seemed most engaged with the breaking story: bass players. Apart from Herbie Hancock, perhaps, no non-bass-playing musician means more to a certain generation of bass players than Chick Corea, which is why Scott’s Bass Lessons feels compelled to memorialize him, even though he didn’t play the instrument. Corea’s creative output is marked not only by its prodigious scope, joyous stylistic breadth, and restless reinvention, but by the elite corps of bass players he enlisted from the very beginning. To trace his career is to trace a substantial legacy of the instrument, and it’s that perspective that informs our memory here.
Born to Italian immigrant parents in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1941, Chick made his recording debut with Tones for Joan’s Bones [Atlantic, 1968]. Featuring Steve Swallow on upright (indeed, one of his last recorded acoustic performances), the album’s four tracks are an early document of Corea’s singular approach. Blending a painterly and sensitive touch on piano, a la Bill Evans, with McCoy Tyner-like intensity and harmonic idiosyncrasy, the album is an early example of the degree to which Corea favored strong bass players able to assert their voice in improvisational dialog.
No matter how promising his debut, Corea’s follow-up, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs [Solid State, 1968], signaled the arrival of a true master in the making. Widely considered one of the best piano trio albums of all time, the record established the intellectual rigor, emotional sensitivity, and pioneering compositional voice that have marked his music ever since. As with his debut, the bass chair was given to a strong and assertive player, Miroslav Vitous, empowered to assert and co-create in real time.
Chick’s early embrace of the Fender Rhodes—often mangled and warped with a ring modulator and overdriven amp—made him a pioneer of jazz fusion. It’s no surprise then that Miles Davis, himself yearning to break free of the suddenly staid shackles of straight-ahead acoustic jazz, employed Chick in some of his earliest forays into fusion, like Black Beauty: Live at the Fillmore West [CBS/Sony, 1973]. Again, Chick finds himself onstage with one of our instrument’s most celebrated players, Dave Holland, here playing electric.
Of all of Chick’s early records, it’s the eponymous Return to Forever [Polydor, 1972], that perhaps best crystallizes the cosmopolitan embrace of a multitude of styles that would come to define his music in subsequent decades. It also marked the beginning of a lifelong musical relationship with Stanley Clarke, whose rare talent on both acoustic and electric helped to enable Chick’s expansive vision. The band’s second release, Light as a Feather [Polydor, 1973] is a classic, and includes one of Chick’s best known tunes, “Spain,” with its famed unison line responsible for much angst among budding bass shredders.
While Chick was writing, arranging, and performing with Return to Forever, a fusion band notable not only for its virtuosity but also the accessibility of its music, he was also satisfying his more exotic side with Circle, a free jazz ensemble at the cutting edge of the avant garde. Employing Miles Davis-bandmate Dave Holland on bass, the group’s edgy, probing flirtation with atonality was in some ways the opposite of the finely-honed framework of Return to Forever.
Chick released a variety of records through the ’70s, many of which showcased his long love affair with the music of Spain and Latin America. Among the most notable is My Spanish Heart [UMG, 1976], again featuring frequent collaborator Stanley Clarke on bass. Among its many beguiling songs is “Armando’s Rhumba,” a Corea staple and oft-played fusion standard in music school rehearsal rooms the world over.
Another of Chick’s ‘70s solo releases finds him paired with the extraordinary rhythm section of Steve Gadd on drums and Eddie Gomez or Anthony Jackson on bass, The Leprechaun [Polydor, 1976]. A slightly jazzier effort than contemporaneous Return to Forever releases, The Leprechaun should be in every bass player’s collection because of one song, “Nite Sprite,” which features Anthony Jackson with some of the most impressive pick playing in music history. Just … wow.
One of Chick’s most enduring relationships to a bass player began, on record, in 1986 with release of The Chick Corea Elektric Band [GRP, 1986]. Perhaps the definitive example of the more precise, funky, and virtuosic brand of fusion that emerged in ’80s, the Elektric Band’s sound is deeply indebted to the elite gifts of bassman (and SBL instructor) John Patitucci. John’s multi-faceted mastery of a variety of techniques, from scintillating slap to burning bop-inflected soloing, and his ability to match Chick note-for-note in lightning-quick unison passages forever cemented his place in the bass pantheon. Patitucci would go on to record and tour extensively with Chick and the Elektric Band, as well as its trio spinoff, the Akoustic Band, for decades.
Another notable Chick Corea project with a famed bass player is documented on 2009’s Five Peace Band Live [Concord]. The burning collection of hardcore fusion and post-bop swing is fronted by Corea and guitarist John McLaughlin, with expert anchoring courtesy Christian McBride on bass and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums.
Two other late-period ensembles further highlight Chick’s enthusiasm for innovative, potent bass players. The 2001 debut of the Chick Corea New Trio [Concord] finds him returning to a piano trio that feels like the conceptual descendant of Now He Sings, Now He Sobs. Israeli bass player Avishai Cohen, a frequent collaborator with Chick throughout the 2000’s, deftly tackles the album’s deceptively tricky post-bop compositions. Also notable among Chick’s more recent projects was The Vigil [Concord, 2013], featuring the extraordinary Hadrien Feraud on bass. Live iterations of the band have featured Feraud, as well as notables like Carlitos DelPuerto and Christian McBride.
It’s obvious from this list—and the fact that I could have easily listed half-a-dozen other bass legends he employed—that Chick loved the bass. Few musicians did more to promote the instrument and invigorate its evolution than Chick, and for this we are forever indebted. Revisiting his music over the past few days, I’m most struck not by Chick’s awesome chops or prolific output, but rather his generous spirit, and almost child-like adoration for music in all its forms.
Whether a fan or a friend, Chick touched everyone deeply. Who better, then, to have the last word here than one of his closest compatriots, John Patitucci:
“Chick Corea changed my life in so many ways. Before I ever knew him, his music inspired me and showed me the power of interaction, improvisation, and composition. He believed in me as a young bassist, mentoring me with many loving musical challenges. He also got me my first recording contract, encouraged me as a composer, and was incredibly generous in so many ways. He taught me, by example, how to be a band leader able to inspire musicians into growing towards their full potential.
He showed us all how to dream big and then realize those dreams. He was always about the unity of the group as a team and wrote music to feature his musicians in the best way possible. Chick always prioritized communicating directly with every single audience!
He was also hysterically funny and had a zany sense of humor. I could keep writing for the rest of this year and not be able to fully express my gratitude, love, and appreciation for the genius we knew as Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea!”
John Patitucci
February 12, 2021
