Keyboard virtuoso Chick Corea, who pushed the melodic boundaries of jazz for the period of his 5-decade profession, has died of a rare produce of most cancers, his household presented Wednesday.
Corea, who became 79 and a 23-time Grammy Award winner, had handiest nowadays been diagnosed with the illness earlier than he died Tuesday.
“He became a beloved husband, father and grandfather, and a huge mentor and buddy to so many,” Corea’s household said in an announcement posted on Fb. “By blueprint of his body of labor and the many years he spent touring the world, he touched and impressed the lives of millions.”
The household’s put up incorporated a farewell message from Corea to his chums, fans and fellow musicians.
“I are looking out to thank all of those along my traipse who own helped retain the song fires burning colorful,” he wrote. “It is my hope that folk who own an inkling to play, write, execute or otherwise, enact so. If no longer for yourself then for the relaxation of us. It be no longer handiest that the world wants extra artists, it is furthermore excellent moderately about a fun.”
Addressing his “unprecedented musician chums,” Corea added: “It has been a blessing and an honor learning from and participating in with all of you. My mission has consistently been to lift the joy of setting up wherever I might per chance perhaps per chance, and to own performed so with all the artists that I care for so dearly — this has been the richness of my existence.”
Armando Anthony Corea became born June 12, 1941, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He became presented to the piano at age 4 by his father, who performed trumpet in varied Dixieland bands.
Raised on the song of jazz piano legends Horace Silver and Bud Powell, to boot to Beethoven and Mozart, Corea became taking part in professionally by the time he became in excessive school.
By the mid-1960s, Corea had established himself as a high piano participant on the jazz circuit, taking part in with greats like Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan and Herbie Mann earlier than he joined Miles Davis’ band.
Corea’s keyboard work might per chance perhaps per chance furthermore be heard on about a of Davis’ most crucial albums, along side “Bitches Brew,” “Filles de Kilimanjaro,” “Enormous Stress-free” and “Water Infants.”
Within the 1970s, Corea fashioned the groundbreaking band Return to Perpetually with bassist Stanley Clarke, which melded jazz improvisation with rock, funk and rhythm and blues to execute a total unusual sound dubbed jazz fusion.
Alongside with Herbie Hancock, Invoice Evans and Keith Jarrett, Corea became one in every of the pause jazz pianists of his time. Corea compositions like “Spain,” “500 Miles High” and “Windows” are regarded as jazz standards.
But Corea did no longer restrict himself to jazz. His repertoire went, based utterly totally on his official biography, “from straight forward to avant-garde, bebop to fusion, kids’s songs to chamber song, along with some far-reaching forays into symphonic works.”
Corea married fellow jazz musician Gayle Moran in 1972. The household statement did no longer inform survivors or funeral plans. Corea became a properly-identified Scientologist who thanked the founder of the controversial church in the liner notes of a entire lot of of his closing albums, based utterly totally on Billboard.
