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Still jamming after 35 years

By Jules Quartly
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Mar 16, 2007, Page 13

Chick Corea and performing with Gary Burton. PHOTOS COURTESY OF MNA

While the golden age of modern jazz is gone, there are still some wandering minstrels from that era who blow in occasionally to these shores for a reunion with like-minded souls. Cue the mass exodus from Blue Note and Brown Sugar tomorrow when pianist Chick Corea teams up with vibraphone player Gary Burton for a session at the National Concert Hall.

The two jazz innovators from Boston first plugged their instruments into amps in the 1960s and helped develop the electro or rock fusion sound led by pied piper Miles Davis. Their shared roots and interests inevitably led to collaborations and in 1972 Corea and Burton put out their first album Crystal Silence, followed by further vinyl outings together in the decades that followed. Their most recent release was on the two-CD set Rendezvous In New York (2003), from a landmark session at the Blue Note in New York celebrating Corea's 60th birthday.

According to publicist Michael Heatley, this concert in Taipei represents the 35th anniversary of the pair's original collaboration and he quotes Corea in Digital Interviews as saying, "It's never been a reunion. Me and Gary continue to just play. It's always been, 'Oh, let's do another gig.' There was never a point where … we reformed. It's always been a sideline with us, in the sense that we've always had main groups that we do and then we've always gotten together with the duet. It's kind of worked out very, very nicely. It's a special little place that's all its own."

The Grammy Award-winning keyboardist and composer followed in his father's footsteps. Armando Corea was a Dixieland band leader in the 1930s and 1940s. The younger Corea started playing piano at four but later quit Juilliard School in New York after just six months to begin his journey into improvisation and harmonic structure.

"I decided when I was a young man to make it my primary policy to always keep myself interested and challenged with music," he is quoted as saying on his Web site (chickcorea.com), "I've managed to avoid falling into the habit of doing the same thing over and over again, and it's really proved to be a good thing for me."

He did not have to struggle in the early days, as his father's connections and his own obvious talent opened doors. Instead he worked with musicians like Herbie Mann and then replaced Herbie Hancock in Miles Davis' band. "The Dark Prince's" influence was seminal and Corea went on to fuse Latin elements into the electro-jazz sound with his band Return to Forever.

More recently Corea has shown an interest in contemporary classical music and composed his first piano concerto Spain, which was performed with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1999. His String Quartet No. 1 was premiered at the world's largest music festival, Summerfest, held in Milwaukee, 2004.

It has been a long road from the bars and halls of 40 years ago to the classical spaces that Corea will fill on his current tour of Asia. He has already played Seoul and Kuala Lumpur and will take off for a series of California dates after Taipei. Like jazz itself, Corea has gone from avant-garde artist to being a respected voice of the establishment.

For his Taipei concert, Corea is scheduled to play works from his extensive repertoire, including self-penned compositions such as Love Castle, Tango '92 and Armando's Rhumba, as well as classics like Bolivar Blues by Thelonious Monk.

Chick Corea and Gary Burton are at the National Concert Hall (台北國家音樂廳) tomorrow night at 7:30pm. The National Concert Hall is at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, 21-1 Zhongshan S Rd, Taipei (台北市中山南路21-1號). Call (02) 3393-9999. Tickets are available priced NT$1,000 to NT$3,600 from www.ticket.com.tw and www.mna .com.tw or call (02) 8712-1986.
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