Spain - Chick Corea piano solo. 1 part. 5 pages. 01:47. Nov 30, 2020. 955 views. 26 favorites. Spain Chick Corea. From his album “Light as a Feather.”. And we're lovers once again And you're near me I can remember the rain in December The leaves are brown on the ground In Spain I did. Spain by Chick Corea arr. Paul Jennings for Alto Saxophone. Windows Chick Corea. 2 parts. 11 pages. 03:35. Oct 10, 2019. 686 views. 43.

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• It was this ability to embrace and synthesize so many types of music—hard bop, Latin jazz, rock, classical and Spanish folk influences—that made Chick Corea, who died of cancer on Feb.
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The story behind a modern jazz standard

The son of a trumpeter in a Dixieland band, the virtuosic keyboardist Chick Corea is revered as one of the principal alchemists in the fusion of jazz with rock, funk, and Latin music. After recording his seminal 1968 album, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, he replaced Herbie Hancock as the piano chair in Miles Davis's band—the band that recorded such classic albums as Bitches Brew. Throughout his eclectic career, Corea has collaborated with vibraphonist Gary Burton and banjoist Bela Fleck, pioneered the use of the Fender Rhodes electric piano, and won 16 Grammys. In 1972 he founded the jazz fusion group Return to Forever, which he's steered through several lives—including Return to Forever IV, which recently concluded its 2011 World Tour. Here, Corea shares the original sheet music for 'Spain,' a composition for the group's 1972 sophomore album, Light as a Feather.

THE FIRST RECORDING took about three hours at a New York studio. This was in 1972, within the first year or two of Return to Forever's inception. We were on the road continually, and we were adding music to our repertoire and preparing our second record. Our rhythm was pretty developed by then-Stanley [Clarke] on bass, Airto [Moreira] playing the trap drums, bringing his Brazilian touch to everything, plus my writing.

At the time I was in love with Miles's 'Sketches of Spain,' with Gil Evans. I still am. On that record Gil has this fantastic arrangement-it's the second movement of Joaquin Rodrigo's 'Concierto de Aranjuez.' I fooled around with that theme, extended it and composed some melodies, which turned out to be the main themes of 'Spain.' I always play Rodrigo's second movement as a keyboard intro.

I work out alternatives in my head, toss them around, play them on the piano until I find a piece that's the best. And I don't set anything down onto paper until I've got a pretty long flow, a complete melodic statement.

By 1976 or so, I started to tire of the song. I started playing really perverted versions of it-I'd refer to it just for a second, then I'd go off on an improvisation. Once the acoustic band was in action, sometime around '85, I decided to try my hand at a rearrangement of the piece. Then there was the orchestral arrangement. Even with my current band, Return to Forever IV, we're still playing 'Spain.' We've gone back to the original arrangement.

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Maybe another tune will come to the forefront. Probably not, at this part of my life. I don't know. I don't think any artist really knows why a song gets popular. A lot of artists say, we'll, it was a sing-able melody, the rhythm was infectious. You could surmise a lot.

The constant challenge is not so much the creative process, but the challenge of presenting an idea to the public. It's a constant challenge to get your arrangement and musical expression across to a new audience, especially when you're playing live every night, like we are.

Miles set this example of creative fearlessness. He kept changing the way he played. He kept changing the poem of his music. Now, when I play soul piano, for instance, and I play a rendition of 'Spain,' I do it deconstructively. That's the most fun, but I can only do that when I'm on my own.

-Chick Corea, as told to Alex Hoyt

By Phillip Lutz I

Spain Chick Corea Live

Mar. 8, 2021

Chick Corea’s passing reverberated through the jazz world with a multigenerational outpouring for an artist seen as both a creative force and a compassionate soul.

Drummer Jack DeJohnette, 78, traces his collaborations with Corea back to mid-1960s jams in the pianist’s house in Queens, New York. Those meetings, DeJohnette said, transcended the boundary between work and play: “You knew you were going to have fun and the level of playing would be the highest possible.”

Working through material that would appear on Corea’s second album—Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (Blue Note), which is in the Grammy Hall of Fame—DeJohnette said he could hear Corea’s voice emerging from the surrounding swirl of influences, like McCoy Tyner: “He’d taken McCoy and changed it into the Chick Corea sound.”

In Miles Davis’ electric band of the period, Corea’s sound, known for its lightness and brightness, could get gritty, especially on a ring-modulated Rhodes piano. “There’s this real intense edge,” said pianist Vijay Iyer, 49. “He’s not afraid to bring a whole lot of dissonance, a whole lot of noise—seeming almost-chaos—into the mix of this deep groove.”

Spain Chick Corea Jack Gardiner

DeJohnette, one of the players driving that groove, recalled: “There was electricity all around. You couldn’t wait to get on the bandstand.”

When Corea turned to fusion while leading the band Return To Forever, the structured compositions and soaring solos electrified the swelling crowds. But that band was just a stop on a journey. Like Davis, Corea was always searching for new modes of expression.

“He was ever-changing,” DeJohnette said.

Wynton Marsalis, 59, expanded on that sentiment in a Twitter post describing Corea: “Prehistoric instincts, super quick reflexes and deep knowledge meets an unquenchable thirst to know, to experience the present and to embrace change.”

Corea, who explored formats from solo to symphonic, often favored the trio setting, with bassist Christian McBride along for the ride. McBride, 48, recalled a driven man: “He was insanely creative, always at the piano, writing, practicing, always on output mode.”

But, McBride said, he was also modest. “In his heart of hearts, he was still a New York pianist for hire, just playing the gig. I remember on a tour bus, he said, ‘It really bothers me I don’t get called to do sideman gigs anymore.’”

The two musicians last played together in March 2020, when the European tour of Corea’s Trilogy band was cut short because of the pandemic. Also on that tour was drummer Brian Blade, another frequent collaborator.

Blade, 50, recalled that Corea was unfazed on the airplane back to the United States: “He was already planning. He was always looking for the opportunity to come together again. He shared his life with you as he shared the stage with you.”

Spain Chick Corea Drum

Corea shared stages—even keyboards—with brilliant young pianists around the world. In Japan, Hiromi Uehara, 40, was 16 and a rising star when Corea summoned her onstage at Tokyo’s Nikkei Hall for a joint free improvisation. They last played together in a September duet on Zoom, trading improvised passages on Corea’s “Spain.”

“Listening to his work is one thing, really inspirational,” she said. “But when you can listen to him and play something back and have a reaction, conversing with him, it was like a real luxury.”

In Cuba, pianist Alfredo Rodríguez, 35, was a young Corea devotee. With his reputation growing, Corea called him onstage first at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the next year at Jazz at Lincoln Center and, more recently, at the SFJAZZ Center, where they played a four-hands rendition of “Spain.”

Rodriguez said he felt the loss personally: “I was crying yesterday. I’m crying for the music. He changed my life.”

Saxophonist Kenny Garrett, who worked alongside Corea in the Five Peace Band, got to know the pianist off the bandstand. “Every time we met in person or via phone, he was always positive and giving,” Garrett wrote in an email. “I used to call Chick and leave him a musical message on the piano, and he would call me back and leave me a musical idea on the piano.”

“He was a total pro,” said George Wein, 95, who founded the Newport Jazz Festival. At his last Newport appearance, Corea was the headliner, playing three shows in two days. “Every one of them was great.”

Wein also was taken by Corea’s thoughtfulness. A pianist, Wein self-deprecatingly recalled playing at a festival in Puerto Rico where Corea was also on the bill. Corea, he noted, offered some advice: “He said, ‘George, you keep playing. It’s good for you.’”

Wein recalled an underage Corea sneaking into Wein’s Boston club, Storyville, in the late 1950s to hear Davis’ group, and being disappointed to see Bill Evans in Wynton Kelly’s piano chair. But Evans became a major inspiration. “It changed his life,” Wein said.

As it happens, the last time Corea worked with DeJohnette was for a video promoting a release of material recorded during an Evans date at Ronnie Scott’s in London. In the video, recorded in recent months, Corea seemed in good health. So, his death was a shock.

Spain Chick Corea Instruments

“I love him and miss him,” DeJohnette said. “His spirit will always be with me.”DB