Chick Corea Elektric Band at Hala Orbita: fusion at Wrocław’s Ethno Jazz Festival

For decades, Chick Corea has vied with Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock for the title of the greatest jazz pianist of the 20th and 21st centuries. He was one of the leaders of the revolution that steered jazz towards modernity and opened it up to electric sounds. He played on Miles Davis’s landmark fusion albums “In a Silent Way”, “Bitches Brew”, “Live-Evil” and “On The Corner”, and founded one of the most important fusion groups in history, Return to Forever.

Chick Corea was born in 1941 in the suburbs of Boston. His trumpet-playing father instilled a love of jazz from childhood. Young Corea played drums as well as piano, influencing his later distinctive style, in which the piano was sometimes treated as a percussion instrument. He debuted in 1968 with “Tones For Joan's Bones” and replaced Herbie Hancock in Miles Davis’s band that same year. The following two years changed jazz forever, with Corea one of the brightest figures in Davis’s electric experiment.

After leaving Davis, he continued exploring, playing with free-jazz giant Anthony Braxton among others. In 1972, he founded Return To Forever, finally erasing boundaries between jazz and other genres and consolidating his position as jazz’s most diverse and unpredictable figure, as Downbeat called him. Corea’s jazz-rock fundamentally influenced progressive rock and broke down the wall between jazz and the charts, bringing previously exclusive music to millions of new listeners.

In 1986, the pianist founded another legendary group, Chick Corea Elektric Band. They followed the path established by Return To Forever, also drawing on funk and the synthetic sounds characteristic of the 1980s. The classic Elektric Band line-up that will perform in Wrocław finally took shape in 1987 while recording the famous “Light Years”. Joining Corea on stage will be John Patitucci, a regular winner of polls for best jazz bassist; Australian guitarist Frank Gambale, with his unique playing technique; outstanding drummer Dave Weckl; and saxophonist Eric Marienthal, who successfully flirts with smooth jazz and pop, having played with Stevie Wonder, B.B. King and Elton John among others.

Every one of these musicians could fill concert halls individually! Chick Corea Elektric Band is a true supergroup in the finest sense, and their Wrocław concert will be a unique opportunity to see the original line-up. Corea promises the band are in peak form, and we should take him at his word.

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