The Sounds Of Jazz

This time on Sounds Of Jazz, we're going to feature the entire album "Bags Groove" by the great Miles Davis. "Bags' Groove" was released in 1957 by Prestige Records, compiling material from two 10" LPs recorded in 1954, plus two alternative takes.

Both takes of the title track come from a session on December 24, 1954, the first version having been previously released on "Miles Davis All Stars", Volume 1. "Bags" was vibraphonist Milt Jackson's nickname. The other tracks recorded during this session may be found on "Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants", and all of them are also featured on the compilation album "Thelonious Monk: The Complete Prestige Recordings". The rest of the album was recorded earlier in the year, on June 29, and four of the tracks had already been released as "Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins", with the fifth being a previously unreleased alternative take.

The title track was written by Milt "Bags" Jackson and the three compositions written by the young Sonny Rollins all went on to become jazz standards. On "Oleo", Davis used the Harmon mute to obtain a peculiar sound, and it would become an important feature of his playing.
Side One

1. "Bags' Groove" (Take 1)
2. "Bags' Groove" (Take 2)
Side two
1. "Airegin"
2. "Oleo"
3. "But Not for Me" (Take 2)
4. "Doxy"
5. "But Not for Me" (Take 1)

Personel

Miles Davis – trumpet
Sonny Rollins – tenor saxophone
Horace Silver – piano
Percy Heath – bass
Kenny Clarke – drums

On "Bags' Groove":

Miles Davis – trumpet
Milt Jackson – vibraphone
Thelonious Monk – piano
Percy Heath – bass
Kenny Clarke – drums

Enjoy this great album by some of the legends of jazz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUHUjqJ9-RQ&list=PLUo8TIQYTFW-a9Kn28TgKXpbDKIymb8qy&index=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxop4KMVPpY&list=PLUo8TIQYTFW-a9Kn28TgKXpbDKIymb8qy&index=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxop4KMVPpY&list=PLUo8TIQYTFW-a9Kn28TgKXpbDKIymb8qy&index=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJUZroNIbYM&list=PLUo8TIQYTFW-a9Kn28TgKXpbDKIymb8qy&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oxio9qzTAI&list=PLUo8TIQYTFW-a9Kn28TgKXpbDKIymb8qy&index=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_nuaUlUMxs&list=PLUo8TIQYTFW-a9Kn28TgKXpbDKIymb8qy&index=6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Svlc0M4Mxk&list=PLUo8TIQYTFW-a9Kn28TgKXpbDKIymb8qy&index=7

Miles Davis - Doxy (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) from Bags' Groove Bags' Groove was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder and originally released by Prestige Records. It compiles material from two 10" LPs recorded in 1954, plus two al...

Welcome to The Sounds Of Jazz. I'll be posting about a jazz artists and their music. I'll be doing "East Coast" jazz and "West Coast" jazz. There is a difference. The "East Coast" jazz is considered to more bop and hard bop, and "West Coast" jazz is considered to be more smooth. Sometimes it will be a single artist and a single song, and others it will be an "artist of the week/month/whatever. So give a listen to a true American art form, and enjoy.

This time on The Sounds Of Jazz, we'll be listening to Dexter Gordan.

Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and actor. He was among the most influential early bebop musicians, which included other greats such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell. Gordon's height was 6 feet 6 inches (198 cm), so he was also known as "Long Tall Dexter" and "Sophisticated Giant". His studio and performance career spanned over 40 years.

Gordon's sound was commonly characterized as being "large" and spacious and he had a tendency to play behind the beat. He was known for inserting musical quotes into his solos, with sources as diverse as "Happy Birthday" and well known melodies from the operas of Wagner. This is not unusual in jazz improvisation, but Gordon did it frequently enough to make it a hallmark of his style. One of his major influences was Lester Young. Gordon, in turn, was an early influence on John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Rollins and Coltrane then influenced Gordon's playing as he explored hard bop and modal playing during the 1960s.

Gordon was known for his genial and humorous stage presence. He was an advocate of playing to communicate with the audience, which was his musical approach as well. His improvisation was remarkably engaging and intelligent, but never gratuitously complex or unusual. It was always a conversation simultaneously delightful and intellectual. One of his idiosyncratic rituals was to recite lyrics from each ballad before playing it.

Gordon was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in the Bertrand Tavernier film Round Midnight (Warner Bros, 1986), and he won a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist, for the soundtrack album "The Other Side of Round Midnight" (Blue Note Records, 1986). He also had a cameo role in the 1990 film "Awakenings". In 2018, Gordon's album "Go" (Blue Note, 1962) was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Dexter Gordon died of kidney failure and smoking related cancer of the larynx in Philadelphia, on April 25, 1990, at the age of 67.

This is from Dexter's album "Go". It's cut 1 called "Cheesecake. It features
Tenor Saxophone: Dexter Gordon
Double Bass: Butch Warren
Drums: Billy Higgins
Piano: Sonny Clark

Cheese Cake (Remastered 1999/Rudy Van Gelder Edition) Provided to YouTube by Universal Music GroupCheese Cake (Remastered 1999/Rudy Van Gelder Edition) · Dexter GordonGo!℗ 1999 Blue Note RecordsReleased on: 1962...

Welcome to The Sounds Of Jazz. I'll be posting about a jazz artists and their music. I'll be doing "East Coast" jazz and "West Coast" jazz. There is a difference. The "East Coast" jazz is considered to more bop and hard bop, and "West Coast" jazz is considered to be more smooth. Sometimes it will be a single artist and a single song, and others it will be an "artist of the week/month/whatever. So give a listen to a true American art form, and enjoy.

This time on The Sounds Of Jazz, we'll be saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY to sax great, Wayne Shorter.

Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and then co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report. He has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader. This is the title cut from his album "Soothsayer". Featuring on
Alto Sax: Wayne Shorter.
Alto Sax: James Spaulding
Trumpet: Freddie Hubbard
Piano: McCoy Tyner
Bass (vocal): Ron Carter
Drums: Tony Williams

The Soothsayer (Rudy Van Gelder Edition / 2007 Digital Remaster) Provided to YouTube by Universal Music GroupThe Soothsayer (Rudy Van Gelder Edition / 2007 Digital Remaster) · Wayne ShorterThe Soothsayer℗ 2007 The Blue Not...

Welcome to The Sounds Of Jazz. I'll be posting about a jazz artists and their music. I'll be doing "East Coast" jazz and "West Coast" jazz. There is a difference. The "East Coast" jazz is considered to more bop and hard bop, and "West Coast" jazz is considered to be more smooth. Sometimes it will be a single artist and a single song, and others it will be an "artist of the week/month/whatever. So give a listen to a true American art form, and enjoy.

This time on The Sounds Of Jazz, we'll be listening to The Crusaders (formerly known as The Jazz Crusaders), and their jazz works.

The Jazz Crusaders were an American jazz group that were successful from the 1960s to the 1990s. The group were known as the Jazz Crusaders from their formation in 1960 until shortening their name in 1971. The Crusaders were comfortable playing a wide assortment of genres, from straight ahead jazz, to urban R&B, to R&B-based jazz, to even blues. The band reached a commercial apex in 1979 with their hit single "Street Life", featuring lead vocals by Randy Crawford, and their accompanying album of the same name.

High school friends Joe Sample (piano), Wilton Felder (tenor saxophone) and Nesbert "Stix" Hooper (drums) formed their first band together, the Swingsters, in Houston, Texas in 1954. They played a mixture of jazz and R&B, and were joined by Wayne Henderson (trombone), Hubert Laws (flute), and Henry Wilson (bass). The group soon turned more to hard bop, and renamed themselves the Modern Jazz Sextet, but also recorded in a more R&B vein as the Nighthawks (or Nite Hawks).

In 1960, Sample, Felder, Hooper and Henderson moved to Los Angeles, and formed the Jazz Crusaders as a quintet with a succession of different bass players. Influenced by musicians such as Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey and John Coltrane, the band signed to the Pacific Jazz label in 1961, and released 16 albums on the label over the subsequent eight years. With a front-line horn section of Felder and Henderson, the group's sound was rooted in hard bop, but with a slant towards R&B and soul music.

Their first two albums, with Jimmy Bond on bass, were Freedom Sound (1961), and Lookin' Ahead (1962), followed by the live album At the Lighthouse (1962) and Tough Talk, the first of several albums with bassist Bobby Haynes. In all, the group recorded five live albums in the 1960s, four of which were recorded at the Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach. They also had their first chart entry, their treatment of Stevie Wonder's "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" reaching No.95 on the Hot 100 in 1966. The group's 1969 album, Powerhouse, was their first to reach the Billboard 200 album chart, reaching No. 184, and was also their last studio album for Pacific Jazz.

The peak of the group's commercial success came with 1979's Street Life, with Randy Crawford as featured singer. The album peaked at No. 18 on the pop album charts and the title track made the Top 10 on the R&B chart, No. 36 on Billboard′s Hot 100 chart, and No.5 in the UK. Later albums by the group featured singers Bill Withers and Joe Cocker. The live 1982 album Royal Jam featured guitarist B. B. King, bassist James Jamerson, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Hooper left in 1983, and though Felder and Sample kept the group operating through the 1980s, the group's commercial success diminished. Felder and Henderson reunited in the mid-1990s as the Crusaders. Henderson later led a band called the Jazz Crusaders, in which Felder and Carlton also played, and Felder and Sample reunited as the Crusaders in 2003.

Wayne Henderson died on April 5, 2014.
Joe Sample died in Houston on September 12, 2014.
Wilton Felder died on September 27, 2015.
This is "Street Life" by The (Jazz) Crusaders from 1979.

Street Life - The Crusaders '1979 Street Life - The Crusaders '1979

Welcome to The Sounds Of Jazz. I'll be posting about a jazz artists and their music. I'll be doing "East Coast" jazz and "West Coast" jazz. There is a difference. The "East Coast" jazz is considered to more bop and hard bop, and "West Coast" jazz is considered to be more smooth. Sometimes it will be a single artist and a single song, and others it will be an "artist of the week/month/whatever. So give a listen to a true American art form, and enjoy.

This time on The Sounds Of Jazz, we'll be listening to Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers Jr.

Paul Chambers was a jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the extent of his work in this short period, but also by his impeccable timekeeping and virtuosic improvisations. He was also known for his bowed solos. Chambers recorded about a dozen albums as a leader or co-leader, and over 100 more as a sideman, especially as the anchor of trumpeter Miles Davis's "first great quintet", from 1955 to 1963, and with pianist Wynton Kelly from 1963 to 1968.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 22, 1935, to Paul Lawrence Chambers and Margaret Echos. He was brought up in Detroit, Michigan following the death of his mother. He began playing music with several of his schoolmates on the baritone horn. Later he took up the tuba. "I got along pretty well, but it's quite a job to carry it around in those long parades, and I didn't like the instrument that much".

Chambers became a string bassist around 1949. His formal bass training began in earnest in 1952, when he began taking lessons with a bassist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Chambers did some classical playing himself, with a rehearsal group called the Detroit String Band. He studied at Cass Technical High School intermittently from 1952 to 1955, and played in Cass' symphony, and in various other student groups, in one of which he played baritone saxophone.

When he left for New York City at the invitation of tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette, he had a working knowledge of many instruments. Jazz bass players were largely limited to timekeeping with drums, until Duke Ellington's bassist Jimmy Blanton began a transformation in the instrument's role at the end of the 1930s. Chambers was about 15 years old when he started to listen to Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, his first jazz influences. Oscar Pettiford and Ray Brown were the first bassists he admired, and these were followed by Percy Heath, Milt Hinton and Wendell Marshall for their rhythm section work, and Charles Mingus and George Duvivier for their technical prowess and for their efforts in broadening the scope of jazz bass. Blanton was his all-time favorite.

From 1954 on through 1955, he gained significance touring with such musicians as Bennie Green, Quinichette, George Wallington, J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding. In 1955 he joined the Miles Davis quintet, and was awarded the DownBeat "New Star Award" the following year. Chambers stayed with the group until 1963, and appeared on many classic albums, including Kind of Blue. One of Chambers's most noted performances was on that album's first track, "So What", which opens with a brief duet featuring Chambers and pianist Bill Evans. From 1963 until 1968, Chambers played with Wynton Kelly's trio. He freelanced frequently as a sideman for many others throughout his career.

During the course of his lifetime Paul Chambers developed addictions to both alcohol and he**in. He was hospitalized at the end of 1968 with what was thought to be a severe case of influenza, but tests revealed that he had tuberculosis. As his organ functions deteriorated, Chambers lapsed into a coma for 18 days. It is believed that his addictions to he**in and alcohol contributed to his health problems. On January 4, 1969 he died of tuberculosis. Paul Chambers was only 33 years old.

This is from Paul's album "Chamber's Music" in 1956. It's called "Dexterity".

Paul Chambers Quartet - Dexterity Recorded 1956Personnel:Paul Chambers - BassJohn Coltrane - Tenor SaxKenny Drew - PianoPhilly Joe Jones - Drums

Welcome to The Sounds Of Jazz. I'll be posting about a jazz artists and their music. I'll be doing "East Coast" jazz and "West Coast" jazz. There is a difference. The "East Coast" jazz is considered to more bop and hard bop, and "West Coast" jazz is considered to be more smooth. Sometimes it will be a single artist and a single song, and others it will be an "artist of the week/month/whatever. So give a listen to a true American art form, and enjoy.

This time on The Sounds Of Jazz, we'll be listening to Cedar Walton.

I came to Cedar Walton's music late. In fact, I learned about him from his grandson who works at the hospital I was in. We were talking jazz music after he came in and I was listening to Coltrane on my laptop. As we were talking, he mentioned that his grandfather had played with Coltrane and Art Blakey. After he left I looked him up on Wikipedia, then YouTube. Been a fan ever since.

Cedar Anthony Walton, Jr., born January 17, 1934 – died August 19, 2013, was a hard bop jazz pianist. He came to prominence as a member of drummer Art Blakey's band before establishing a long career as a bandleader and composer. Several of his compositions have become jazz standards, including "Mosaic", "Bolivia", "Holy Land", "Mode for Joe" and "Fantasy in D". Walton was tempted by the promise of New York City through his associations with John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and Richie Powell, whom he met at various after-hours sessions around the city of Denver, Colorado.

In 1955, he decided to leave school and drove with a friend to New York City. He quickly got recognition from Johnny Garry, who ran Birdland at that time. But Walton was drafted into the U.S. Army, and stationed in Germany, cutting short his rising status in the after-hours scene. While in the Army, he played with musicians Leo Wright, Don Ellis, and Eddie Harris. Upon his discharge after two years, Walton picked up where he left off, playing as a sideman with Kenny Dorham, on whose 1958 album "This Is the Moment!"

Walton made his recording debut, J. J. Johnson, and with Gigi Gryce. Joining the Jazztet, led by Benny Golson and Art Farmer, Walton played with this group from 1958 to 1961. In April 1959, he recorded an alternate take of "Giant Steps" with John Coltrane, though he did not solo.

In the early 1960s, Walton joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers as a pianist-arranger for three years, on the same day as Freddie Hubbard. In this group, which also featured Wayne Shorter, he demonstrated a keen sense of arranging in originals such as "Ugetsu" and "Mosaic". He left the Messengers in 1964 and by the late 1960s was part of the house rhythm section at Prestige Records, where in addition to releasing his own recordings, he recorded with Sonny Criss, Pat Martino, Eric Kloss, and Charles McPherson. For a year, he served as Abbey Lincoln's accompanist, and recorded with Lee Morgan from 1966 to 1968. During the mid-1970s, he led the funk group Mobius.

Walton arranged and recorded for Etta James from the mid 1990s helping her to win a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album for "Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday" (RCA Victor) in 1994. This is from his debut album in 1967, "Cedar!"

Cedar Walton - Turquoise Twice Cedar Walton - piano, Kenny Dorham - trumpet, Junior Cook - tenor sax, Leroy Vinegar - bass, Billy Higgins - drumsRecorded July 10, 1967https://en.wikipedia....

Welcome to The Sounds Of Jazz. I'll be posting about a jazz artists and their music. I'll be doing "East Coast" jazz and "West Coast" jazz. There is a difference. The "East Coast" jazz is considered to more bop and hard bop, and "West Coast" jazz is considered to be more smooth. Sometimes it will be a single artist and a single song, and others it will be an "artist of the week/month/whatever. So give a listen to a true American art form, and enjoy.

This time on The Sounds Of Jazz, we'll be listening to Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman.

Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman, born on March 9 or 19, 1930 – died on June 11, 2015, was a jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer. In the 1960s, he was one of the founders of "free jazz", a term he invented for his album "Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation". His "Broadway Blues" and "Lonely Woman" have become standards and are cited as important early works in free jazz. His album Sound Grammar received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Music. He began performing R&B and bebop on tenor saxophone and started The Jam Jivers with Prince Lasha and Charles Moffett. Eager to leave town, he accepted a job in 1949 with a Silas Green from New Orleans traveling show and then with touring rhythm and blues shows. After a show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he was assaulted and his saxophone was destroyed.

He switched to alto saxophone, which remained his primary instrument, first playing it in New Orleans after the Baton Rouge incident. He then joined the band of P*e Wee Crayton and traveled with them to Los Angeles. He worked at various jobs, including as an elevator operator, while pursuing his music career. He recorded his debut album, "Something Else!!!!" in 1958. In 1959 he recorded "The Shape Of Jazz To Come" which included his signature song "Lonely Woman".

Coleman died of a cardiac arrest at the age of 85 in New York City on June 11, 2015. His funeral was a three-hour event with performances and speeches by several of his collaborators and contemporaries. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Ornette Coleman among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire. Here's Ornette Colman and "Lonely Woman".

Ornette Coleman - Lonely Woman Ornette Coleman"Lonely Woman"Album: The Shape Of Jazz To ComeReleased: 1959Length: 5'02"Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shape_of_Jazz_to_Come

Welcome to The Sounds Of Jazz. I'll be posting about a jazz artists and their music. I'll be doing "East Coast" jazz and "West Coast" jazz. There is a difference. The "East Coast" jazz is considered to more bop and hard bop, and "West Coast" jazz is considered to be more smooth. Sometimes it will be a single artist and a single song, and others it will be an "artist of the week/month/whatever. So give a listen to a true American art form, and enjoy.

This time on The Sounds Of Jazz, we'll be listening to Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley.

"Cannonball" Adderley was an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley worked with Miles Davis, first as a member of the Davis sextet, appearing on the seminal records "Milestones" (1958) and "Kind of Blue" (1959), and then on his own 1958 album "Somethin' Else".

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet featured Cannonball on alto sax and his brother Nat Adderley on cornet. Cannonball's first quintet was not very successful. However, after leaving Davis' group, he formed another group again with his brother. The new quintet, which later became the Cannonball Adderley Sextet, and Cannonball's other combos and groups, included such noted musicians as saxophonists Charles Lloyd and Yusef Lateef, pianists Bobby Timmons, Barry Harris, Victor Feldman, Joe Zawinul, Hal Galper, Michael Wolff, and George Duke, bassists Ray Brown, Sam Jones, Walter Booker, and Victor Gaskin, and drummers Louis Hayes and Roy McCurdy.

By the end of the 1960s, Adderley's playing began to reflect the influence of electric jazz. In this period, he released albums such as "Accent on Africa" (1968) and "The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free" (1970). In that same year, his quintet appeared at the Monterey Jazz Festival in California, and a brief scene of that performance was featured in the 1971 psychological thriller "Play Misty for Me", starring Clint Eastwood. In 1975 he also appeared in an acting role alongside José Feliciano and David Carradine in the episode "Battle Hymn" in the third season of the TV series Kung Fu.

Songs made famous by Adderley and his bands include "This Here" (written by Bobby Timmons), "The Jive Samba", "Work Song" (written by Nat Adderley), "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" (written by Joe Zawinul) and "Walk Tall" (written by Zawinul, Marrow, and Rein). A cover version of Pops Staples' "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)?" also entered the charts. His instrumental "Sack o' Woe" was arranged by Herbie Mann on their debut album.

In July 1975, Adderley suffered a stroke from a cerebral hemorrhage and died four weeks later, on August 8, 1975, at St. Mary Methodist Hospital in Gary, Indiana. He was 46 years old. He was survived by his wife Olga James Adderley, parents Julian C. and Jessie L. Adderley, and brother Nat Adderley. He was buried in the Southside Cemetery, Tallahassee.

This is one of his most famous songs, "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" from 1966.
Cannonball Adderley Quintet: Cannonball Adderley (alto saxophone);
Nat Adderley (cornet);
Joe Zawinul (acoustic & electric pianos);
Victor Gaskin (bass);
Roy McCurdy (drums).

Cannonball Adderley Quintet - "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" (1966) Cannonball Adderley Quintet: Cannonball Adderley (alto saxophone); Nat Adderley (cornet); Joe Zawinul (acoustic & electric pianos); Victor Gaskin (bass); Roy...

Welcome to The Sounds Of Jazz. I'll be posting about a jazz artists and their music. I'll be doing "East Coast" jazz and "West Coast" jazz. There is a difference. The "East Coast" jazz is considered to more bop and hard bop, and "West Coast" jazz is considered to be more smooth. Sometimes it will be a single artist and a single song, and others it will be an "artist of the week/month/whatever. So give a listen to a true American art form, and enjoy.

This time on The Sounds Of Jazz, we'll be listening to Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea.

Chick Corea was a jazz composer, pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba", and "Windows" are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, and Keith Jarrett, Corea is considered one of the foremost jazz pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.

Corea was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He was of southern Italian descent, his father having been born to an immigrant from Albi comune, in the Province of Catanzaro in the Calabria region. His father, a trumpeter who led a Dixieland band in Boston in the 1930s and 1940s, introduced him to the piano at the age of four. Surrounded by jazz, he was influenced at an early age by bebop and Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, and Lester Young. When he was eight, he took up drums, which would influence his use of the piano as a percussion instrument.

Corea developed his piano skills by exploring music on his own. A notable influence was concert pianist Salvatore Sullo, from whom Corea started taking lessons at age eight and who introduced him to classical music, helping spark his interest in musical composition. He also spent several years as a performer and soloist in the St. Rose Scarlet Lancers, a drum and bugle corps based in Chelsea.

Given a black tuxedo by his father, he started playing gigs while still in high school. He enjoyed listening to Herb Pomeroy's band at the time and had a trio that played Horace Silver's music at a local jazz club. He eventually moved to New York City, where he studied music at Columbia University, then transferred to the Juilliard School. He quit both after finding them disappointing, but remained in New York.

Corea began his professional recording and touring career in the early 1960s with Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, Blue Mitchell, Herbie Mann, and Stan Getz. He recorded his debut album, "Tones for Joan's Bones", in 1966, but it wasn't released until 1968. Two years later he released a highly regarded trio album, "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs", with drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Miroslav Vitous. In 1968, Corea began recording and touring with Miles Davis, appearing on the widely praised Davis studio albums "Filles de Kilimanjaro", "In a Silent Way", "Bi***es Brew" and "On the Corner", as well as the later compilation albums "Big Fun", "Water Babies" and "Circle in the Round".

In concert performances, he frequently processed the sound of his electric piano through a ring modulator. Utilizing this unique style, he appeared on multiple live Davis albums, including "Black Beauty: Live at the Fillmore West", and "Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East". His membership in the Davis band continued until 1970, with the final touring band consisting of saxophonist Steve Grossman, fellow pianist Keith Jarrett, playing electric organ, bassist Dave Holland, percussionist Airto Moreira, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and Davis himself on trumpet.

Corea went on to several very successful groups with Return to Forever being probably the best known. Corea continued to collaborate frequently while exploring different musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He won 27 Grammy Awards and was nominated over 60 times.

Chick Corea died of a rare form of cancer, which had only been recently diagnosed, at his home in the Tampa Bay area of Florida on February 9, 2021, at the age of 79.

Here's Chick Corea on – Fender Rhodes electric piano
Stanley Clarke – double bass
Joe Farrell – flute, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone
Airto Moreira – drums, percussion
Flora Purim – percussion

From the Return To Forever album - "Spain".

Spain Provided to YouTube by Universal Music GroupSpain · Chick Corea · Return To ForeverLight As A Feather℗ 1973 The Verve Music Group, a Division of UMG Recordin...