Chick Corea

When I was 20 in 1973 I had the balls to walk into the offices of the Syracuse New Times and tell them I should be their jazz critic. The New Times was the alternative newspaper in Syracuse, the local version of the Village Voice, and I was a journalism student at the Newhouse School. I had never written anything professionally, nor had I even written anything for a school newspaper. But they didn’t have anybody to write about jazz at the time, so they gave me a shot. I reviewed a couple of albums and must have done OK because I walked into the office one day and the editor said Return to Forever was coming to the local nightclub on campus, called Jabberwocky, and they would like me to review the concert and interview Chick Corea. In fact, they had already set up a time and place for me to do the interview.

It’s hard to describe how excited and nervous I was, interviewing a genuine jazz superstar as my very first real journalism assignment, ever. When the time came, I met Corea in his room in a small motel near the campus. I sat in a chair, he sat on his bed. We talked for about an hour. He was gracious and treated me like an adult, even though I looked and felt like a kid. I didn’t dare tell him I had never done this before. I wish I had saved the tape, but I didn’t. The New Times published a full-page article. It was my real start as a journalist. I remember the lead, or at least the crux of it. It was something like: “Sitting down with Chick Corea is like watching him sit at the piano and perform on stage.” The goal was to capture his passion, enthusiasm and zest for both life and music. He seemed to be having so much fun, when he played and when he talked, even to a 20-year-old starstruck kid like me. The discussion we had was focused primarily on spirituality and music.

I know I saved the article, somewhere, and this morning I went through every possible file up here in The Berkshires and couldn’t find it. I have a feeling I brought it to New York a little while ago with the idea that I would transcribe it and post it on Jazz Collector. I will search the next time I am in New York. I hope I can find it and, if I do, I promise to reproduce it here at Jazz Collector.

That, of course, was my first memory of Corea, other than hearing him on record. My guess is the first record I heard him on would have been Sweet Rain by Stan Getz, but I couldn’t swear to that. Obviously, by 1973 with Return to Forever, Corea had moved into a totally different sphere as an artist, performer and jazz icon, and would remain there for the rest of his life.

My last memory was from 2019 when he played at the local theater here in Great Barrington, the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.  The Lovely Mrs. JC and I were fortunate enough to get seats in the front row of the center mezzanine. Just as in my first memory, Corea played with the passion of someone who truly loved what he was doing, was totally inspired and acted as if there was no place in the world that he would rather be than on that stage, playing with those musicians for this particular audience. The music was awesome, as you would expect, a mix of standards, originals and experimentations. I walked away with a warm feeling and immense gratitude that he was still so passionate about sharing his gifts. I felt blessed just to be in his presence and felt like he would just go on forever. What a loss.