As with all deaths of people one has known personally, the passing of Chick Corea came as a shock (”Chick Corea, at 79; eclectic jazz pianist earned 23 Grammys,” Feb. 12). We were teenage friends and budding musicians, jamming on Saturday nights in his basement and gigging in class D barrooms on Broadway in Chelsea. I played the drums.
The first time I visited his basement, he was playing trumpet. Puzzled, I asked if the trumpet was his instrument. Surprised, he replied, “No, how did you know?” “I can hear it,” was my answer; the smooth transitions were missing and the tone was wrong, the improvisation cumbersome. He told me his main instrument was piano. So I asked him to play something for me. What I heard was stunning — the touch, the invention, the effortless fluidity.
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We occasionally visited Storyville, Boston’s famed jazz spot, on Sunday afternoons (when underage aficionados were allowed in), where we first heard Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry’s new sound and a young Boston drumming sensation, Tony Williams, who was sitting in — at age 14 — with whoever was in town. Chick later recorded with Tony on the Miles Davis album “In a Silent Way.”
Prior to leaving for New York in the late 1950s, Chick was still picking up a trumpet when he played around town. A few years later, he made a return trip to Boston (with trumpeter Blue Mitchell). I made a beeline to hear the group at Connolly’s, where I marveled at Chick’s assured playing — this time on piano, where he naturally belonged.
At the break, he came over excitedly and asked the only question meaningful to musicians: “How does it sound?”
Barry Zaltman
Boston