Chick Corea Akoustic Band in Munich

When Chick Corea passed away at the beginning of 2021, the world lost one of its most imaginative and revered musical brains. Corea was utterly unrestricted on the piano, the instrument he began at age four when his trumpeter father introduced him to jazz and dixieland. After leaving uninspiring courses at both Juilliard and Columbia, Corea embarked on a career in the 60s alongside the likes of Stan Getz and the great Miles Davis, with whom he played as part of a famous quintet including Jack DeJohnette and Keith Jarrett. The 70s saw further movement into jazz fusion with Corea's famous group Return To Forever, where acoustic and electronic instrumentation combined for a brave new sound. 

Here, we see him at the end of the following decade, where he continued this dual exploration alongside his Elektric band and its trio reduction, the Akoustic Band, which released a self-titled album in the same year as this concert at the Munich Summer Piano Festival. In a remarkable performance, where mastery of touch is almost imperceptible in its skill and elegance, Corea is joined by the lauded bassist and composer, John Patitucci, and the great jazz fusion drummer Dave Weckl.