Jazz pianist Chick Corea, in 2017. -

Vaclav Salek / AP / SIPA

He had helped free jazz from its chains to venture into fusion.

American pianist Chick Corea died of a rare form of cancer on Tuesday at the age of 79, according to a statement posted on his Facebook page on Thursday.

"I want to thank all those who, throughout the trip, helped make the fires of music shine," he said in a message written before his death, according to the statement prepared by his team. "J I have the hope that those who feel the desire to play, to write, to perform in spectacle, can do so.

If not for themselves, then for us.

Not just because the world needs more artists, but because it's more fun, ”he added. Musician's cancer“ was only discovered very recently, ”the statement said.

The piano before reading

A composer and pioneer of electric and electronic keyboards, Chick Corea was, along with Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, one of the most influential pianists of the 20th century.

His songs like

Spain

,

500 Miles High

or

La Fiesta

have become classics.

Originally from Massachusetts, the son of a jazz trumpeter, Chick Corea learned the piano before knowing how to read, then also took up the drums, around 11 years old.

Enrolled in Columbia University in New York after graduating from high school, he arrived in New York in 1959. One evening, he went to the Birdland jazz club where he saw in particular the trumpeter Miles Davis and the saxophonist John Coltrane perform

The Leaves dead

.

It's a shock.

“After that, (...) why would I want to study the history of Western civilization?” He will say, with a smile, in the Prestige 70 podcast, in 2019. He leaves university and, after considering a career as a drummer, he was hired by saxophonist Stan Getz.

"Released"

He participated in several projects and also recorded his first solo albums at the end of the 1960s, notably

Is

, where he gave free rein to improvisation.

In the fall of 1968, for a concert in Baltimore (Maryland), he replaced, at short notice, another renowned pianist, Herbie Hancock, in the group formed by Miles Davis.

"Just play what you hear," the musician told her in his hoarse voice.

“It really freed me.

Because I was used to playing improvised music, ”he explained in the podcast.

Together, they move towards a totally liberated form of jazz, without prior repetition, in which each musician gives his interpretation of the theme, where spontaneity is essential.

Miles Davis will record with Chick Corea some of his flagship albums, like

Bitches Brew

(1970), a breakthrough, revolutionary album, freed from the strict canons of jazz to open this music to other styles, notably rock.

It is the birth of jazz fusion, which mixes multiple influences, including rock, funk and rhythm and blues.

In 1971, the frail pianist with curly hair founded his own group, Return To Forever, to continue his musical adventure.

Chaining albums, concerts and projects, he will glean no less than 23 Grammy Awards, the awards of the American music industry, the last in 2019.

  • Jazz

  • Piano

  • Culture