Chick Corea returns for fusion with his reunited Elektric Band
Leading musician Chick Corea, one of the most prominent figures in modern jazz will be returning to Greece for one performance in the capital this weekend with his Elektric Band, the fusion band he formed in the mid-1980s and which played until the early ’90s. Corea recently reformed his Elektric Band for a world tour, which includes a stop Sunday at Athens’s Lycabettus Theater. The reunion of Corea’s Elektric Band – which counterbalanced his concurrent Akoustic Band – comes following a 10-year spell of prolific and diverse activity by the artist, including projects in acoustic jazz, classical music, production for other artists, and promotion of new talent through his own label, Stretch. With his Elektric Band, a trio that also features guitarist Frank Gambale and saxophonist Eric Marienthal, Corea released five albums before they dispersed into various other ventures. Both Gambale and Marienthal, who have released work of their own, are presently touring with Corea. Corea began playing piano as a 4-year-old, and was guided through his formative years by mentors Bud Powell and Horace Silver. Corea acquired invaluable experience early on as a member of superb groups put together by Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo in the early 1960s, as well as Herbie Mann and Stan Getz soon after. Corea, who has performed in Greece on several occasions, first played here with Getz in 1967, a year after he had released an excellent debut album, «Tones for Joan’s Bones.» Corea has worked with countless colleagues over his four-decade career on various styles. In the late 1960s, he joined Miles Davis’s band after Herbie Hancock departed. Early the next decade, Corea formed Return to Forever, which started out as a Latin-jazz group before establishing itself as a premier jazz-rock fusion act. A series of collaborations with the likes of Gary Burton, Hancock, and Michael Brecker made jazz history before Corea eventually returned to fusion with his Elektric Band, which is considered the musician’s a follow-up fusion project to Return to Forever.
