Music

Photo taken in downtown St. Louis at the St. Louis Blues Week Festival by Kurt Bangert on Flickr.com.

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Jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea replaced Herbie Hancock in Miles Davis’ band in the late 1960’s  and blossomed as a composer, band leader and improviser through decades of genre-bending traditions, especially those electric jazz-rock fusion years that lead him to form, among other groups, Return To Forever, the fourth edition of which is about to embark on an extensive U.S. tour amidst their 2011 World Tour featuring Frank Gamble on guitar, Jean Luc-Ponty on the violin and Larry White and Stanley Clarke on drums and bass respectfully.  St. Louis Public Radio’s Aaron Doerr spoke with him by phone, asking him about learning music, the role of one’s environment, and jazz and the complexity of reaching a wide range of people with a genre so rooted in musicianship and technical skills.  

Aaron Doerr:  How have you been doing and happy belated birthday!  You just turned 70 this past June.  Do world tours age you quicker or keep you young?

Chick Corea: Oh yeah no... I definitely love to play and travel so travel's part of the deal, you know... and you get used to it.  You get used to the actual physical traveling - you get all those little things together that you have to have together for hotels, and planes and busses and all that, but… definitely playing the music keeps me fresh.