Biography (read more)
Armando Anthony Corea was born on 12 June 1941 in Chelsea, Massachusetts, into a family from Calabria; his father, a trumpeter who led a Dixieland band in Boston, put him at the piano at four. From eight he took formal lessons with the Italian concert pianist Salvatore Sullo, who had no interest in his enthusiasm for bebop and taught him classical repertoire instead — an exposure Corea credited with starting his interest in composition. He acquired a drum kit at eleven and played percussion occasionally for the rest of his life. He studied briefly at Columbia University and then at Juilliard, dropped out to play, and began recording and touring in the early 1960s with Mongo Santamaría, Willie Bobo, Blue Mitchell, Herbie Mann and Stan Getz. He died on 9 February 2021.
He recorded his debut Tones for Joan’s Bones in 1966 and the trio album Now He Sings, Now He Sobs in March 1968, then joined Miles Davis in the autumn of 1968 and played on In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew and On the Corner, work at the origin of jazz fusion. He left after the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, formed the free-leaning quartet Circle with Dave Holland, Anthony Braxton and Barry Altschul, and in 1971 began the solo Piano Improvisations for ECM. Return to Forever, from 1972, moved from Latin-inflected acoustic jazz to rock and funk; My Spanish Heart followed in 1976, and the duet records with Gary Burton beginning with Crystal Silence in 1972 ran on for more than thirty years. “Spain”, “500 Miles High”, “La Fiesta”, “Armando’s Rhumba” and “Windows” entered the standard repertoire, and he won twenty-nine Grammy Awards from seventy-nine nominations.
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