The Chick Corea Elektric Band feat. Frank Gambale, Eric Marienthal, John Patitucci and Dave Weckl will play for the first time in Romania, on the stage in Victory Square in Timisoara. The band has reunited in 2016, for Chick Corea’s 75th anniversary, and it has been celebrating on the big stages of the world ever since, in a neverending party.
The fusion jazz band was formed in 1985, bringing together musicians who have truly revolutionized musical genres. Their namesake debut album, The Chick Corea Elektric Band, reunited a multitude of styles, jazz, rock, latino and funk, presenting to the public a futuristic sound, considered even now to be one of the foundation stones of fusion jazz.
The quintet is formed of Chick Corea on piano, Dave Weckl on drums, John Patitucci on bass, Eric Marienthal on saxophone and Frank Gambale on guitar. Together they have produced, in the 1980s, a string of albums that have become sacred with the passing of time. Their influences can be found in styles like EMD and hip-hop, reaching jazz bands like Snarky Puppy. The most well known of them is definitely Chick Corea, with 22 Grammy awards (out of no less than 63 nominations), with another three Latin Grammy awards (more than any other artist ever nominated for Best Instrumental Album), included in the DownBeat Hall of Fame and Jazz master in 2006 and who has achieved the status of living legend, after five decades of never before seen creativity and a staggering artistic capacity.
Armando Anthony ”Chick” Corea is a pianist and composer of jazz and fusion, a lot of his compositions considered “standards” of jazz. In the 1960s, he was a member of the Miles Davis band, contributing decisively to the birth of what we call now the electric jazz fusion movement. Corea has been described as one of the biggest voices of world jazz, which came out after the age of John Coltrane, and recognised as a musical visionary (not only of jazz music). The 4th most awarded artist in the history of the Grammy awards. Chick Corea is still exploring musical genres, at his 75 years of age, and is actively involved in the promotion and collection of funds for social causes.
The Chick Corea Elektric Band has in its composition, alongside Corea, musicians who, throughout the years, have released albums of their own, each of them frontmen for different bands. Patitucci (five Grammy awards) has been part of the Wayne Shorter quintet, while Weckl (one Grammy award) has played with Natalie Cole, B.B. King, Mike Sterm and hundreds of other musicians. Marienthal (two Grammy awards) has left a huge mark on the world of R&B and urban jazz, while Gambale (two Grammy awards), the creator of the “sweep picking” technique, has over 20 solo albums.