Chick Corea RIP (June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021)

By Ryan Reed Feb. 12, 2021 Nytimes.com

Chick Corea, the pioneering keyboardist, and bandleader who died on Tuesday at 79, will be forever regarded as a crucial architect of jazz-rock fusion.

For more than five decades, Corea modified his sound to follow that simple maxim — chasing whims from bebop to free jazz to fusion to contemporary classical. He recorded close to 90 albums as a bandleader or co-leader. And he always prioritized melody and musicality over empty-calorie showmanship (though few could rival his raw skill on the Fender Rhodes).

Corea was always influenced by Latin music, explaining “that flavor, I find, is mostly in everything I do,” to Billboard in 2019. “It’s a part of me. I don’t know how to differentiate it.”