A half-century of activity behind a piano, this account. Chick Corea is not only part of the decor of contemporary jazz, but it has built some of the major pieces, the clearing, following the modes, the better to transcend, from latin jazz to the avant-garde jazz-rock and what attracts today more than ever, a jazz fusion festive, elegant and harmonious. He has delivered again this year, a few nuggets on the album Chinese Butterfly (Concord/Universal), released in January and conducted in collaboration with his longtime sidekick drummer Steve Gadd, who he had met in 1965 and with whom he has worked multiple times in his career.

Chick Corea is part of the handful of pianists who emerged in the 1970s that count, like Herbie Hancock or Keith Jarrett. If the latter has made a speciality of the concerts of improvisation in solo, linking up exercises balancing act that distanced him sometimes of the necessary contact with the warmth of jazz, Chick Corea discusses the performance in a totally different way. First, it is rarely to exercise, and it keeps a certain freshness. Then, its approach is radically different from the taiseux master of the improv. Talkative, funny, keen to pass on his shots, heart-Chick Corea puts his virtuosity and the richness of expressiveness in the service of the pianists or artists he admires and who inspired him. This dive is often done in a relaxed setting. It causes the viewer to listen other Bill Evans, Stevie Wonder, or Chopin, to discover the hidden sides of Duke Ellington and Bud Powell, Paco de Lucia and Alexander Scriabin. For Chick Corea, solo play is similar to the execution of a painting. It interprets a composition, whether it is him or another musician, by passing it to the filter of the relationship, almost symbiotic, that it establishes with the keys on the keyboard. He pulls his shades with the tip of the fingers, like the painter mixing area on the palette and, by touches of his brush, manufactures variations of the final table.

His mastery of the piano, music theory and improvisation also allows him to engage in experiences that are fun and depending on his mood: mix of classical and pop…

the One that has been much described as a pianist of rhythm and percussion reveals, therefore, a more soft, melodic and emotional solo. His mastery of the piano, music theory and improvisation also allows him to engage in experiences that are fun and depending on his mood: mix of classical and pop, chew the portrait of a person in short fugues, to sing the room in an echo of the melodic line… “Play the piano alone without any dialogue with the room, it would be a little crazy, no?” , asked it during one of its performances in Berlin a few years ago. With him, the concert piano solo becomes a trio, musician, instrument and audience having fun, playing and touching each other. The music is a feeling. And Chick Corea seems to know this better than anyone.

Chick Corea at the Philharmonie de Paris 221, avenue Jean-Jaurès (Xix). Tel.: 01 44 84 44 84. Dates: 20 and 21 nov. at 20: 30. Tickets: from 35 to 50€.