***NEW YEAR'S EVE*** ~ CHICK COREA ELEKTRIC BAND FEATURING VICTOR WOOTEN, FRANK GAMBALE, ERIC MAR...

FEATURING:
Chick Corea, piano/keyboards/electronics
Frank Gambale, guitar
Eric Marienthal, alto saxophone
Victor Wooten, electric bass
Dave Weckl, drums

It's New Year's Eve at the Blue Note - two spectacular shows with party favors and a champagne toast included. Get your tickets before they run out!

Considering the staggering volume of his recorded output over the past 40 years, it is no overstatement to call Chick Corea one of the most prolific composers of the second half of the 20th century. From avant-garde to bebop, from children's songs to straight ahead, from hard-hitting fusion to heady forays into classical, Chick has touched an astonishing number of musical bases in his illustrious career while maintaining a standard of excellence that is simply uncanny. A restlessly creative spirit, he continues to explore and generate new material for a number of different vehicles, including his dynamic Elektric Band and his flamenco flavored Touchstone band. Other recent projects include The Ultimate Adventure, the second in a series of evocative recordings based on the writings of his favorite author and longtime inspiration, L. Ron Hubbard, and a new piano concerto which he will premiere in Austria on July 1, 2006 (shortly after his 65th birthday) as part of the gala Mozart Year Vienna festivities being held in the birthplace of the immortal composer.

Born Armando Anthony Corea in Chelsea, Massachusetts on June 12, 1941, he began studying piano at age four. Early on in his development, Horace Silver and Bud Powell were important piano influences while access to the music of Beethoven and Mozart inspired his compositional instincts. There followed important tenures with trumpeter Blue Mitchell (1964-66), flutist Herbie Mann and saxophonist Stan Getz before Chick made his recording debut as a leader in 1966 with "Tones for Joan's Bones" (which featured trumpeter Woody Shaw, tenor saxophonist and flutist Joe Farrell, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Joe Chambers).

After accompanying Sarah Vaughan in 1967, Corea went into the studio in March of 1968 and recorded Now He Sings, Now He Sobs with bassist Miroslav Vitous and drummer Roy Haynes. That trio album is now considered a jazz classic. In the fall of 1968, Chick replaced Herbie Hancock in Miles Davis' band. In September of that year, he played Fender Rhodes electric piano on Miles' important and transitional recording Filles de Kilimanjaro, which pointed to a fresh new direction in jazz. Between 1968 and 1970, Corea also appeared on such groundbreaking Davis recordings as In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Live-Evil and Live at the Fillmore East. He is also a key player in Davis' electrified ensemble that appeared before 600,000 people on August 29, 1970 at the Isle of Wight Festival in England (captured on Murray Lerner's excellent documentary, Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue). Shortly after that historic concert, both Chick and bassist Dave Holland left Miles' group to form the cooperative avant-garde quartet Circle with drummer Barry Altschul and saxophonist Anthony Braxton.

Toward the end of 1971, Chick formed his first edition of Return To Forever with Stanley Clarke on acoustic bass, Joe Farrell on soprano sax and flute, Airto Moreira on drums and percussion and his wife Flora Purim on vocals. On February 2 and 3, 1972, they recorded their self-titled debut for ECM, which included the popular Corea composition "La Fiesta." A month later, on March 3, 1972, Chick, Stanley, Airto and drummer Tony Williams teamed together as the rhythm section for Stan Getz's Columbia recording Captain Marvel, which featured five Corea compositions including "500 Miles High," "La Fiesta" and the title track.

Through the remainder of the '80s and into the early '90s, Corea returned to the fusion arena with a vengeance with his Elektric Band, featuring drummer Dave Weckl, saxophonist Eric Marienthal, bassist John Pattitucci and guitarist Frank Gambale. Together they recorded a string of five hard-hitting offerings for the GRP label that ranked with the best fusion of the latter half of the '80s, including 1986's Elektric Band, 1987's Light Years, 1988's excellent Eye of the Beholder, 1990's Inside Out and 1991's Beneath the Mask. To balance out his forays into electric music, Chick also formed his Akoustic Band, a highly interactive trio with Elektric Band members Pattitucci on upright bass and Weckl on drums.

In 1998, Corea released the six-disc set A Week At The Blue Note, documenting the high-flying Origin sextet in full stride in all its spontaneously combustible glory over the course of three nights. He followed that up in 1999 Origin's third outing, Change, which was recorded within the relaxed confines of the home Chick shares with his wife and singer Gayle Moran in Florida. As he explained at the time, "The first record was a mishmash of all kinds of stuff--old tunes, standards, jam-session tunes and new written music--whereas Change is focused on music specifically written for a known group that has become an entity. With this record, I wanted to try more thorough writing with the band. Everyone responded to it very well." Also in 1999, Corea recorded two solo piano gems, Piano Originals and Piano Standards, both on Stretch.

In 2001, Corea unveiled his New Trio, featuring drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Avishai Cohen, on Past, Present & Futures (Stretch). By the end of that year, Chick was engaged with his ambitious three-week career retrospective at the BLUE NOTE, which yielded the two-CD set Rendezvous in New York and the 10-DVD set documenting nearly eight hours of performances with Origin, the Akoustic Band, New Trio, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs Trio, Remembering Bud Powell Band and Three Quartets Band, as well as duets with Bobby McFerrin, Gary Burton and Gonzalo Rubalcaba.

In 2004, Chick reunited his high-powered Elektric Band for a tour and subsequent recording based on L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction novel To The Stars. And in 2005, he returned to Hubbard for musical inspiration, this time interpreting The Ultimate Adventure.