Herbie Hancock on Chick Corea: 'He Always Wanted to Share be He Had'

“There was never one trace of rivalry; it was all motivation,” Hancock says, thinking back on over 50 years of cooperation with his companion and individual piano player after Corea’s demise

n an alternate field, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea might have been rivals. Brought into the world simply a year separated, the piano players both hit the New York jazz scene in the mid Sixties, and before the decade’s over, they’d developed into two of the class’ most splendid youthful gifts — and two of the performers best prepared to lead the route into the connected combination time. Yet, even after Corea supplanted Hancock in Miles Davis’ live band in 1968, the pair built up a nearby working relationship — and similarly solid fellowship — that would suffer for the following 50 or more years, until Corea’s demise from malignant growth a week ago.

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The two initially cooperated on a portion of Davis’ most punctual electric meetings, weaving a rich sonic snare of interlocking Fender Rhodes lines on collection tracks and outtakes from game-changing records, for example, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, and On the Corner. At that point, in 1978, after both had set up themselves as whiz bandleaders — Corea with the bursting, prog-like Return to Forever and Hancock with the spacey Mwandishi gathering and irately crazy Headhunters — the two left on a visit highlighting the remarkable configuration of an acoustic piano team. As recorded on the collections CoreaHancock and An Evening With Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea: In Concert, their exhibitions were both astoundingly ready and uncontrollably exploratory, and unmistakably filled by common esteem and a sound feeling of fun.

Hancock and Corea would associate regularly throughout the long term, at times showing up on each other’s records and at shows, sticking together in front of an audience with everybody from Carlos Santana to Stevie Wonder, and rejoining as a visiting pair as of late as 2015. Thinking about his melodic and individual connection with Corea on Sunday, Hancock said they’d both trusted there would be bounty more joint effort to come.

[The information on Corea’s death] strike me with a crushing weight. I was unable to trust it when someone from Chick’s office considered several hours prior to they planned to disclose the declaration about his demise. I knew nothing. I don’t know anyone that realized he was sick.

I don’t really recall when I initially met him yet something’s shaping in my mind now that says that I met him at a gathering that [drummer] Jack DeJohnette was likewise at …

I live in L.A. presently however I used to live in New York around then, and the word was getting around that there was another person around, Chick Corea — a youthful piano player that was playing his behind off. And afterward I heard [his 1968 debut] Tones for Joan’s Bones, and I heard [his second collection, likewise from 1968] Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, and I cherished what I heard. It was swinging and melodious and [had a] extraordinary sound and excellent thoughts, so I was kicking the bucket to meet him.

[When I discovered he had supplanted me in Miles’ band], I realized he could play and I realized he could do the work. [Then when we began cooperating with Miles in the studio], I adored it — it was truly extraordinary, on the grounds that it just gave me more food to not really copy or be affected especially by the notes that he picked, yet the course that Chick would pick out of the blue, it would open the entryway for some different option from that, and simultaneously, sort of supplement it. So it was an intriguing test for us all on the grounds that occasionally it was three console players. There’d be Joe Zawinul playing on another console, so we needed to simply ad lib — I can’t actually utilize the word backup, yet a climate, I would say. Establish a climate where we’re all extraordinary widely varied vegetation in that climate, and to be a piece of that sort of reasoning and that kind of course was energizing to me since no one else was doing that.

We as a whole regarded one another; we gained from one another. So there was never any sort of ill will. I went to see Miles with Chick in the band, and that was the first run through the electric piano was utilized live with Miles. It was Chick playing the Fender Rhodes piano. I played the Fender Rhodes on certain records with Miles yet never live in shows or in clubs. It was extraordinary; I cherished it.

I adored [Return to Forever]. I adored what he was doing. I adored Mahavishnu Orchestra and what [guitarist] John McLaughlin’s band was doing. Climate projection was at that point shaped. I adored what they were doing; it was incredible. Furthermore, the entire expression “jazz-rock” was important for the jargon. That was another thing — the impact of rock on jazz — however I didn’t come from rock, I came from funk, and there was no one else truly doing that with jazz, so that is how I managed the Headhunters band.

I think [the ’78 team tour] was Chick’s thought. I recollect the first occasion when that we got together to sort out the thing we planned to do. I went to his home [in Los Angeles] and he had two thousand pianos there. What’s more, it was truly interesting in light of the fact that we got going to play something — I don’t have a clue what tune it was, some norm or something — and we were both cautious. I would not like to hinder Chick; he would not like to hold me up. What’s more, gradually, we began taking a couple of more risks, and a couple of additional, and nothing appeared to be in anyone’s direction, so we just proceeded to begin to put it all on the line. Also, we were both giggling; it was such a lot of fun that we were having, quite recently prodding each other with what emerged from one another and animating each other in that equivalent manner. Prior to we even completed one of the tunes, we needed to stop since we were giggling so hard, and afterward we both said, all things considered, I surmise we needn’t bother with a great deal of practice [laughs].

Since when he contacted the keys, a light would go on some place inside my being of what to do straightaway or what not to do straightaway, and I surmise he felt a similar way. It just fell off like it should be that way.