For Immediate Release:
CHICK COREA INDUCTED INTO
DOWNBEAT JAZZ HALL OF FAME
Sweep of 4 Awards in Readers’ Poll Also Names Corea Artist of the Year, Electric Keyboardist of the Year
NEW YORK, NY (30 Nov. 2010)—Chick Corea joined an elite roster of jazz masters this month, as he was inducted into the DownBeat Magazine Hall of Fame, an honor that he shares with Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk. The award, one of jazz’s most coveted distinctions, is rarely accorded to living artists.
Corea swept four of the top honors in the 2010 DownBeat Readers’ Poll, which also named him Artist of the Year and Electric Keyboardist of the Year. Corea’s Five Peace Band Live, recorded with John McLaughlin, was named Beyond Album of the Year. This is his third year in a row topping the Electric Keyboardist category.
In January, Corea won his 16th Grammy Award, for Five Peace Band Live, and also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Chamber Music America, honoring his contribution to small-ensemble music. The year that followed was an extraordinary outpouring of creativity, even for the famously prolific Corea, as he staged two acclaimed world tours, a sold-out two-week run at the Blue Note in New York, a big-band tour of Sweden and Norway and a string of solo and duet performances that continue to expand the realm of jazz music.
In an interview with DownBeat, Corea spoke of his admiration for fellow Hall of Fame members. “I simply feel honored and encouraged to keep on creating,” Corea said. “I admire everyone on that list. Many are mentors and musical heroes of mine. . . I spent my youth and growing years learning from them.”
Corea next embarks on a tour of Japan in his trio with Christian McBride and Brian Blade, before appearing for a 3-night run in January 2011 at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. In the next year he plans extensive tours of the US and Europe, and the recording of his second piano concerto.
The DownBeat Readers’ Poll is one of the most prestigious honors in jazz, annually ranking the most innovative and virtuosic voices in dozens of instrument and album categories. Corea has been appearing on these lists since the late 1960s, and hosted the DownBeat Awards ceremony in 1975 with Quincy Jones.
