The evolution of Chick Corea from appropriator to assimilator: debunking the theories of a fusion...

KEELE UNIVERSITY/MASTER OF RESEARCH IN THE HUMANITIES (MUSIC)

THE EVOLUTION OFCHICK COREA FROMAPPROPRIATOR TOASSIMILATOR

Debunking the theories ofa fusion musician

Jason Patrick Balzarano9/16/2014

Dissertation

MUS-40002 Dissertation 09013629

Contents

IntroductionPages 3 - 5

Fusion and Confusion: The contentious debates within fusion literaturePages 5 – 14

The early years: From be-bop to classicalto Latin-jazzPages 15 – 18

The importance of a Bitches Brew and a MilesDavis introductionPages 18 – 28

Leaving the nest: Flying in a circle and returning to foreverPages 28 – 31

Biographical summation- The contemporary classical influence- But why write music of a Spanish nature?

Pages 31 – 37

Spain (1972)Pages 37 – 47

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My Spanish Heart (1976)- ‘My Spanish Heart’- ‘Night Streets’- ‘Armando’s Rhumba’

Pages 47 - 69

Corea as composer/assimilator, fusion’s legacy, and the need for a critical re-thinking

- ‘Little Flamenco’- Conclusion

Pages 70 – 84

Bibliography

Pages 85 - 93

Appendix

Page 94

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Introduction

Musicians and artists are always searching for the right

combination. You could probably take any artist and evaluate

his music to discover how it is a “fusion” of elements.

The other variable thing is the listener. There will always

be new music and, every so often there will be new terms to

describe it. The artist’s job is to make the music – the

writer’s job is to describe it. The listener’s job is to be

true to what he likes.1

A musical idiom that emerged during the late 1960s and early 1970s

as young musicians blended elements of jazz, rock, and funk with a

1 Quote taken from an interview with Chick Corea for: Delo Newspaper,(November, 2012), for transcript see: http://chickcorea.com/delo-newspaper-november-2012/

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variety of folk and world music styles - fusion was disparaged by

jazz writers and largely ignored by pop and rock critics during its

time2. In the years since it has been regarded by notable jazz

historians and scholars as a commercially driven sub-style of jazz

that never coalesced into a genre category of its own. The

consequence of these shared opinions has conceivably led to what is

a limited range of academic literature on the subject of this unique

American music movement. Largely confined to a one book-length

historiography in Stuart Nicholson’s Jazz-Rock: A History (1998), and

Julie Coryell and Laura Friedman’s collection of photographs and

interviews in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music (1978), the subject of

fusion is also approached within a relatively small selection of

both published and web-based; journal articles, essays, and in

specialised chapters/sporadic paragraph entries located within other

published literature on jazz, rock, or popular music3. Only recently

has there been a promising new shift in the musicological discourses

concerning this idiom. A concentrated focus dedicated to its musical

complexities, the hybridisation of different cultural and musical

traditions, the artists disrupting of generic boundaries, cultural

hierarchies, and critical assumptions with music that reflected a

2 See for instance Dan Morgenstern’s review of the Newport Jazz Festival,“Rock, Jazz and Newport” in Down Beat, Aug. 21st,, 1969, p.22, “Rock Too Muchfor Newport”, review in Rolling Stone, Aug. 9, 1969, and Ian Dove’s interviewwith Newport impresario George Wein, “Wein: Jazz World Needs RepertoryCo.”, Billboard, Jul. 3rd, 1971, pp.1, 59-60.3 See bibliography.

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unique musical artistry worthy of analysis, has largely been

engineered by the publication of Steven Pond’s Head Hunters: The Making

of Jazz’s First Platinum Album (2005)4, and most recently, Kevin Fellezs’

Birds of Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion (2011)5.

These welcome additions to fusion scholarship give long overdue

critical attention to the musical idiom, and are both significant

resources for the conception of this research paper - a

musicological focus on the development and evolution of the fusion

composer and performer Chick Corea6. It is the intention of this

research to provide an analytical study of a range of Corea’s

Spanish/jazz-fusion works which will rightly present a musician who,

in his beginnings, operated like his peers in the creation of the

fusion idiom through a commandeering and recycling of existing folk

material. Yet by the time of the release of his album My Spanish Heart

(1976), was evolving into a composer with an ability to delve much4 Focussing completely on the variety of fusing activities located in thisground-breaking and best-selling jazz-fusion recording, Pond grounds hisanalysis in Hancock’s sonic text. This methodological approach iscomplimented by his detailing of the music industry’s actions in responseto the album’s success, and the critics and jazz purists’ contentiousdiscourse surrounding its reception at the time.5 In contrast, rather than concentrating on a music analysis methodology,Fellezs seeks to illuminate fusion from a postmodern perspective as atransgeneric creation that challenged ideas of authenticity, authority andlegitimacy. He explores this notion by taking into account the economic,socio-political, and musical factors (such as social classes and culturalhierarchies) that he identifies in the musical output of four distinctfusion artists. 6 As one of the most respected fusion artists to have helped initiate themovement with his work on the seminal Miles Davis’ album Bitches Brew (1969),a detailed exploration of his performing, recording, and or compositionalcareer of any sort is rather minimal when researching the scarce academicliterature that currently exists.

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deeper in his assimilation of Spanish subjects, creating a musical

landscape that incorporated original material more in the spirit of

Spain, as opposed to stylistic borrowings from popular Spanish

folklore. On its completion this research will hopefully complement

the purpose and rationale of both Pond’s and Fellezs’ publications.

As they each consider the extent to which a fusion musician can be

taken seriously as an artist across divergent musical traditions, so

too will this analytical focus hope to bring attention to Corea’s

levels of originality and compositional artistry as a talented

composer of Spanish and jazz fusion works. Being part of a shared

collective, these new waves of fusion discussions, regardless of the

differing arguments, theories, and approaches undertaken by any of

its contributors, can only help to support the more positive process

of bringing the movement to the foreground of academic discourse.

Fusion and Confusion: The contentious debates within fusion

literature

Appropriation is a recurring theme in the subsequent

evolution of the music and reveals a continuing dialogue,

not only with popular culture but other musical forms. Jazz,

an exemplary expression of the modernist impulse in American

culture, continued this practice, culminating in perhaps the

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most controversial moment in contemporary jazz history, the

appropriation of rock.7

So begins Stuart Nicholson’s incredibly well researched

historiography of the emergence of the fusion music scene in the

Unites States. As a respected authority in all things jazz and its

plethora of sub-styles, Nicholson has earned his position as the

foremost specialist on jazz, rock, and fusion music, having

published the first substantial book solely dedicated to the fusion

movement almost thirty years after Miles Davis would release his

collaborative recording Bitches Brew (1969), an album most writers and

critics view as the defining moment in fusion history8. His Jazz-Rock: A

History (1998) is the fundamental piece of literature for which current

writers, scholars, and academics, refer to in their respective

writings and research on fusion. However, as important as it is as a

resourceful template for discourses to emerge from, it is not

without its controversial statements. Not least this opening

7 Nicholson. Stuart. “Fusions and crossovers” in Mervyn Cooke and DavidHorn eds., The Cambridge Companion to Jazz, (Cambridge University Press, 2002)p.217.8 The phenomenal success of Bitches Brew showed Davis at his most creative,feeding off the virtuosic genius of his young protégé’s (which included astring of ‘first wave’ fusion musicians including Chick Corea, JohnMcLaughlin, Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter), to produce a collection ofsongs that shunned the smooth melodic and harmonic formulae of pop and rockmusic, for a grittier and inelegant design of dissonant chords and open-ended improvisation. Moving away from the purist jazz field that had madehim a household name amongst the likes of John Coltrane and Charlie Parker,Davis had solidified his reputation as a musical pathfinder with a GrammyAward winning album that showed him embrace the concept of a jazz and rocksynthesis wholeheartedly.

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assertion which identifies the act of appropriation as fusion’s

reason for existence. It is a statement which sets the tone for the

remaining text with Nicholson intermittently referring to this

practice within the compositional procedures he identifies as a

shared aesthetic9. As he contends that these artists seized certain

musical styles, forms, or technical elements associated with rock or

funk music to evolve fusion into the state for which it is now

recognised, the appropriation of these elements, he concludes, was

done purely to attract a younger generation of consumer and

subsequently, a more substantial economic gain as a result. One

cannot dispute that the act of appropriation may have been an

element for a small factor of these musicians’ techniques, as they

discovered their own unique hybridised sound to add to the fusion

scene. An argument could be made in this instance for John

McLaughlin. As one of the contributors to Bitches Brew, McLaughlin’s

virtuosic genius as a guitarist, and his proficient knowledge of

both rock and jazz performance and compositional techniques made his

fusion group, ‘Mahavishnu Orchestra’, one of the most successful

9 See Nicholson, S., “Fusions and crossovers” in Cooke, M., & Horn, D.,(eds), The Cambridge Companion to Jazz, (Cambridge University Press, 2002). Thetaking “control (of) rock music” (p219) by jazz musicians was a fundamentalaspect of the fusion aesthetic according to Nicholson. Adapting to rock’srhythmic patterns in the same way jazz musicians had done with bossa nova,long open-ended improvisations were performed over traditional rock rhythmsin what had become a staple act of the first jazz and rock experimenters.This was combined with an early realisation that rock’s volume contributedto its authenticity, so instrumentation had to become a mixture of acousticand electric mediums in order for these jazz experimenters to “acknowledgethe source of its popularity” (p.219)

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fusion acts of the 1970s10. Unfortunately, the argument for his

position as an important performer/composer of original divergent

themes, the commercial success he achieved with ‘Mahavishnu’

undermines any sincerity he projected concerning his motivations for

quality cultural productions. Also, as a white British born male

artist working in America and pursuing Sri Chinmoy Indian

spiritualism within his music, his cross-cultural collaborations

could realistically be regarded as acts of appropriation for

financial reward simply because of his national and ethnic identity

- and how distant they are perceived to be from the cultural

identity he assumes in his works.11 However, Nicholson’s

generalisation with the use of this term in this context, negates

the other accomplished musicians whose artistry enabled them to

realise a new musical or cultural element in a more original fashion

because of their compositional talent and creativity, as well as the

10 Repeatedly mentioned alongside ‘Return to Forever’ and ‘Weather Report’as fusion’s most successful groups (in historiographical or other academicliterature on jazz), their album Birds of Fire (CBS: Columbia, 1973) sits atnumber 14 on the “Best Selling Jazz (and Jazz-Fusion) Albums of All Time”list (compiled from RIAA information). Seehttp://rateyourmusic.com/list/Rifugium/best_selling_jazz_albums_of_all_time__riaa___ or_theres_no_money_in_jazz/ [Viewed 24/07/14].11 See the chapter: “Meeting of the Spirits/John McLaughlin” in Fellezs,Kevin, Birds of Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion. (Duke University Press,Durham & London, 2011). Viewing his commercial success as a liability whenattempting to define elements to support evidence of originality andmusicianship, Fellezs informs us that the unfortunate discussions over theyears by critics and journalists that purport McLaughlin’s spiritualevocations were more conceivably done so for populism and henceforth,economic gain. Despite his declarations to the contrary, these views havehurt his legacy. Fellezs eventually summarizes McLaughlin’s musicalpractices by stating his “good intentions (were) not good enough” (p.147).

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http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Rifugium/best_selling_jazz_albums_of_all_time__riaa___%20or_theres_no_money_in_jazz/

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Rifugium/best_selling_jazz_albums_of_all_time__riaa___%20or_theres_no_money_in_jazz/


implications pertaining to their knowledge and understanding of such

elements due to an individual national, ethnic, or cultural identity

– Chick Corea being an important example here. In its very

definition, appropriation within the arts refers to the

commandeering of pre-existing elements with little or no

transformation applied to them. The inherent problem with using this

term then is in this negative context, especially when arguing the

point for fusion’s place as a significantly original musical idiom.

That Nicholson has perpetuated the stigma12 surrounding fusion’s

status as a legitimate musical study, and as a movement worthy of

musicological attention with his generalised opening assertion is

puzzling, given his history as both a jazz and rock performer, and

the extensive research he undertook to complete his historiography.

Nevertheless, the consequence of this view is troubling, in light of

Jazz-Rock’s position as the quintessential encyclopaedic reference on

the history of the fusion movement for which it currently occupies.

The assimilation of varying musical practices, idioms and aesthetics is

a phrase that better explains the origins of some of fusions more

significant contributors’ proactive pursuit for a new and innovative12 Soon after Bitches Brew and Davis’ protégés began achieving mainstreampopularity amongst a larger demographic of music consumers, a backlash frompurist jazz critics began to take hold in several popular magazinepublications such as Jazz Forum, Jazz Times and Down Beat. Admonishing the newsound as destructive and its growing popularity as signalling the death ofjazz, these views were to help fuel a consensus (outside of fusionscontributors and avid followers) that the music lacked any real artisticmerit.

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style of hybridised music. It is a term for which this researcher

will suggest is a befitting description for one specific fusion

artist’s evolutionary compositional technique, and his ability to

merge Spanish folk themes in an original manner within traditional

jazz, rock, and Latin-jazz fusion forms. By introducing the example

of Chick Corea as an antithesis to Nicholson’s generalisation,

through extensive biographical research and comparative score

analysis, this project will hope to complement the work of another

more recent academic who implicitly suggests that levels of

appropriation and assimilation within the formal and technical

compositional designs of all fusion musicians during this period,

could be ventured. Implying that the popularity amongst the younger

consumer was a benefit rather than a pivotal motivation for fusion

artists to continue composing and pushing musical boundaries, Kevin

Fellezs develops a productive framework in Birds of Fire (2011) for the re-

thinking of fusion’s formal, technical, and socio-ideological

origins. Opening the door for future ethnomusicological study to be

endeavoured, he also contends that hybridity, the challenging of

musical hierarchies, and of the rigid racial, cultural, class, and

gender defined barriers were its better definable reasons for being.

The confusion surrounding the many different labels attributed to

this music is another troubling aspect of fusion literature that

Nicholson’s book participates in, with his preference for the term

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jazz-rock and the distinction he makes between it and the term fusion.

Even with the acknowledgement that the term jazz-rock was as commonly

used as fusion was in labelling the music during its time, the implied

privilege of the genre style jazz above the genre style rock

inherent in the structuring of this label is problematic,

considering that musicians born out of an influence from both sides

of this dichotomy helped to create the music. More importantly, the

term jazz-rock completely ignores the musicians associations with other

musical practices and aesthetics outside of jazz and rock such as

classical, folk, and varying world music styles. Evidently, the

issue of appropriate labelling is not only confined to the

implications to be found in Nicholson’s book, but can also be found

within other sources. The plethora of differing opinions pertaining

to its rightful name portrays fusion as a subject suffering from an

identity crisis of sorts, and one possible reason as to why it has

been so underexplored within academia. For example, in an analysis

of Herbie Hancock’s seminal album Head Hunters, Steven Pond

establishes the term fusion jazz in an attempt to keep from

“restricting research to a genre in order to concentrate on the

various kinds of fusing activity”13, yet still classifies Hancock’s

universally regarded fusion album as a distinctly jazz album within

the book’s title. Bruce Handy vehemently advises us not to call it

13 Pond, Steven. Head Hunters: The Making of Jazz’s First Platinum Album (Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 2005), ix.

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fusion as he believes society is predisposed to inadvertently link

the music within the same category occupied by the mass consumerism

fed “smooth jazz” stylings of saxophonist Kenny G or muzak14. Mark

Gridley maintains that most of the music that has been labelled jazz-

rock fusion is better named jazz-funk15 while John Covach complicates

things further. By noting the overlapping aesthetics of progressive

rock and jazz and the balancing act that is enacted between these

two styles as they vie for dominance, Covach contends that this

particular characteristic of the music refuses any description

towards a cohesive single categorisation16. Even renowned fusion

artists such as Herbie Hancock and Jeff Beck have weighed in on the

debate of naming the music17. The inherent problem these differing

views offer in relation to definitively labelling an ambiguously

hybridised music idiom such as fusion, seems best summed up by

Michael J. West:

14 Handy, Bruce. “Don’t Call It Fusion” in Time International, Vol. 152, Issue16, (Canada: Time Incorporation Publishing, 1998), p.7115 See Gridley, Mark. Jazz Styles: History and Analysis, 9th ed. (Upper Saddle River,N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2006), p.307.16 Covach, John. “Jazz-Rock? Rock-Jazz? Stylistic Crossover in Late-1970sAmerican Progressive Rock” in Expression in Pop-Rock Music: A Collection of Critical andAnalytical Essays, edited by Walter Everett, pp.113-134. (New York: Garland,200), p.117.17 In separate interviews conducted with both artists, Hancock is quoted assaying “I don’t like labels but they’re a necessary convenience. I usejazz/funk, or jazz/rock or fusion. I use all those labels”, while Jeff Beckwas more direct with his frustration, “For Christ’s sake, I wish somebodywould make up a name for this kind of music, ‘cause it ain’t jazz and itain’t rock. It’s got overtones of both but it has no real name of itsown”. See Fellezs, Birds of Fire, p.12.

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One of the most confusing aspects of the fusion universe is

that, although the whole point of the music was to break

down the barriers between rock and jazz, the very act of

fusing the two genres seems to have created new boundaries

between them. As a case in point, ever notice how, if the

music was made by people inside of the jazz sphere, it’s

called fusion – but if it was made by people in the rock

sphere, it’s jazz-rock?18

West’s observation here that fusion erected, rather than bridged,

differences between the two idioms indicates how fusion, and in

particular its hybridised mix of genres, remains a contentious and

unsettled topic within its own discourse. Rather than continue to

differentiate between all the artists who worked under the fusion

banner by perpetuating the use of the plethora of labels that have

been unearthed, this complimentary research will aim to acknowledge

the ambiguity and sheer diversity of the music’s aesthetic by using

a term that Fellezs has attempted to re-establish, methodically

championing its relevance and thus allowing future musicological

discourse to continue unabated. Fusion, used periodically by the

musicians and the music industry during its time (even with West’s

assertion this was done by those solely within the ‘jazz sphere’),

captures the eclectic nature the architects of this music endorsed

18 West, Michael J. “Jazz Workshop: In Defense of Fusion, Part 2 – On theRock Side.” Blogcritics. http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/06/25/090515.php

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http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/06/25/090515.php


without placing emphasis on any of the varying musical elements they

inhabit. To describe the music as a merging of jazz, rock, and or

funk music practices and aesthetics, (and the subsequent obscuring

of their individual genre defined boundaries), with the further

‘fusing’ and articulation of a wide range of varied musical and

cultural traditions that each musician employed in a limited fashion

– informs us of the music’s ambiguous nature and consequently

justifies the use of the equally ambiguous title that is fusion.

Fusion musicians articulated uneven and variable musical

mergings that did not wholly displace the given genre terms

(jazz, rock, funk) but allowed another term (fusion) to

continually trouble, perplex, and contest those given

categories. Fusion points out the instability of all genre

designations and highlights the fluidity of musical

practices that genre names attempt to freeze in order to

give discussions about music a meaningful starting point.19

Fellezs’ endorsement of this term as an adequate label for which to

categorise all the hybridised music of this movement, (regardless of

whether Nicholson might ascertain a specific example to be purely

jazz-rock, or Gridley might define as purely jazz-funk), reveals itself

as the most appropriate solution to the issue of multi-labels and

the obstacles they have caused in fusion’s status within its own

19 Fellezs, Birds of Fire, p.17

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discourse. Fellezs’ decision to endorse the term may have been

encouraged by a passage dedicated to the music in Fabian Holt’s text

Genre in Popular Music. In the introduction to his book Holt states the

importance of having a definitive name in the first instance within

a musicological study;

Naming a music is a way of recognising its existence and

distinguishing it from other musics. The name becomes a

point of reference and enables certain forms of

communication, control, and specialisation into markets,

canons, and discourses.20

This statement by a reputable expert in the field of music genre

helps to better explain the lack of any substantial research on

fusion. The fact that fusion has suffered from this uncertainty on

an agreeable title reveals the consequential inability for

“discourses” to flourish. In a small entry devoted to the idiom,

Holt enters into a discussion of “jazz-rock fusion’s” identity

crisis and whilst initially referring to the music in this title

configuration, he considers, “in retrospect, the term fusion more

adequately represents the plurality and hybridity of the

phenomenon”21. He also reflects on the complication with so many

hyphenated labels by stating that “fusion is not a hyphenated term and

20 Holt, Fabian. Genre in Popular Music, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), p.321 Holt, p.91

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does more justice to the somewhat hybrid character of this field of

jazz, which draws heavily not only on rock but also on soul and

funk”22. What Holt suggests here is that whether an example of music

from this period is classified jazz-rock, jazz-funk, or jazz-

bluegrass etc, these types of hyphenated terms are lazy and inept

and do not provide an adequate definitional clarity.

What an informed reader may also query when comprehending the less

recent texts on fusion (apart from the multiple name conundrum), is

why the music’s associations with other divergent musical elements

or cultural traditions outside of the jazz, rock, or funk genres,

are often neglected and thus regarded as an inferior characteristic

when discussions pertaining to the creation of this unique idiom are

considered. Whether it is referenced as jazz-rock, jazz-funk, jazz-

rock fusion or fusion, the majority of literature ignores such

creative efforts as the bluegrass and country music inflected

compositions and performance style of Steve Morse and his band

‘Dixie Dregs’, the classical training and playing techniques that

informed the hybridising of classical and jazz idioms in the music

of Jean Luc-Ponty, the fusing of transcultural folk idioms in the

collective works of ‘Shakti’ and ‘Weather Report’, and the immersion

of Cuban/Latin American melodic and rhythmic qualities that pervaded

the electrifying music of ‘Caldera’. These artists are viewed as

22 Holt, p.100

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important fusion contributors by critics and audiences alike, yet

their musical output within current academic literature is curiously

overlooked. Julie Coryell and Laura Friedman’s Jazz-Rock Fusion is the

piece of literature that comes closest to bridging this gap with a

collection of interviews that offer an insight and some practical

knowledge about what a few of the more or less successful fusion

musicians were thinking during this time. Unfortunately, as a book

written by the wife of a fusion musician with no academic

musicological background, a critical analysis of scores or sketches

to support any claims made by the artists are notably absent. Apart

from Fellezs who uses a listening approach to his interpretations of

the works of four distinctive fusion artists (Tony Williams, John

McLaughlin, Joni Mitchell and Herbie Hancock), highlighting the ways

in which they challenged convention whilst considering the extent to

which each can be taken seriously as an artist across divergent

musical traditions, and Pond’s focus on Herbie Hancock’s classical

and jazz studentship; his musical inspirations, and his chameleon-

like aesthetic which was constantly informed by various experimental

music traditions23 - the scarceness of critical analyses of those

artists who approached musical and cultural traditions outside of

23 See Pond, S., Head Hunters. Using musical analysis alongside an explorationof a multitude of dimensions concerning Hancock’s compositional desires andinspirations - sonic, cultural, technological and economic, the bookhighlights his experimental angle to composition thoughtfully and with aclarity that only a score analysis can bring to a musicologicalinvestigation such as this.

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the ‘top three’ (jazz, rock, and funk), is yet another

disconcerting aspect of fusion literature. Only now with Fellezs and

Pond’s preliminary step into this discipline of musicological

research can more of these artists and their music’s inclusion

within future literature be made paramount. This will only enable a

truer reflection of the music’s wider spectrum of musical and

cultural ingredients, and the ways in which these ingredients were

appropriated/assimilated by each unique artist through intensive

score analyses would facilitate a clearer understanding of the

movement as a significant period of musical creative development

worthy of academic attention.

It is the hope that this research may begin as a tentative step

towards helping to fill some of the voids in fusion research listed

here, and complement the groundwork effectively positioned by

Fellezs to instigate further examinations within the music’s

universe. From a young American jazz musician exploring the

limitless boundaries of the fusion movement and experimenting with a

love affair of Latin and Spanish music, into his current standing as

a forthright composer of works that embrace a passion for and a

distinct re-imagining of Spanish musical themes - choosing the

example of Chick Corea as an antithesis to Nicholson’s

‘appropriator’ title came as a relatively simple decision.24 In order

24 Considered by fans and many critics from both sides of the fusionspectrum (rock and jazz) as being an extremely talented pianist and

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to effectively demonstrate his artistry at assimilating Spanish

themes, this research will begin first by charting his early life

and career, cataloguing the significant musical experiences,

apprenticeships, and the social, cultural, ethnic, and ideological

influences that may have shaped his desire to write original music

of a Spanish nature. Charting his musical education and professional

collaborations up until his first original recordings with his bands

‘Circle’ and ‘Return to Forever’, this first chapter will reflect on

the many contemporary archival documents and materials25 unearthed

in order to address such provocative questions as: What did he

really know about Spanish music? How did he acquire his

understanding of this style of music and of composition? Why was he

so interested in writing Spanish themed music? What were his

professional aspirations in the role of performer/composer? The hope

is that these deliberations will provide the foundations to help

build a case for Corea’s consideration as a committed and talented

original artist, composer, assimilator, and musician.

musician, astonishingly, musicological analyses of any of Corea’scompositions (that can be found on well over one hundred albums to date)are incredibly scarce. A notable exception being Steven Strunk’s analysisof Corea’s performance of ‘Night and Day’ in Journal of Music Theory Vol.43, No.2(Autumn, 1999), pp. 257-281.25 Ranging from magazine articles, interviews, and reviews (specificallythose found in the pre-eminent publication dedicated to the jazz and fusionscene Down Beat), web-blogs and web-based interviews conducted with thecomposer, and Corea’s own ruminations published on his production companyrun website; www.chickcorea.com.

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http://www.chickcorea.com/


In order to consolidate these fundamental theories and further

justify the notion that Corea emerged as an assimilator rather than

an appropriator of Spanish folk idioms within his compositions, the

remaining chapters will explore the specific ways that Corea

consistently treated the musical styles and techniques of Spanish

folk music. The third chapter will begin with his early

compositional practices and appropriation of Spanish themes in Spain

(1973) whilst the fourth will start to examine his evolution towards

an assimilation of idioms through the seminal recordings of his

album My Spanish Heart (1976), specifically “Night Streets”, “Armando’s

Rhumba” and the album’s title track. The fifth chapter will culminate

with his masterpiece for acoustic jazz sextet and inspired example

of a Spanish folk and jazz synthesis Little Flamenco (1999), before a

final conclusion of the findings. What makes these fusion pieces

sound inherently Spanish underscores this investigation. Considering

elements in which Spanish idioms are most readily apparent in these

works (melodic design, harmonic progression, rhythmic profile, and

instrumental texture), and comparing them with a variety of

authentic Spanish folk music formulae through a combination of

listening and intense score analysis, defines the fundamental

methodology of this research26. It is anticipated that the

26 Mathew Brown’s Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure: Debussy’s ‘Iberia’ , (New York:Oxford University Press, 2003) suggests ways in which Debussy’s sketchesand drafts may be used to explain how he composed one of his last greatsymphonic scores inspired by Spanish folklore: ‘Iberia’ (from Images pourorchestre, 1903-1910). By carefully analysing the genesis of each distinct

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identification of these inherently Spanish moments and the

compositional processes Corea employed to assimilate these Spanish

idioms within a fusion inspired formal and technical design, will

complement the current research of academics like Fellezs by

supporting an argument that a member of the first wave of fusion

experimenters was more than just an appropriator of divergent

musical styles.

The early years: From be-bop to classical to Latin-jazz.

I’m very thankful for my wonderful parents who gave me the

freedom of my mind and encouraged me in music.27

I learn from all the great musicians I have the privilege of

working with – they are like family.28

Armando “Chick” Corea was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, to parents

of both Spanish and Italian descent in June 1941. Studying

classical piano at the age of four, his father and tutor Armando Sr.

was to provide Chick with his early musical foundations and

allusion to Spanish folk music within the piece; a melodic formula,harmonic progression, rhythmic profile or instrumental texture, Brown seeksto identify levels of appropriation and assimilation of Spanish idioms byDebussy with a methodology that this research will attempt to emulate.27 Quote taken from an interview with Corea for: Shanghai Daily, (April, 2013).For transcript see: http://chickcorea.com/shanghai-daily-april-2013/ 28 Quote taken from an interview with Corea for: La Vanguardia, (November2012). For transcript see: http://chickcorea.com/la-vanguardia-november-2012/

22

http://chickcorea.com/la-vanguardia-november-2012/

http://chickcorea.com/la-vanguardia-november-2012/

http://chickcorea.com/shanghai-daily-april-2013/


direction. As an accomplished jazz trumpeter, bassist, composer and

arranger during the 1930s and 1940s, Armando would let Chick

accompany him on his many gigs in and around the Boston and Cape Cod

area. On occasions Armando Sr. would even invite Chick to ‘jam’ with

him on stage, as his band performed at country clubs and private

parties around the affluent Barnstable county region. Having taught

his son the basics of piano performance and music notation29, Corea

was given a total sense of freedom to pursue music further by his

father. At the age of eight, he would begin a six year period

studying classical piano under the tutelage of Bostonian concert

pianist Salvatore Sullo. Describing this period as the “only real

formal education, musically, that I have had”30 Corea was taught the

fundamentals of piano technique, in particular, that of Sullo’s

Italian classical style of piano performance. Introducing him to a

range of classical repertoire that included the piano works of Bach,

Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin and Scarlatti, Corea credits this period

of learning as his introduction to a whole new arena of musical

experiences. Having been accustomed to the bebop stylings of his

father’s music and his band, and listening to records of Dizzy

Gillespie and Charlie Parker frequently with keen interest, his

introduction by Sullo to some of the great classical composers was

29 Armando Sr. would also write out a selection of jazz tune standards andbebop motifs for Chick to learn and improvise with as part of his earlytuition with his father. See http://www.digitalinterviews.com/digitalinterviews/views/corea.shtml 30 Corea, C., Jazz Rock Fusion pg.148

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an important chapter in Corea’s musical life. In an interview with

Julie Coryell in 1978, he confirms the significance of Sullo’s

guidance in helping to shape his creative direction as a composer;

Since then, I guess, I’ve been influenced by every good

piece of music I’ve heard, both by famous composers and

musicians and non-famous composers and musicians. The list

is endless. My favourite contemporary composers are Bartok,

Stravinsky, (and) Debussy.31

Following his studies as a teenager with Sullo, Corea continued to

alternate between his passion for both jazz and classical piano

performance during his high school years. His love for Horace

Silver’s jazz piano works in particular reached a whole new level of

admiration. Armed with a fundamental knowledge of bebop and jazz

improvisation he had studied with his father, and the formal

musicianship skills he had acquired from Sullo, Corea began

listening to Silver’s performances with an astute ear. Studying his

songs intently with a focus on transcribing Silver’s solos,

ornamentations, and ‘licks’ so he could learn, perform, and

elaborate on them, Corea would then combine (or fuse) them with his

own motifs. Stating quite resolutely that Silver’s “music was

actually influential in getting me started composing”32, these were31Corea, C., Jazz-Rock Fusion pg.14832 Corea, C., Jazz-Rock Fusion pg.148. In a more recent blog interview;[www.chickcorea.com/all-about-jazz-august-2009], Corea confirms thesignificance of these early forays into composition in terms of his

24


to be his first forays into creating own material, by way of

recycling existing ideas in a manner that was consistent with the

pluralistic ideals of jazz, and the compositional art of contrafact

which epitomised the creation and evolution of the music which

defined his Father’s professional career; bebop33.

Corea’s first significant experience with the formal and technical

structures of Spanish and Latin American music and performance can

be traced to the years following his high school graduation in 1959.

Moving to Manhattan to attend Columbia University and then the

Juilliard School, he became dissatisfied with the formal studies at

both institutions and decided to embark on a career as a

professional musician. His first major appearance came in 1962

working with the Afro-Cuban Latin Jazz percussionist and rumba

quinto maestro Mongo Santamaria. Receiving a recording credit at the

age of twenty-one on Mongo’s release Mongo Santamaria and his Afro-Latin

Group – Go Mongo! (Riverside, 1962) was the beginning of what were to

be many collaborations that Corea would enjoy with a veritable

assortment of professional Latin American musicians working within

unorthodox musical education, calling these solitary transcription andexperimental moments in the early ‘50s as a “great school” for him.33 A composition whereby a new melody is written over an existing harmonicstructure ‘borrowed’ from another work is referred to in jazz literature asa contrafact. In essence a form of appropriation, it was utilised by suchjazz and bebop pioneers as Miles Davis and Charlie Parker during theirearly careers so that improvisations could be performed immediately andwith ease. More importantly for bebop artists, publisher fees were exemptfrom such recordings because it was the melodies that were copyrighted, notthe harmonic structure.

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the Manhattan area. During the 1960s, Corea began to hone his jazz

piano performance skills with seasoned Latin-jazz musicians who were

fusing musical elements associated with their ethnic and national

identities, with the popular formal structures of bebop, blues, and

jazz, which had become a part of their cultural identities as

working musicians in and around the jazz clubs of New York. The

biggest stream of Latin-jazz activity to engulf the New York jazz

scene flowed from the music clubs of Brazil. The popularity of

Brazilian samba and bossa nova34 there especially, was first

introduced to America through the recordings of Antonio Carlos

Jobim, Laurindo Almeida, and Joao Gilberto. Saxophonist Stan Getz

and guitarist Charlie Byrd were the first American jazz artists to

incorporate bossa nova into their repertoire, recording together with

a variety of Brazilian session musicians the albums Jazz Samba (Verve,

1962) and the classic Getz/Gilberto (Verve, 1963) - a collaboration with

Joao and Astrud Gilberto which included the worldwide hit originally

written and recorded by Jobim; “The Girl from Ipanema”. The music

that typified the Latin-jazz and bossa nova scene was characterised

by the presence of whispered vocal melodies and soft strumming

guitar rhythms and percussion35. This was in stark contrast to the

34 Bossa nova (new trend), is a genre of Brazilian music that is also afusion of music styles – merging afro-jazz elements with Brazilian samba.35 The Brazilian contribution to the Latin-jazz and bossa nova scene wouldcontinue well into the fusion era. From collaborations with Wayne Shorter(‘Weather Report’) and Milton Nascimento on Native Dancer (Columbia 1974) tohusband and wife team; percussionist Airto Moreira and vocalist FloraPurim, both of whom would form part of, and epitomise the early sound of

26


almost angry and aggressive music of the free jazz scene that was

also emerging at the same time36. Recording his own improvisations to

the gentle and serene mid-tempo Latin rhythms on albums including;

Sonny Stitt Goes Latin with the “Sonny Stitt Septet” (Roost, 1963),

Manhattan Latin with the “Dave Pike Octet” (Decca, 1964), Ariba! Con

Montego Joe with the “Montego Joe Septet” (Prestige, 1964), and with

Stan Getz himself on Sweet Rain (Verve, 1967), Return Engagement (Verve,

1968), and What the World Needs Now (Verve, 1968), Corea reflected on

this period working within the Latin-jazz and free-jazz music scene

as another integral chapter in his professional life. Whilst

offering him the ability to engage with his burgeoning creative

impulses in a range of musically and culturally hybridised

environments, more importantly, for Corea’s aspirations to develop

as a serious compositional artist, was that he was surrounded and

inspired by hard-working veterans completely committed to their

craft as working musicians.

I think that one of the main things that formulated for me

in those early days, the sixties, was a real ability to spot

the musicians and artists who were real dedicated to their

Corea’s seminal fusion group ‘Return to Forever’.36 ‘Free jazz’ also referred to as ‘new thing’ and ‘avant-garde jazz’, was anew aesthetic introduced to the jazz world by Ornette Coleman andpopularised by Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane during the 1960s.Incorporating a dissonant harmonic style with a lack of chorus structureand harmonic changes to allow a fluid improvisational flow, it was regardedby jazz purists as being both an exciting new direction for jazz, as wellas the destruction of it.

27


life as an artist, their music, and their art. They would

always outshine the dilettantes.37

The importance of a Bitches Brew and a Miles Davis introduction

When I spoke to Miles on the phone a few days before my

first gig in his band, I asked him; “Will there be a

rehearsal? How can I prepare?” His immediate answer was

“Nah, no rehearsal – just play what you hear”. That was the

greatest vote of confidence I could’ve gotten.38

Following a brief period between his collaborations with the Latin-

jazz scene, Corea was given an opportunity by jazz flautist Herbie

Mann’s boutique recording label ‘Vortex’, to record an album with a

quintet of his own creation featuring himself on piano, Woody Shaw

Jr on trumpet, Joe Farrell on tenor saxophone, Steve Swallow on

double bass, and Joe Chambers on drums. Released under the name

“Chick Corea Quintet”; Tones For Joan’s Bones (Vortex, 1966), featured

compositions incorporating elements of swing, bebop and free jazz in

a salute to his jazz idols Horace Silver, Dizzy Gillespie and

Charlie Parker. Listening to Corea’s flawless solo’s on both these

records, a trained ear is able to locate the descending appoggiatura

like inflections on certain notes, with occasional pausing on final

37 Corea, C., quote taken from Coryell, J., Friedman, L., Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 2000), pg.148.38 Quote taken from an interview with Corea for: The Morning Call, (May, 2013), for transcript see: http://chickcorea.com/the-morning-call-may-2013/

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resting notes played immediately after for accentuation [Ex.1a].

These brief ornamentations demonstrate his gentle nod to a common

characteristic of Latin-jazz improvisation, and the legacy of his

experience working within this community [Ex.1a(ii)], – thus

confirming the extent of Latin-jazz’s influence on what was now a

natural part of his improvisational performance style.

Ex.1a Transcription from Corea’s solo on ‘Tones for Joan’s Bones’ showing chromatic

passages and appogiatura-like ornaments - including one leading to an accented note

to emphasise the half step sonority and an allusion to Latin and Spanish culture.

Ex.1a(ii) Transcription taken from Stan Getz’ solo from his and Joao Gilberto’s

bossa nova standard ‘Doralice’. In this composition from their collaborative Latin-

jazz album Getz/Gilberto (Verve, 1963), Getz’s solo shows similar chromatic designs, an

appoggiatura like ornament, and accented notes at the end of half-step intervals.

With an inspired commitment to continue achieving his artistic

goals, Corea’s moderate success within the professional music

industry in New York would eventually lead him to the introduction29


of Miles Davis in 1968. The opportunity to work with a highly

revered jazz musician such as Davis would have felt like a milestone

for Corea39. His reputation as a mentor to young starters was already

well known and Corea must have felt that the platform for which to

showcase his abilities to a larger audience that had benefitted

other Davis protégés in Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Tony

Williams, was now within his grasp. Davis’ band had undergone some

major changes during the 1960s. From 1964 to 1968, his quintet had

evolved from a band that was playing a high proportion of standards

in its repertoire, changing many of them to the point of non-

recognition in what had become a staple of the free jazz style, and

performing them in an acoustic manner not unlike his earlier work in

bebop and free-jazz groups he had shared with John Coltrane - before

changing his aesthetic once again into something completely

different;

All of a sudden jazz became passé, something dead you put

under a glass in the museum and study. All of a sudden rock

‘n’ roll was in the forefront of the media.40

39 In an interview with Marc Myers for The Wall Street Journal, (Nov. 1st, 2013)Corea confesses to having been a collector of Miles Davis records from avery early age, also mentioning that Sketches of Spain was his most favourite.For transcript see:http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304655104579163722788382890 40 Davis, M., Miles: The Autobiography, (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1989), p.262.

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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230465510457%209163722788382890

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230465510457%209163722788382890


This need for creative change that Davis had sensed was occurring

within the music industry, the feeling that the old traditional

world of jazz was being overtaken by a new world of rock had become

a prevalent force during the mid to late 1960s. It was fusion that

would become one of the manifestations of this new wave and as far

as Nicholson, Fellezs, and the majority of jazz and fusion

literature is concerned, it was Davis who would be at its forefront

in America. By the time Corea had joined Davis’ revised quintet in

1968, replacing another successful future fusion artist in Herbie

Hancock, the music being recorded had included some elements of jazz

and rock crossovers. With the albums Nefertiti (Columbia, 1967), Miles in

the Sky (Columbia, 1968) and Filles de Kilimanjaro (Columbia, 1968), Davis

and his entourage of young musicians, Hancock, Williams (drums),

Shorter (tenor saxophone) and Ron Carter (bass), had begun to tackle

time in a different way. Free sections of improvisations had now

evolved into conventional head arrangements being played in time.

With the track “Stuff” from Miles in the Sky, the players can be heard

performing dramatic variations over a steady rock influenced beat in

what was a first for the American jazz market.41 Beginning with an

entire six minutes of a steady rhythm section before the trumpet

41 This technique and style of jazz and rock crossover was initially beingexperimented within Europe before the release of Nefertiti, particularly withinthe albums of English progressive rock groups ‘Nucleus’ and ‘Cream’. Coreain an interview with Down Beat magazine, just after recording his firstalbum with Davis In a Silent Way (1969), expressed his admiration for Cream’ssynthesis of improvisation and rock.

31


launches into a solo, it is evident in this piece how Davis had

begun to understand how the use of a rock beat would keep the

attention of an audience no matter how ornate the solos played over

them would become. By 1969 and now with Corea in a new line-up which

included Dave Holland replacing Carter, Jack DeJohnette replacing

Williams, and with the addition of another keyboard player Josef

(Joe) Zawinul and guitarist John McLaughlin (both of whom would

later form fusion super-groups ‘Weather Report’ and ‘Mahavishnu

Orchestra’ respectively,) the recording of In A Silent Way saw a

tentative step towards a jazz and rock synthesis, containing

elements of classical sonata form42 performed with a more electrified

sonority. With Zawinul on Fender Rhodes electric piano and McLaughlin

on electric guitar, the sound of this album confused analysts at the

time. Where rock critics embraced Davis new sound and were excited

by the prospect of jazz royalty nodding in their direction, jazz

critics were less favourable in their reviews. Phil Freeman writes

of In A Silent Way as being a bridging point, before the more successful

union of divergent genres that epitomised Bitches Brew was released.

In a Silent Way wasn't exactly jazz, it certainly wasn't rock.

It was the sound of Miles Davis and Teo Macero (producer)42 Classical sonata form in its most basic definition is a piece of musicthat follows a structure of an exposition, a development, and then arecapitulation. The two tracks 'Shhh/Peaceful’ and ‘In a Silent Way/It’sAbout Time’, are split into three ‘movements’. The first movement revealsitself as Davis’ solo statement, the second as a shared development byensemble solo improvisations, and finally the third and finalrecapitulation.

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feeling their way down an unlit hall at three in the

morning. It was the soundtrack to all the whispered

conversations every creative artist has, all the time, with

that doubting, taunting voice that lives in the back of your

head, the one asking all the unanswerable questions. 43

With Bitches Brew being recorded only a few months later, Davis had

embraced the concept of jazz and rock fusion with a concerted focus

on electrical instrumental experimentation. The release of this

album signalled a watershed in jazz, and rock, and the fusion of

both. In combination with Miles’ fame and prestige, the album gave

the budding fusion idiom visibility and credibility that it could

not have afforded without Davis’ involvement, and it was

instrumental in promoting it to the dominant direction for a new era

of jazz and rock musicians leading into the 1970s. The recording’s

enormous influence on the fusion scene was bolstered by the fact

that almost all the musicians involved progressed to high-profile

careers in their own right. Avoiding the smooth contours of popular

music, embracing the grittiness of electric rock music, and using

dissonant chords and angular open-ended improvisation over steady

rock infused rhythmic lines, its enormous commercial success44 is the

primary factor for Davis’ regard in fusion literature as the pioneer

43 Freeman, P., Running the Voodoo Down: The Electric Music of Miles Davis, (Hal LeonardCorporation, 2005), pp. 26–27.44 The album sold over 400,000 units in its first year and won the Grammy Award in 1970 for ‘Best Jazz Record’.

33


of the fusion idiom. It’s achievement in sales also speaks to the

shared consensus among critics and some writers that the music

movement evolved solely as a reaction to this commercial success, as

opposed to the more artistic reasons and the shared aesthetic of

pushing genre defined boundaries that Fellezs would attest was

fusion’s more credible reason for being.

Significantly for Corea’s role as an evolving artist developing his

musical abilities, the recording of Bitches Brew would have a profound

effect on his musical direction moving forward into the 1970s. One

of the new learning experiences for Corea, in what he describes as

“the most rewarding gigs I did”45, was his introduction to the Fender

Rhodes electric piano. Reflecting on the importance of his electronic

instrument initiation, the struggle to adapt initially, and the

lasting effect it would have on his choice of instrumentation for

his future endeavours, Corea is noted as saying;

At first I didn’t like it very well because mechanically

it’s a far inferior instrument to a regular acoustic piano.

It still is, but I enjoyed being able to play at a louder

volume.46

The ability to play at a louder volume gave Corea new perspective as

he could now perform more comfortably with the level of drummers,

45 Corea, C., Jazz-Rock Fusion, p.148.46 Corea, C., Jazz-Rock Fusion, p.148.

34


electric guitarists, and electric bassists he was working with.

Fusion was personified by its volume during the 1970s, it was ‘loud’

and ‘brash’ according to most jazz critics47 and this was in due part

to the example of Davis and his introduction of electronic

instrumentation within the new ‘jazz and rock fusion’ scene. Where

Corea would initially revert to a quieter and more subtle sound of

the Fender Rhodes with his post Bitches bands ‘Circle’ and in the first

two recordings with ‘Return to Forever’, he would embrace electronic

instrumentation and the vibrant dynamics and sonorities he could

achieve with them in later ventures;

After that, (Bitches Brew) I started liking the timbres of the

electric piano and other electric keyboards and just

naturally began to use them in my playing, my compositions,

and my groups.48

The more significant moment of the Bitches Brew recording, with regards

to Corea’s association with Spanish culture and his merging of

Spanish themes in his original works after the album’s release, was

his participation (in what recorded evidence would suggest), was his

first professional experience in performing a jazz, rock, and

47 Dan Morgenstern was one reporter who pronounced in his review of the 1969Newport Jazz Festival for Down Beat (the first time rock and funk acts wereincluded on the Newport bill) that the amalgamation of genres on stage wasa “loud” and consequently “resounding” failure. See Morgenstern, D., ‘Rock,Jazz, and Newport’, Down Beat, Aug.21st, 1969, p.22.48 Corea, C., Jazz-Rock Fusion, p.148.

35


traditional Spanish folk themed composition of Davis’ creation,

‘Spanish Key’.

‘Spanish Key’ was not the first time Davis had handled the rhythmic

and melodic qualities of Spanish folk music. In collaboration with

composer and arranger Gil Evans, they recorded together and released

the album Sketches of Spain in 1960. As an amalgamation of classical,

jazz, and world music styles, it was a ‘fusion’ record released ten

years before Davis and his protégés shared aesthetics would solidify

jazz and rock fusion’s place as a definitive idiom, despite the

media, artists, and critic’s differing issues with labels, names and

titles. A record that in its formal and technical design

substantiates the appropriation title favoured by Nicholson, the

album consists of arrangements by Evans of; Joaquin Rodrigo’s second

movement “Adagio” from his work for guitar and orchestra Concerto de

Aranjuez, (1939), Manuel de Falla’s “Cancion del Fuego Fatuo” from his

ballet El Amor Brujo (1924) titled “Will ‘o the Wisp”, and a

traditional flamenco styled folk song “The Pan Piper/Alborada del

Vigo”. Sketches also includes two other Spanish folk songs with Evans

as credited composer; “Saeta” and “Solea”. In his autobiography,

Davis is quite unguarded about the levels of appropriation he

adopted in his and Evans arrangements and compositions that

accompanied the Concerto ‘Adagio’ and the Falla song;

36


We got a folklore record of Peruvian Indian music, and took

a vamp from that. This was “The Pan Piper” on the album.

Then we took the Spanish march “Saeta”, which they do in

Spain on Fridays when they march and testify by singing. The

trumpet players played the march on “Saeta”, like it was

done in Spain.49

His difficulty in being able to re-imagine the cante style of vocal

line prominent in flamenco song, within the trumpet solos on the

final track ‘Solea’, further substantiates the acts of appropriation

and the recycling of existing motifs with little or no alteration

that governed Davis’ compositional agenda during the making of this

record;

Now that was the hardest thing for me to do on Sketches of

Spain: to play the parts on the trumpet where someone was

supposed to be singing, especially when it was ad-libbed,

like most of the time…. Because you’ve got all those Arabic

musical scales up in there, black African scales that you

can hear. And they modulate and bend and twist and snake and

move around.50

Moving forward to 1969 and the Bitches Brew recording, with Corea eager

to learn and adopt the musical experiences he was encountering as a

49 Miles: The Autobiography, p.231.50 Miles: The Autobiography, p. 232

37


protégé of a jazz and fusion pioneer, his first experience of

merging Spanish folk themes with jazz and rock elements in the

recording of ‘Spanish Key’, would be a revisiting of the Spanish

idioms Davis had appropriated on Sketches of Spain. As a constant

flowing boogie based around several different scales and tonal

centres, Davis attempts to achieve a flexibility and smoothness

between each soloist’s unique improvisatory offerings. This element

of the song’s form is the one factor that separates it from the

structured rigidity of Davis passages in Sketches, thus showing his

progression as a formidable fusion artist and leader51. Employing a

series of coded phrases, or musical cues which help to steer the

band towards each new musical section, these modulations are

initiated by each soloist’s performance of a new improvisational

phrase. The cue or signal arrives in the form of each soloist’s

shift into a new key, thus altering the piece’s tonal centre. An

analysis of these coded phrases by Enrico Merlin52 shows Corea’s

contribution to this work, his dictation of structure, and Davis’

growing position as an instructive parental-type figure, allowing

his protégé’s the opportunity to shine [see Appendix 1].

51 In a recent blog interview; [www.chickcorea.com/all-about-jazz-august-2009], Corea reminisces about working with Davis, and recalls him as“relentlessly experimenting – trying different approaches”. These kinds ofdescriptions and phrases have become synonymous with describing the‘breaking of rules’, ‘pushing genre defined boundaries’, and ‘creating anew ambiguous sound’ aesthetic that characterises the fusion idiom.52 See transcription of seminar by Merlin, E., Miles Davis and American CultureII (May 10-11, 1996, Washington University, St. Louis) athttp://www.plosin.com/MilesAhead/CodeMD.html

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Importantly for this research, what makes ‘Spanish Key’ inherently

Spanish, is merely the formal design of the Phrygian dominant scale

abstractions which can be heard in the sonorities constructed over

the F7#9 and E7#9 chords that govern the main theme. Identified

traditionally by the raising of the third degree or note of the

scale, thus creating an augmented second interval which creates in

its sonority a very distinctive Spanish association53, this device

and slight variations of it [Ex.1b], are a fundamental part of the

traditional, and more famous style of folk music that belong to the

flamenco genre, and are additionally referred to in musicology as

the “Spanish gypsy” and “flamenco scale” in respect of their

cultural origins54.

Ex.1.b. The Phrygian Dominant scale or ‘Spanish gypsy’ scale on C (top), and a

variation of it also used extensively in Spanish folk music known as the ‘Flamenco

mode’ or ‘Flamenco scale’ (bottom), complete with corresponding intervallic

relationships shown between each scale degree. The flamenco variation includes two

augmented intervals, between the 2nd and 3rd, and the 6th and 7th degrees. The

incorporation of these intervals are what can impart to a melody a decidedly Spanish

association.

53 Emphasising of varying augmented intervals of differing scale degrees(outside of the Phrygian/flamenco mode augmented second that traditionallyoccurs between the 2nd and 3rd or 6th and 7th), are another facet of Spanishfolk music formulae also. See Mathew Brown pg.44.54 Varying modifications of the Phrygian dominant scale have origins linkedwith the formal structures of traditional Jewish, Turkish, Arabian, Greekand Persian folk music, as well as with Spanish flamenco.

39


The modified Phrygian dominant scale structure of the main theme of

“Spanish Key” is fundamentally apparent in its tonal organisation.

Uninspired in its delivery of a simple melodic line, theoretically,

Davis has made no real effort to present something original with the

blueprint he has adopted. Consistently repeated and reliant on the

emphasis of the augmented second interval between the second and

third degrees of the scale that begins the melody [Ex.1.c], and

concluding it with a sustained half step to the tonic sonority

reminiscent with the flamenco mode scale, are both simple

recreations of two sonoric characteristics of Spanish folk music

fused together into one melodic line.

Ex.1.c. Phrygian mode inflected melodic motif from ‘Spanish Key’.

40


To venture that Davis has assimilated Spanish folk idioms and re-

imagined them in the spirit of Spanish music here is aimless, as

predominantly, the piece itself does not even sound specifically

Spanish. While the evidence of the score presents a Spanish tinge,

the straight rock drum beat and sporadic jazz and rock harmonic

accompaniment cancels any associations with the musical culture

immediately. Evidently this is just a piece of music written in a

‘spanish key’. However, what is interesting here in Davis’

deployment of a divergent musical theme is his way of achieving that

initiative in a furtive way. Creatively hidden amongst the tapestry

of other music styles and themes, Davis may have taught Corea an

important lesson about subtlety, not making associations too

obvious, and the ingenuity ascribed to that type of aesthetic for

which someone like his idol Debussy was successful in accomplishing

with his own evocations of Spain55. The evidence of an augmented

sixth chord to tonic cadence (B7b5/F – E) in the accompaniment to

complete Davis’ flamenco scale infused melodic line, is not there,

even though it could have secured an immediate aural association to

Spain with a complete harmonic richness. It would have arrived so

immediately during the creation of Sketches, and the overruling

55 See Mathew Brown’s chapter ‘Goals and Historical Constraints’ in Studies inMusical Genesis. Brown identifies how Spanish folk gestures operate on severallevels within ‘Iberia’. Whether resurfacing throughout individual tunes orrecurring through larger families of themes, his framework seeks toidentify specific examples of Spanish folk furtively interspersed withinthe formulaic technique of Debussy’s compositional methods.

41


‘Spanish-ness’ that epitomised the sound Evans and Davis were

emulating in their album of ten years earlier, but here Davis is

attempting something different. Obscuring generic boundaries in the

true sense of hybridity, he was defining the ambiguous nature that

was to categorise fusion as a musical idiom throughout the 1970s

with the ground-breaking Bitches Brew, and as described here with

‘Spanish Key’. The example of Davis’s compositional techniques, and

in these brief analyses of how he specifically handled Spanish folk

themes and ideas within his recordings, goes someway to explaining

Nicholson’s assertion that fusion’s formal and technical designs

were solely based on acts of appropriation. Davis, as the

established forefather of the fusion idiom, evidently was not an

artist immediately concerned with the aesthetical premise of

assimilation with his merging of divergent cultural musical themes

or blending of genres, as his “we took this” revelations would

attest. Moreover, that he is also credited with paving the way for

his protégés to continue this aesthetic, further complicates the

notion that any artists of the fusion era ever approached their

handling of divergent musical material seriously as an original

composer, artist, and musician. It will become evident just how much

influence the contrafact/appropriation inspired aesthetic of Davis

would have on Corea during his early fusion compositions following

42


Bitches Brew, before his evolution into a true assimilator and composer

of entirely original Spanish themes would transpire.

Leaving the nest: Flying in a circle and returning to forever

Miles Davis was the pivot point to the second half of the

20th century in music through to today. He made so much

change in music and so much change happened through his

musicians.56

By 1971, Davis’ Bitches Brew protégés had moved on. John McLaughlin

would form the rock, jazz, and both Indian and European classical

music mergings of his fusion group ‘Mahavishnu Orchestra’, Josef

Zawinul and Wayne Shorter would collaborate on multi-cultural

folklore fusion in ‘Weather Report’, Herbie Hancock had already

begun to make waves in the music industry with his jazz and funk

fusion stylings presented in an Afro-futuristic57 electronic sound,

and Corea had returned to free jazz improvisation over be-bop

inspired ‘licks’ in a nod to his old jazz idols. His first group

post-Davis was the experimental jazz group ‘Circle’ which signed to

the Blue Note label in 1970. In collaboration with another of Davis’

56 Quote taken from an interview with Corea for Delo Newspaper, (November, 2012), for transcript see: www.chickcorea.com/delo-newspaper-november-2012/. 57 “Afro-futurism” is a term Mark Dery coined in “Black to the Future:Interviews with Samuel R. Delaney, Greg Tate and Tricia Rose.” In Flame Wars:The Discourse of Cyberculture, ed., Mark Dery, (Durham: Duke University Press,1994) p.179-222. Describing an aesthetic championed by Hancock, hiselectronic jazz and funk mergings were accompanied by iconography thatblended images from Science-fiction, African tribalism, and fantasy.

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http://www.chickcorea.com/delo-newspaper-november-2012/

http://www.chickcorea.com/delo-newspaper-november-2012/


alumni, the bassist Dave Holland, Corea recalls his experience with

the quartet as somewhat of a misjudgement in his career trajectory

at the time. Describing the creative process of ‘Circle’ as

inhabiting “no preparation at all, no composition, no discussion,

nothing”58, his aspirations to write original music that embodied his

passion for classical, jazz, Latin and Spanish idioms would

eventually become the driving force that would influence his

departure from ‘Circle’ and compel him to establish what would

become the hugely successful fusion group ‘Return To Forever’;

There had come a point in Circle where I had begun to want

to have a predictable effect, which means a rhythm, a song,

a melody, a composition. I wanted to go back to composing

again, so it was time for me to move on and do that.59

It was also a point where an introduction to L. Ron Hubbard’s

Dianetics and the Church of Scientology would have a profound

spiritual influence on both his personal and professional life. In

the interview he gave Coryell for her collection of interviews Jazz-

Rock Fusion, he opens up about the “fantastic degree” of help that

Scientology had on his career, implying what may have been an

uninspiring and artistically stifling chemistry within Circle;

58 Shipton, A., ‘Jazz-Fusions/New Jazz’ in The Oxford History of Jazz, pg.62059 Shipton, A., ’Chick Corea’ in Handful of Keys (London: Equinox, 2004), p.88.

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One of the things (Scientology showed) was that the main

reason why people [sic] had such a hard time coordinating

with one another and had so much strife in their

interactions was because the individuals that made up these

groups were so encumbered by their own problems – and this

can create enough turmoil to stop an individual from

pursuing and clinging to his own purposes.60

In an interview with John Toner for Down Beat, Corea sheds more light

on ‘Circle’s’ demise and change of musical direction, attributing

his recently applied philosophy of Scientology and the need to

communicate with a larger audience as a contributing factor for the

band’s break-up;

What’s called free or avant-garde music is actually too

technical and it loses the communication. The language

becomes unfamiliar and mystical, and therefore the

communication gets misunderstood. 61

In another interview conducted for the same magazine following the

release of My Spanish Heart (Polydor, 1976), he confirms this philosophy;

“I no longer wanted to satisfy myself. I really want to connect with

the world and make my music mean something to people”.62

60 Corea, C., Jazz-Rock Fusion, pp.148-149.61 Corea, C., from Toner, J., ‘Chick Corea’ in Down Beat, March 28, 1974, p. 15.62 Corea, C., from Feather, L., ‘Chick Corea’ in Down Beat, October 21, 1976, p.47.

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His aspiration for wanting a “predictable effect” in his music, to

compose “a melody” and “a rhythm” so that he could communicate to a

greater audience, could be construed as some duplicitous excuse

disguising the economic reasons Nicholson and others point to in

their hypotheses on fusion’s existence. Regardless of his agenda to

form ‘Return to Forever’ and create the fusion music that would

define his career, Corea’s spiritual and artistic integrity, as far

as he was concerned, was never in question. His admiration for his

classical idols, admission of their major influence in his writing,

and an aspiration to be regarded as an original composer and a

unique and creative artist were seemingly always reiterated in one

form or another in almost every journalistic article or interview

that has been uncovered through this research. Despite the fact it

was hugely popular, the music of ‘Return to Forever’ from 1972 was a

reaction to a distinct realisation of Corea’s artistic desires, and

the need to proactively assert what his true goals and purposes as a

musician were - to “compose again”. To listen to his first two

recordings with his new outfit; Return to Forever (ECM, 1972) and Light as a

Feather (Polydor, 1972), is to comprehend Corea as a very relaxed and

pensive artist. Quietly experimenting with the surplus of musical

influences that had inspired his artistic direction to date, Return’s

collection of songs on these two albums all embody the “predictable

effect” he craved, and present Corea at one with the fusion

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aesthetic. In the band’s early years, ‘Return to Forever’ was a

gentle and relatively serene Latin and Spanish oriented

collaboration that was typified by the elegance of his Latin-jazz

specialists; Brazilian singer Flora Purim’s vocals and Airto Moriera

on drums and percussion. The quintet was initially completed with

Stanley Clarke on bass and Joe Farrell on soprano sax and flute.

Their first album included Corea’s first significant attempt at a

Spanish and jazz synthesis with “La Fiesta”, before Light as a Feather

would substantiate Corea’s position as a fusion impresario, thanks

largely to the album’s success and the critical acclaim bestowed

upon it63. One particular composition from the album would have a lot

to do with this favourable reception, and it would go on to become a

veritable jazz and fusion standard, re-recorded and re-arranged

countless times by artists from both the jazz and fusion communities

in the years that followed. Arguably his most successful and famous

composition to date; it was the vivid, alluring, and exotic

masterpiece for jazz quintet; ‘Spain’.

Biographical summation

This biographical analysis of Corea’s early life and career up until

the formation of ‘Return to Forever’ and the release of “Spain” is

63 My Spanish Heart received a five-star rating in the November 4, 1976 issueof Down Beat. Coincidentally, Corea received ‘Best Composer’ and ‘BestElectric Keyboardist’ accolades in the Down Beat ‘Readers Poll’ published onDecember 31, 1976. See: http://www.downbeat.com/default.asp?sect=stories&subsect=story _detail&sid=821

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http://www.downbeat.com/default.asp?sect=stories&subsect=story%20_detail&sid=821

http://www.downbeat.com/default.asp?sect=stories&subsect=story%20_detail&sid=821


not by any means a complete historiographical account. Purposefully

for the aim of this research, omissions were made, and only the

cataloguing and elaboration of specific moments unearthed from the

multitude of archival materials found outside of the traditional

academic institutional archives (with the exception of Coryell’s

book), were included. These specific moments were chosen because of

their unique relevance in helping to endorse Corea’s positioning as

an antithesis to Nicholson’s ‘appropriator’ title. Each moment

highlighted a musical experience, apprenticeship, and a social, or

ideological influence that may have played an essential part in

shaping Corea’s evolution into a composer with a desire to reimagine

Spanish folklore in an original manner, amidst the hybridised formal

structure of the fusion idiom. However, there are a few facets about

Corea’s biography, particularly those linked to the more important

musical experiences and personal admissions that have been included

here, that are worthy of a final reflection before the score and

musicological analyses concerning levels of appropriation and

assimilation of Spanish idioms are to begin.

The contemporary classical influence

Given Corea’s affinity with hybridising Spanish and Latin American

idioms during his career, his proclamation to Coryell of an

admiration for early 20th century composers that include such

proficient appropriators and assimilators of divergent folk music

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themes is significant. That one of these composers - Claude

Debussy64, wrote perhaps the most inspired and original examples of

Spanish influenced music is even more relevant with regards to the

conceptualisation of Corea’s understanding of both the appropriation

and assimilation of Spanish folk themes. Many nineteenth and

twentieth century composers were attracted to the vibrant colours

and rhythms of Spain, and in most cases, the inclusion of Spanish

elements in their works65 were little more than sporadic surface

generalities, comprised from the many sonoric characteristics to be

found in Spanish folk music and dance – polos, habaneras,

madrilenas, jotas and so on. However, Debussy was much different

than his contemporaries. After only a fleeting trip to San Sebastien

to watch a bull fight, he composed the piece for piano, La Soiree dans

Grenade (1903) for which the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla said on

its release; “The entire piece down to the smallest detail makes one

feel the character of Spain”66. In a biography of de Falla, John

Brande Trend regarded Debussy as an artist “who revealed things in

the spirit of Andalusian music which had been hidden or not clearly

discerned even by Falla, who was born and bred in Andalusia”.67 As a

64 In another interview with John Toner for Down Beat (March, 1974), he adds another assimilator of Spanish folklore; Maurice Ravel, to his list of inspirational contemporary classical composers; “There is Debussy and Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartok”, p.16.65 For example: Maurice Ravel’s Rhapsodie Espagnole (1907), Georges Bizet’s Carmen (1875), and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnole (1887).66 De Falla, M., ‘Le tombeau de Debussy’, La Revue Musicale, Paris, December, 1920.67 Trend, J.B., Manuel de Falla and Spanish Music, London: Allen and Unwin, 1934)

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French composer with no ethnic connection to Spanish culture, armed

with only a book of Isaac Albeniz’s cycle of piano pieces (Iberia,

1905-1909), an acquaintance with the Spanish folk-song collections of

Felipe Pedrell, and having witnessed performances of Andalusian

songs and dances by visiting Spanish singers, players and dancers in

Paris, he was still able to boast such a natural affinity with

Spanish music that he could, as David Cox writes; “absorb and

assimilate the Spanish characteristics so completely that they

became a natural part of his own style”.68 By the time he completed

the homage to Spain with his orchestral masterpiece “Iberia” from

Images pour orchestre (1908), Debussy had not just written a piece of

Spanish music but had according to Falla, translated into music “the

associations that Spain had aroused in him”.69 Whether La Soiree or

another Spanish inspired solo piano work La Puerto del Vino (1912) were

part of Corea’s repertoire under Sullo’s tutelage is unknown, but

one must assume these pieces and the orchestral masterpiece “Iberia”

had come to his attention during his informative years, if we are to

justifiably attribute Sullo’s influence in Corea’s admiration for

Debussy so informed by his revelation with Coryell.70

68 Cox, D., Debussy’s Orchestral Music, (London: BBC Music Guides - SpottiswoodeBallantyne, 1974),pg.39.69 De Falla, M., ‘Claude Debussy et l’Espagne’, La Revue Musicale 1, No.2,Paris, December, 1920.70 Corea’s specific admiration for Claude Debussy is also mentioned in amore recent quote he made for Mathew Brown’s book Debussy Redux: The impact of hismusic on popular culture, (Indiana University Press, 2012) p.3. Corea describesDebussy in the book’s introduction as his “most important influence”.

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What the statement to Coryell ultimately reveals is that Corea was

influenced by “every good piece of music” composed by artists with a

similar aesthetic to the one that characterises fusion’s formal and

technical structure. Hybridising of divergent cultural music

elements, (or to borrow the post-modernist term used in contemporary

classical study to describe this process; exoticism) whether they were

from Spain or the Orient in the example of Debussy, Eastern Europe

in the case of Bartok, or American jazz and ragtime in the works of

Stravinsky, Corea’s keenly astute ear and growing musicianship

skills would have most likely been taking note of the specific ways

these acts were being achieved musically (much in the same way he

was transcribing Horace Silver works), so that he could also one day

be able to assimilate and absorb Spanish characteristics into his

own natural musical style. The inspiration of these composers and

their role in Corea’s aspiration to be regarded as a serious

compositional artist in the same realm as his idols is reinforced in

another interview with Coryell. On the precipice of a new decade

(the 1980s), and after approximately ten years of solid experimental

fusion music output working both as a solo artist and within bands

of differing ensembles, he proclaims a desire for the future;

I have lots of plans and projects musically and lots of

goals that I’d like to fulfil as an artist. Personally my

desire as a composer is growing and growing, and I have

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plans to do extensive writing of piano music, of small

chamber music, string quartet and piano, orchestral music,

and various experimental forms that I think of from time to

time.71

The forthcoming analyses of Corea’s Spanish works will draw on all

of the biographical detail concerning his education,

apprenticeships, and musical experiences examined and referenced

thus far, so as to draw favourable conclusions that support his

stature as an original composer and assimilator of Spanish folk

themes. The traditional jazz and many Latin-jazz influences,

Debussy’s compositional techniques and those of other contemporary

classical composers identified by Corea with their evocations of

divergent cultures, Davis’ penchant for the bebop stylings of

contrafact, appropriation, and his early associations with the

fusion ideals of ambiguity and hybridity within the development of a

musical theme - are part of what has been identified in this

research as a multitude of influential factors that will be

considered alongside the comparative score analyses of ‘Spain’, the

My Spanish Heart tracks, and ‘Little Flamenco’. Importantly, these

comparisons will coincide with examples of the melodic designs,

harmonic progressions, rhythmic profiles, and instrumental textures

inherent in traditional Spanish folk music, so as to gauge to what

71 Corea, C., Jazz-Rock Fusion, p.149.

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extent Corea’s understanding of these music elements informed his

compositional approaches and artistic goals, and whether his scores

reflect a re-imagining of Spanish idioms in a unique original manner

consistent with a fusion artist worthy of the ‘assimilator’ title.

But why write music of a Spanish nature?

Music has always played a part in helping to form the identities of

individuals and groups of people. It allows a process for defining

oneself as an individual who belongs to a certain group, and for

defining others as members of another group different from their

own. The development of someone’s musical identity takes into

consideration the rudiments of age, gender, and musical taste, along

with the cultural, ethnic, religious, and national contexts for

which a person exists in. To theorise why Corea was compelled to

write music of a Spanish nature and present himself as having ‘a

Spanish heart’, is to consider the cultural, ethnic and national

contexts that surrounded his early development. In particular, the

significance of Armando Sr.’s influence on Corea’s musical

direction, his subsequent musical identity, and how this may factor

in a representation of someone with both an agenda and an innate

ability to assimilate a cultural music idiom, is yet another issue

to further consider. Of the ample biographical material found on

Corea in magazines, web articles and various blogs, and those

informed by Corea himself in both published and recorded interviews;

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almost every one of these items makes a mention of Armando Sr. as a

guiding and supportive energy in both his personal and professional

life. In his interview with Coryell in Jazz-Rock Fusion, Corea reveals

the extent of gratitude he holds for both his parents, but

particularly for his father in allowing his musical career to

flourish;

He gave me my first instruction. He was really kind and

gentle. He got me off to a real safe start. My parents were

both always very encouraging and allowed me total freedom to

pursue music. I think that was a real nice safe space that

was created for me in the beginning.72

What is known of Corea’s father’s life before he married and started

a family in Chelsea, Massachusetts is relatively scarce, yet what is

documented is that he was born to both Italian and Spanish

immigrants in Chelsea in 1906. Even though his son Chick would

inevitably identify himself as American, he would have been very

aware of his grandparents Italian and Spanish roots growing up in

the same neighbourhood as them, along with numerous other Spanish

and Italian immigrants that defined the predominantly ethnic

population of Chelsea. The strong national, ethnic, and cultural

utterances that Corea would have been exposed to in his upbringing

here (from his parents, grandparents, and local community), would

72 Corea, C., Jazz-Rock Fusion, pp.147-148.

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have played an integral part in shaping his cultural identity

(Spanish/Italian) to complement his ethnic identity (Caucasian Roman

Catholic) and national identity (American). Goren Folkestad’s

current research in national, ethnic, and cultural identities in

music complements his predecessor’s73 ground-breaking work in the

same discipline, by identifying two main functions74 that music

inhabits when expressing and communicating a national or cultural

identity. It is the second function that relates more to Corea’s

agenda for incorporating Spanish idioms; that the aim of his music

was so that listeners would be able to recognise and identify Corea

as being a member of a particular national and or cultural group.

With an inner need to express and preserve the cultural expressions

associated with Spain in his music, in emblematic fashion Corea is

displaying a hybridised sound befitting of his hybridised identity;

Jazz and Spanish folk – American with Spanish heritage. This

nationalist pride which incorporates his Spanish inheritance, meant

that his evocations of Spain that define his musical career would

come from his ‘heart’, as his 1976 album would attest. In regards to

that implicit declaration of national, cultural, and ethnic pride

the album title embodies, simply appropriating existing material to

73 See: Grout, D.J., A History of Western Music, (London: J.M.Dent and Sons, 2000),Baumann, M.P., ‘Emics and Etic in Ethnomusicology’ in Journal of the InternationalInstitute for Traditional Music, 35 (1), and Nettl, B., The Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-nine Issues and Concepts, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001). 74 See Folkestad, G.,“National Identity and Music” in Macdonald, R.A.R.,Hargreaves, D.J., and Miell, D., (eds.), Musical Identities (Oxford UniversityPress,2002), pp.151-162.

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merge with jazz idioms is not a signature act that befits a composer

of Corea’s identity and presence during the 1970s fusion movement. A

composer with a ‘Spanish heart’ would be definitively more

proficient and adept at assimilating Spanish subjects, incorporating

original material more in the spirit of Spain as opposed to recycled

borrowings from Spanish folklore. The following analyses of his most

inspired mergings of jazz and Spanish idioms will help to

substantiate this theory.

Spain (1972)

During Corea’s change of artistic direction following his ‘Circle’

experiences, he had become more interested in recreating some of the

vibrancy he contributed to during his Latin-jazz years, as the

inclusion of Flora Purim and Airto Moreira in Return to Forever’s

line up would suggest. It was also a period where he would

substantiate his growing affinity with Spanish folk music by way of

an introduction to the recordings of Spanish flamenco guitarist,

Paco De Lucia. As a leading proponent of the ‘new flamenco’ style,

the re-imagining of flamenco music in Spain during the 1960s and

1970s was an aesthetic shared by many popular flamenco artists that

resembled the fusion movement in America. New flamenco was defined

by its musical fusion, a merging of virtuosic performance of

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traditional flamenco solo guitar music (or toque75), with varying

elements of jazz, salsa, bossa nova, samba, Cuban swing and rock. In

a recent interview with The Shanghai Daily, Corea states how important De

Lucia’s influence was in his subsequent recordings with Return to

Forever and on the rest of his career;

Paco inspired me in the construction of my own musical world

as much as Miles Davis and Horace Silver, or Bartok, and

Debussy.76

Prior to the recording of Return to Forever’s Light as a Feather and his

homage to Spain, Corea had also returned to his old mentor for

inspiration, in the form of a recording of Davis’ Sketches of Spain77.

Listening to it intently he had become enthralled with the rich

exotic beauty of Spanish culture that Rodrigo was able to capture in

his original ‘Adagio’, and subsequently in Gil Evans and Davis’

arrangement of the same work from the Spanish composer’s classical

guitar and orchestral masterpiece Concierto de Aranjuez (1939). His

admiration for the work is immediately evident in the original

recording of ‘Spain’ on Light as a Feather, in the form of the music’s

introduction. As a solemn solo motif performed by Corea on his newly

75 Flamenco is an umbrella term that incorporates a particular body of Andalusian song (cante), dance (baile) and solo guitar music (toque).76 Corea, C., quote taken from interview with Corea for Shanghai Daily April,2013. For transcript see: www.chickcorea.com/shanghai-daily-april-2013/ 77 See Alex Hoyt’s interview with Corea for The Atlantic (Nov. 5, 2011);http://www.theatlantic .com/entertainment/archive/2011/11/how-chick-corea-wrote-spain/248948/, as he discusses the inspiration the album Sketches ofSpain had on his recording of ‘Spain’

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http://www.chickcorea.com/shanghai-daily-april-2013/


adopted medium the Fender Rhodes electric piano, alongside a

discernible droning bass line accompaniment performed on strings,

and with occasional flourishes of Moreira’s tambourines, Corea

introduces ‘Spain’ with his own arrangement of Rodrigo’s ‘Adagio’.

Lasting for just over a minute, there are small ornamentations to

the original melody that Corea embellishes, and he is able to derive

a stronger melodic and harmonic richness to Rodrigo’s distinct main

theme by way of the timbral capabilities of the Fender Rhodes, which

he succeeds in doing with ample use of the keyboards sustain

function. Being that Corea’s ‘Adagio’ introduction, from an aural

perspective, stays true to Rodrigo’s original melodic and harmonic

form with only the slightest of ornamentations being utilised, may

explain its absence from the professional music score of ‘Spain’

with all the juridical copyright issues that come with such an act

of appropriation, even if it was done with the upmost respect and as

a tribute to Rodrigo’s work. Moreover, in examining a score of

Concierto De Aranjuez and the ‘Adagio’ movement, and comparing it with

the ‘Spain’ score for jazz ensemble, is to comprehend the extent to

which his bebop inspired aesthetic, Rodrigo’s blueprint, and that of

Davis’ and his Latin-jazz influences, were evidently guiding his

compositional process during the creation of what would become his

most popular example of Spanish fusion.

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The harmonic structure of the ‘Adagio’ movement follows distinctive

chord progressions discernible by the guitar part, with the

strumming of these chords and the plucking of melodic tones that

separate them laying the foundations of the movement’s harmony

[Ex.2.1a]. What Corea has actually done with his composing of

‘Spain’, is revert to the bebop art of contrafact favoured by his

jazz idols of Silver, Gillespie, and Coltrane. By recycling some of

the chord progressions from the harmonic structures evident in

‘Adagio’, Corea has livened up and quickened the tempo from

Rodrigo’s original with a samba-like rhythm produced by the

Brazilian expertise of Moreira on drums and percussion, and

appropriated it for his score for ‘Spain’78 revealing it in bars 7 -

17 [Ex.2.1b] as;

GbMaj7 – F7#9 – Ebm7 – Ab+7 – DbMaj7 – GbMaj7 – Cm7(b5) –

F7(b5) – Bbm9 – Bb7(#9)

It is a harmonic progression that governs ‘Spain’s’ main melodic

motif and improvisation sections, and if we were to define the

formal structure of ‘Spain’ (without the ‘Adagio’ introduction) as;

A – B1 – A – B1 – C1 – B1 – C2 – C1 – B1 – C3 – C1 – B1 – C4 – C1 – A –

B2

78 In the interview with Alex Hoyt for The Atlantic, Nov. 5, 2011, Corea alsoopens up about his use of Rodrigo’s ‘Adagio’ harmonies; “I fooled aroundwith that theme, extended it and composed some melodies, which turned outto be the main themes of ‘Spain’”.

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The chordal progression of the ‘Adagio’ presents itself as a

predominant foundation to the melodic and rhythmic elements that

surround it, appearing as a repetitive ostinato to every A and C

sections of this defined musical form above.

Ex. 2.1a: An excerpt from Rodrigo’s ‘Adagio’ showing a segment of the melodic and

harmonic progression (FM7-Bm7-E7-Am9-A7) that Corea transposed a half-step higher

and appropriated for use in the A and C sections of ‘Spain’

Ex. 2.1b: Bars 7 – 17 from the Hal Leonard professional jazz score of ‘Spain’

showing the main theme (A section) with chord progression contrafact from Rodrigo’s

‘Adagio’. The melodic and harmonic progression of example 2.1a can be seen in the

flute melody line together with the piano chordal instructions of bars 8-11.

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Without this comparative analysis to prove its existence, it is a

contrafact (or appropriated component) that is skilfully hidden by

the rapid tempo adjustment and all the other melodic and rhythmic

elements of the piece that are being executed simultaneously.

Mindful of Davis’ lessons in subtlety that embodied his

appropriation of Spanish folk formulae with “Spanish Key”, Corea’s

treatment here utilises a similar sense of ambiguousness in regards

to the contrafact’s origin. However, his more original composed

elements predominantly confined to the melodies and bass line

accompaniments of ‘Spain’, are less ambiguous in their existence. An

analysis of the Spanish influenced gestures located within the score

shows Corea, for the most part, quoting pre-existing formulae.

Corea’s main melodic motif and improvisations (A and C sections)

especially, incorporate some of the most striking features of

Spanish folk music – that being a consistent use of distinctive

melodic shapes or formulae. Bars 6 - 10 of the main melody show some

Phrygian inflections, particularly on the half-step interval

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relationships between the two notes that begin these two ascending

scale-like motifs [Ex.2.1c].The accent and tenuto markings on each

of these shows Corea’s understanding of the specific ‘Spanish’

sonority the intervals exude in their accentuation. It is a device

often seen in popular Spanish folk music such as polo [Ex.2.1d], jota

[Ex.2.1e], and in the virtuosic guitar playing of de Lucia’s new

flamenco music [Ex.2.1f].

Ex. 2.1c: Ascending motifs from the main melody of ‘Spain’ showing Corea’s

accentuation of chromatic intervals. The stressing of this sonority (denoted by an

accent and tenuto expression) imparts to the melody the very distinctive ‘Spanish’

quality.

Exx. 2.1: Examples of; ‘Polo’ (top), transcr. Laparra, ‘ Jota’ (bottom), transcr.

Lacome, and ‘Que es lo que tu quieres – Solea’ by de Lucia (next page). Each showing

accentuation of either the first or second note of a chromatic interval.

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The deployment of triplets in the melody of bars 7 – 9, and again in

bars 11 – 12 as an ostinato (see Ex. 2.1b), seems slightly over

indulgent, and conforms to the idea that Corea was overworking a

device which is inherently a Spanish “melodic cliché”79, as David Cox

explains in his analysis of Debussy’s similar treatment in ‘Iberia’.

This is particularly evident in bar 9 with the slightly quicker

triplet turn performing an abridged version of an Andalusian cadence

used extensively in flamenco music known as seis con decima (IV - bIII –

bII – I). The bass line accompaniment of this melody [Ex. 2.2a]

again shows Corea recycling yet another element linked to Spanish

folk music, but with origins steeped in Cuban folklore – the

habanera80. The standard habanera rhythm [Ex.2.2b] makes appearances in

79 Cox, D., Debussy’s Orchestral Music,), p.40.80 A genre of popular dance music originating in Cuba in the 19th century,the habanera is classified in Spanish musicology as being part of the ida yvuelta or ‘return songs’. This refers to music that originated in the newworld and appropriated with slight alterations for use in Spanish music,

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many of Ravel’s and Debussy’s evocations of Spain owing to its

immediate allusion to Andalusia with its distinctive duple time

form. Debussy’s re-imagining of the rhythm in ‘La Soiree dans

Grenade’ (1903) as an example, shows an infinitely more subtle and

unique assimilation of its rhythmic and harmonic structure [Ex.2.2c]

whereby Corea’s use of it is far from being an example of

assimilation. As an obvious example located in the score and

recording, it presents itself in bar 7 at the beginning of ‘Spain’s’

main melody within a cut-common time treatment as opposed to

habanera’s traditional duple meter, and is simply repeated as an

ostinato with no alterations to its rhythmic form up until bar 19.

The only deviation comes in the bass line’s harmonic construct which

is governed by the appropriated chordal progression’s tonic

derivations, and with Corea employing an intervallic play of half-

tone accentuations.

Ex. 2.2a. Corea’s modified habanera treatment in the bass line of the A and C

sections of ‘Spain’

Ex.2.2b. A standard habanera rhythmic form in its traditional duple meter.

henceforth an immediate association with Spanish culture was created.

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Ex. 2.2c. Excerpt from Debussy’s ‘La Soiree dans Grenade’ showing his treatment of

the habanera.

Corea’s improvisations on the Fender Rhodes piano for this original

recording of ‘Spain’, do not exist as an exact transcription within

the professional score. Identifying the moments within his solo

passage (C3) that might present evidence to support his evolution

into an assimilator of Spanish musical gestures, allowed for Corea’s

classical inspiration to be evaluated alongside these events also,

as Exx.2.3a-2.3c can show. These transcriptions emphasise three

influential elements, the significance of Sullo’s tutelage, his

Latin-jazz performance experience, and his new found passion for

Spanish folk themes. Fusing these elements so efficiently so that

they are evidently becoming a part of his natural performance and

improvisatory style, the classical baroque-like embellishments of

Ex.2.3a show him filling out a melodic interval (D - F#)

chromatically, whilst connecting intervals (D – A, B- G)

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diatonically in Ex.2.3b. Ex.2.3c shows how he effortlessly

transitions into a Phrygian styled improvisation (on Gb Major)

finishing with an elaborate melismatic melodic shape consistent with

Spanish polo [Ex2.3d] and de Lucia’s new flamenco music [Ex2.3e].

Ex.2.3a and 2.3b: Transcription segments from Corea’s solo passage (C3) from

‘Spain’. Each showing differing baroque-like embellishments incorporated so as to

fill out melodic intervals.

(a) (b)

Ex.2.3c. Another transcription from the C3 section showing Corea’s improvisation of

a Phrygian modal descent followed by a melismatic ascension.

Exx; 2.3d. Segment from ‘Polo’ transcr., Laparra (left) and 2.3e. ‘No me cuentes

penas (Tangos dei Titi), de Lucia (right). Each show rapid melismatic melodic shapes

consistent with flamenco folk music.

His growing mastery for an electric medium is also evident in an

informed listening here, and in the remaining improvisatory sections

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of ‘Spain’. His articulation on the electric piano presents a

mastery of a clear and clean styled attack of the keys.81 Responding

to De Lucia’s guitarra toque technique which produces a harsh, abrading,

almost percussive sound out of his flamenco guitar82, the specific

timbre created from his expression of the pressure sensitive Fender

Rhodes keyboard almost gives the allusion to a guitar being plucked

and strummed furiously83. Had his improvisation sections been

transcribed for the professional score one could imagine the

performer’s instructions to be articolato con brio, or perhaps something

more clear and precise such as in the style of flamenco toque.

What is arguably the most distinctive melodic and rhythmic passage

of ‘Spain’ arrives in the form of the ‘bridge’, which links the main

melody with the improvisation sections (B1 and B2). Appearing for the

first time at bar 19 of the professional score [Ex.2.4], the piano,

flute, and bass, perform a sporadic collection of arpeggio-like note

clusters in unison. Jumping and arriving in a chaotic fashion, the

fluid yet almost shapeless feel of this singular melodic line is

81 In his collection of Music Poetry, Corea writes; “discipline your mind,discipline your instrument”. His fierce playing technique in ‘Spain’embraces such principles. See Corea, C., Music Poetry, (Litha Music, 1980),p.21.82 Listen to de Lucia’s ‘Aires Choqueros’ and ‘Fuente Y Caudal’ from hisalbum Fuente Y Caudal (Polygram Iberica: 1972), for two examples of hisdistinctive percussive style of guitar performance.83 Coincidentally, the resourceful idea of performing an instrument in thestyle of another to capture the timbre required to produce a distinctcultural identifying sonority, is one employed by Claude Debussy in Le Matind’un jour de fete from ‘Iberia’. In one section of the movement, the violins andviolas are instructed to hold their instruments under their arms and strumchords like a guitar.

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kept in order by the static rim shot of the drum kit and

handclapping on the first and third beats of each bar. On the

original recording, it also benefits from some vocal chants84 in the

background to add to its already festive and lively atmosphere. As

simple as this bridge passage is within the context of the entire

piece and revealed in the score example, for the more significant

purpose of this research, it exposes a provisional step towards

Corea’s evolution into a composer of original themes more in the

spirit of his cultural heritage, rather than the recycled surface

generalities discussed thus far.

Ex.2.4 (Below and next page). The bridge section of ‘Spain’.

84 Not present in the score for jazz ensemble (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Professional Editions, Hal Leonard, 1975).

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The entire section evokes a Spanish quality in the form of a lively

festive celebration vividly, and in a way that Davis and Evans were

unable to achieve with Sketches, or Davis alone with “Spanish Key”. The

sporadic structure of its melodic form coupled with the static on-

the-beat percussion accompaniment suggests a type of improvised

music-making typical of traditional flamenco artisans (like his new

found inspiration Paco De Lucia)85. Revealing a comprehensive

85 Coincidentally, the aim of a composer to recreate the ‘improvised music-making’ feel of an authentic Spanish folk performance, was an objective

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understanding of the melodic tendencies of flamenco repertory, Corea

has assimilated the formulaic directions inherent in them to compose

a motif that consists of a range of recurrent melodic shapes based

on similar intervallic relationships, all infused with ‘Spanish

sounding’ Phrygian inflections. Bars 1-2 of Ex. 2.4. show the melody

oscillating around the tonal centre Eb with notes outlining a fifth

below (Eb-Db-Bb) and a fourth above (Eb-F-Gb) before shifting

tonality by ending on Ab. What follows is an ingeniously

incorporated accentuation of the fourth to third degree of the

phrygian inflected new tonal centre, that exists completely on its

own (bar 3). Arriving as a brief pause, it acts like a

solidification of the composition’s ‘Spanish-ness’ with the music

employing another of Cox’s ‘Spanish cliché’s’. However, we are never

aware of anything obvious in Corea’s treatment here, especially

since he refrains from emphasising the exotic sounding augmented

interval of the third to second degree that might have proceeded it.

Before there is time to audibly comprehend this jarring moment to

the melody, the flow is immediately returned to familiar territory

with a thematic variant of bars 1-2 arriving in bars 5-6. What

proceeds in the concluding bars 7-9 is a leap to sustained Eb an

octave below the initial tone, before Corea provides the accented

augmented second interval between A and C (bar 8) that was ‘missing’

Debussy himself recounted in his description of Le Matin d’un jour de fete and hiscreative process in its realisation. See: Cox, D., Debussy’s Orchestral Music,p.41.

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from bar 3, and which imparts to the melody a decisive Spanish

texture. In the end the whole section takes on a dance-like musical

shape befitting of an authentic Spanish new flamenco performance in

an imaginary venue somewhere located between the streets of

Barcelona and a New York jazz club. It epitomises the genre-

boundary-defying aesthetic of fusion artistry being explored during

this time at its most original instance, and Corea, in his composing

of ‘Spain’, was showing tentative steps towards a total assimilation

of Spanish folklore, and an ability to write Spanish themes in an

original and unique manner amidst the jazz and rock fusions that

surrounded them - despite the evidence of appropriated elements that

this analysis has also unearthed.

My Spanish Heart (1976)

So I call it contemporary music, and it’s easy to trace the

influences. Classical music has influenced my music

harmonically and formally; Latin, Spanish music has,

rhythmically. Rock music has, rhythmically. African music

has. What I am striving for is incorporating the discipline

and beauty of the symphony orchestra and classical composers

– the subtlety and beauty of harmony, melody and form – with

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the looseness and rhythmic dancing quality of jazz and more

folky musics.86

In this disclosure to John Toner for Down Beat magazine, made less

than a year before he would step away from a successful tenure

fronting one of the fusion super-groups of the early 1970s, Corea is

staunchly asserting a profound confidence in his then current

musical direction. At a time where fusion had resolutely positioned

itself as an economically successful musical idiom that was

dominating the jazz charts in America, receiving industry

accolades87, and yet was still in the grips of an identity crisis

perpetuated by media and artists alike, Corea was under no

allusions as to what fusion, and his music, meant to him. His desire

to reach out and communicate to his audiences through music helped

to provide major successes with ‘Return to Forever’, in solo

projects with the albums Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (ECM, 1971,

1972), and with the beginnings of a life-long creative partnership

with vibraphonist Gary Burton on their first release as a duet;

Crystal Silence (ECM, 1973). The abundance of these recordings and their

individual successes helped Corea’s popularity soar within the

86 Corea, C., quote taken from Toner, J., “Chick Corea” in Down Beat (March 28, 1974), p.15.87 In 1975 and 1976, Chick Corea solidified himself as one of the mostrevered fusion artists working in America by the professional recordingindustry, receiving back to back Grammy Award wins for Best Jazz InstrumentalAlbum Individual or Group. The first win arrived as part of his group ‘Return toForever’ with the album No Mystery (Polydor, 1975), and the following yearas a solo artist with guest musicians on The Leprechaun (Polydor, 1976).

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American and international jazz and fusion markets. The release of

his first solo project after ‘Return to Forever’s’ quasi

retirement88, The Leprechaun (ECM, 1976), presented Corea indulging

with his classical inspirations a little more resolutely. In a

recent interview with Digital Interviews, he recollects about his writing

technique during The Leprechaun’s conception, his re-engagement with the

contemporary exotic composers he adored, and with “hearing

orchestral things” as he wrote down his ideas and realised his music

within the studio recording process. The Leprechaun would turn out to

be Corea’s first attempt at composing for a string quartet and brass

ensemble, in a direct reaction to “the great orchestral writers like

Bartok, Ravel and Debussy” that were influencing him at this time89.

Occasional flourishes with Spanish folk themes permeated throughout

a few of the recordings on this album, notably the gentle fusion of

Spanish, Middle Eastern and African melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic

associations found in the opening track “Imp’s Dream”. The work

sets the tone for the rest of the album, as Corea delves into an

exoticising of diverging musical cultures to present to the audience

a collection of music mergings that evoke associations with the

88 ‘Return to Forever’ would reform again with original members in 2008 withnew recordings and a World tour.89 Corea, C., in an online interview for Digital Interviews, (RossgitaCommunications, 2003) See: http://www.digitalinterviews.com/digitalinterviews/views/corea.shtml

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http://www.digitalinterviews.com/digital%20interviews/views/corea.shtml

http://www.digitalinterviews.com/digital%20interviews/views/corea.shtml


fantastical, like something belonging to the soundtrack of a

‘Leprechaun’s dream’90.

For his follow up recording, Corea made a conscious decision to

return to the Spanish and Latin-jazz fusions that had defined his

musical career with ‘Return to Forever’, reacquainting himself with

a style of folk music that personified his national, ethnic, and

cultural identity. In emblematic fashion, Corea would communicate

with a collection of music - a declaration to all his listeners and

critics of the pride he held with his musical lineage, and for which

flowed symbolically through his Spanish heart. The resulting album

of these Spanish influenced fusion compositions, My Spanish Heart

(Polydor, 1976), reveals itself as a full-scale, yet completely

modern (for its time) exploration of his musical heritage. Now

embracing a more electronic sound with a full use of synthesizer

technology, including the use of synth-linked vocals of his and his

wife Gayle Moran, Corea merges these then modern mediums with the

traditional string section and full brass section he had first

written for on The Leprechaun. Completing Corea’s ensemble was his old

‘Return to Forever’ bandmate Stanley Clarke on bass, another Bitches

Brew alumnus with Don Alias on percussion, Steve Gadd on drums, and90 ‘Leprechaun’s Dream’ is the title of the final track of the album. Theshared aesthetic of creating a new music by defying genre-definedboundaries in the process, also led to a few artists proactively placingtheir music within the context of an imaginary setting, reinforced byfantasy genre album art and iconography, with some of the music acting in akind of programmatic fashion. Chuck Mangione’s Land of Make Believe (Mercury,1973) and Caldera’s Sky Islands (Capitol, 1976) are two examples.

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‘Mahavishnu Orchestra’s’ Jean-Luc Ponty on violin. Listening to the

album, one gets the sense that Corea was completely relaxed in his

creation of a rich Spanish tapestry of sounds, textures, and

impressions within a formal fusion design. Additionally, Corea had

included on the album two suites, ‘Spanish Fantasy’ and ‘El Bozo’91,

in a nod to the classical and contemporary classical composers that

continued to inspire him, together with the orchestral influences

that he was “hearing” and which were guiding his compositional

direction. His arrangements for the string quartet are described in

one review as “gorgeously elegant” with performances that add a

level of “verve and grace”92 to the compositions. The string

arrangements on ‘Day Danse’ and the two suites are considerably more

intricate then those of his previous record, interweaving gracefully

alongside Corea’s contrapuntal pianism, thus creating a sharp yet

warm contrast to the fluctuating tempos, often unexpected interval

leaps, and iridescent timbral balances that the merging of

traditional instrumentation with the then modern electronic tonal

capabilities of the Moog synthesizer was able to generate. My Spanish

Heart leaves no doubt to an informed listener just how outstanding

his compositional skills were during this point of his fusion

career. The Leprechaun had shown months before that Corea’s

91 Each of these suites consists of four pieces of music designated with theSuite’s title followed by a number categorisation. For example: ‘SpanishFantasy Part 1, Spanish Fantasy Part 2, and so forth.92 Taken from review of My Spanish Heart (album) in Down Beat, November 4, 1976.

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musicianship was up to any task he decided to challenge himself

with, and now with his homage to Spain, he was compositionally and

intellectually at the top of his game. Corea had evolved into a

composer with an ability to delve much deeper in his assimilation of

Spanish subjects, composing new original material more in the spirit

of Spanish music as opposed to the stylistic borrowings and

appropriated surface generalities that characterised his earlier

Spanish fusions and those of his fusion mentor Miles Davis. This

bold assertion is best represented by an analysis of three specific

compositions from the album, chosen because they epitomise his

incorporation of the widest spectrum of Spanish folk music styles,

and all accomplished in varying capacities of melodic structure,

harmonic design, rhythmic profile and instrumental texture.

“My Spanish Heart”

The title track to My Spanish Heart features as a gentle and solemn

solo piano ballad, arriving like a brief intermission after the

mostly highly charged and energetic compositions that preceded it on

the album. Immersed with elements of romanticism in its

realisation93, Corea’s classical piano apprenticeship with Sullo is

given full mention as he guides us through an elegant and seamless

solo performance with a composition that speaks to the informed

93 ‘My Spanish Heart’ attempts to capture the grace, beauty, and lyricism ofclassical romantic piano ballads such as Fredric Chopin’s ‘Ballade 1 – 4’(1831-1842) and Johannes Brahms ‘Ballades, Op.10’ (1854).

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listener like a personal narrative94. Making sure that with all the

classical observations that could be made with a solo piano work

such as this, Corea expertly reminds us with his mastered

interpretation of fusion ideals and his skilful assimilation of

Spanish idioms, that we are never misinformed about his true

‘Spanish heart’. How Corea succeeds in fusing his pseudo-romantic

style ballad with Spanish idioms, in regards to the specific

cultural sonorities and its musical constructs, epitomises these

sensibilities.

While traditional Spanish folk song tunes may be regarded as being

fairly simple from a motivic perspective (See Ex.4.1a), many Spanish

works are considerably more intricate. This is particularly evident

in the tunes that belong to the flamenco repertory known as cante

hondo. Translated as ‘deep song’ the melodies of cante hondo are

written with a sense of emotional intensity, are usually built

around a series of sustained notes followed by melismatic or

ornamented episodes, and can be extremely chromatic and formulaic

(See Ex.4.1b).

94 An informed listener is free to make their own judgments about ‘MySpanish Heart’s’ extra-musical meaning, but the piece does bear manymusical signifiers that one could attribute emotional connections andbiographical details with. Maurice Brown’s entry "Ballade (ii)", in TheNew Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd Ed. (2001) and Karol Berger’s, "TheForm of Chopin's Ballade, Op. 23" in 19th-Century Music, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1996)both discuss the narratatological capabilities of piano ballads.

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Ex.4.1a. Excerpt from a sevillana folk song theme transcription by Chabrier, showing a

relatively simple motivic design.

Ex.4.1b. A melismatic segment of cante hondo from Laparra’s transcription, ‘Polo’.

Composing his piano work only a few years after having discovered

flamenco music95, the main melody which begins ‘My Spanish Heart’

reveals elements of cante hondo treated with a distinct re-imagining

of its formulae. Beginning with a tonic to dominant statement Eb to

Bb in the first bar (See Ex.4.1c), the dominant Bb is sustained and

is followed by an ornamentation with its diatonic neighbours,

culminates by resting on the subtonic F, before the preceding

musical shape is now repeated a whole step higher than the first

bar. Resisting the ornamentation in the fourth bar for a decidedly

‘Spanish’ chromatic moment, the notes Eb – D are used in conjunction

with a brief slowing of tempo to assert the event, yet once again,

like he accomplished with the B1 section of ‘Spain’, the significance

95 Outside of his proclamations of intense admiration for flamenco guitaristde Lucia, Corea also mentions Flamenco music in general as a genre he wasinspired by - before writing his first compositions with ‘Return toForever’. See http://chickcorea.com/mladina-newspaper-november-2012/, andhttp://www.digitalinterviews .com/digitalinterviews/views/corea.shtml

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of the moment is hidden amongst its rhythmic and harmonic

surroundings. The melodic shape of the second bar is now quasi-

repeated in the sixth before Corea reveals a ‘Spanish tinge’ more

resolutely within the seventh. Effortlessly transitioning his left-

hand arpeggiated ostinato into a brief tonal centre that resembles C

major, the ambiguous ‘Spanish-ness’ evident within the fourth bar

arrives as a clearer association where Corea inflects a Phrygian

treatment to the proceedings in bar seven. The augmented second

interval of flamenco mode C (E – Db) within the abridged triplet of

the right hand is only a small moment, yet it exemplifies Corea’s

ingenuity and understanding of Spanish idioms in a way that draws

comparisons with Debussy’s own assimilation of Spanish folklore.

Avoiding Cox’s Spanish melodic cliché cunningly on manuscript, the

triplet is devoid of its first note in favour of a rest, as opposed

to using its Phrygian neighbours with what could have been a

possible Db for melismatic effect, or F natural to create an F-E-Db-C

seis con decima attribute. What Corea has skilfully done is keep the

Spanish rhythmic association of this moment intact by positioning

the C natural in the left hand accompaniment as the leading note

into the augmented interval of the E to Db ‘triplet’ performed with

the right. In this fashion, Corea has still been able to impart to

the melody and rhythm a decidedly Spanish flavour, but evidently, in

an entirely original manner.

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Ex.4.1c. Opening eight bars of ‘My Spanish Heart’

Debussy’s influence on Corea must not be underestimated in this

instance, as his history of such ambiguously creative treatments can

account. Debussy achieved a similar re-imagining of traditional

Spanish forms with the main sevillana styled theme he wrote for the

first movement of his orchestral work Par les rues et par le Chemins from

‘Iberia’ (1908). The second bar [Ex.4.2a] shows the melodic triplet

with its immediate Spanish associations, before Debussy treats this

melody again sequentially within bars three and four. Corea does

something similar on the melodic design of bar seven with its

augmented second nuance, treating it again later in the work with a

temporal modification, elongating the melodic line over two bars in

conjunction with a louder dynamic - an ascending left-hand

accompaniment which takes over the augmented second interval

execution. [Ex.4.2b]

Ex.4.2a. Melodic fragment from Par les rues showing initial melody (bars 1-2) and

sequential treatment (bars 3-4)

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Ex.4.2b. Melody fragment with triplet and augmented second interval of ‘My Spanish

Heart’ (left), and its modified treatment (right).

The allusion to Flamenco guitar arrives within the left hand

accompaniment of ‘My Spanish Heart’, showing once again how Corea

can reimagine traditional instrumentation in the form of a different

medium. The fluidity of arpeggiated or scale-like ostinati which is

resonated by pedal throughout characterises this evocation in the

left-hand score accompaniment [Ex.4.2c]. The most recognisable

moment of guitar association however, exists within bar fifteen

[Ex.4.2d]. The Ab minor chord that halts the left hand ostinati

arrives with an arpeggio notation in conjunction with a pause for

emphasis. Like the strumming of a guitar the inspiration of De

Lucia’s ‘Solo por verte bailar’ score is immediately evident in

comparison [Ex.4.2e] showing that with the emotional propensity of a

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solea, arpeggiated chords like these on the guitar are normally held

to resonate the sonority and amplify the solemn ambience it

manifests.

Ex.4.2c. The resonance of the sustained arpeggios in the piano left-hand

accompaniment evoking the texture created by a flamenco guitar.

Ex.4.2d. ‘My Spanish Heart’. The arpeggiated chord with pause in piano left-hand

accompaniment, emulating the chord strumming of a guitar

. Ex.4.2e. Fragment from de Lucia’s guitar score for his malaguena ‘Solo por verte

bailar’, showing similar arpeggiated chord and pause for resonance. These types of

treatments impart an important emotional propensity to both cante hondo and flamenco

toque music.

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That the chord is characterised by its parallel fourth interval

structure (Bb – Eb and Eb – Ab) also evokes Corea’s association with

his classical idols again, specifically Debussy and Bartok, who both

explored the harmonic capabilities of quartal harmony in many of

their works96. Coincidentally, Corea’s experimentation with quartal

harmony does not end with his solo piano work here, but continues

extensively with another more vibrant and lively composition from

the album that embraces not only the essence of his Spanish heart,

but that of a definitive Latin American one also.

Night Streets

From its first opening bars, ‘Night Streets’ exerts Corea’s Latin-

jazz experience so emphatically that the listener is swiftly taken

into the familiar territory he once occupied with his collaborations

alongside Brazilian’s Moreira and Purim during the ‘Return to

Forever’ years. The drums and percussion of Gadd and Alias in this

instance are what gives this composition an immediate Brazilian

samba flavour, but it is Corea who interweaves through Latin and

96 Debussy’s La Cathedral Engloutie (1910) and Bartok’s Mikrokosmos V, No.131 Quartes (1926-1939) are two distinct works that explore quartal harmony in their compositional design.

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Spanish cultural and musical references so masterfully within the

work’s melodic and harmonic structure, that an informed listener is

at pains to decipher which moment is of a specific Spanish origin

and which is more associated with Latin American folklore. A closer

analysis of the score reveals some finer details that point to

definitive re-imaginings of Spanish folk’s formal designs, thus

presenting his assimilation of Spanish musical culture as an

evolving technique - steadily approaching a level conducive to that

of an expert.

Having handled the standard habanera tentatively with his treatment

for electric bass in the score for ‘Spain’, with ‘Night Streets’

Corea was thinking not only about the cognitive associations to

Spanish folk the dance music exudes within its traditional

rhythmical structure, but that of the melodic and harmonic

components also. With its Spanish associations popularised so

endemically within the famous song from Bizet’s unequivocally

Spanish-themed opera Carmen (1875), the habanera is craftily taken

apart by Corea and put back together in a form that is almost

indistinguishable from original examples and subsequent

appropriations [See Ex. 4.3a]. However, Corea was obviously so

keenly aware of the specific rhythmic and harmonic components that

make the habanera sound uniquely Spanish that he was able to write an

entirely original harmonic line for the bass guitar and retain the

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emphasis of the habanera’s ‘Spanish-ness’ – composing it with such

skill that the aural associations to the culture were not lost,

despite the plethora of Latin, jazz, and rock elements that had been

fused along with it.

Ex.4.3a Traditional habanera by Ernesto Nazareth (left) and an appropriated form in

Bizet’s ‘Habanera’ Carmen (right)

Ex. 4.3b shows the bass line score for electric bass guitar

(produced with ‘flanger’ styled effects on the original recording)

that accompanies the main theme of ‘Night Streets’ and which is

performed by Corea on both piano and synthesizer. From the outset,

Corea is playfully exploiting the formulaic tendencies of the

habanera with the opening tonic to dominant to mediant statement.

Converting the traditional duple time formula of the habanera into

cut-common time, for the first two notes (C – G) he keeps the

original rhythmic and harmonic formula intact long enough for the

aural association to be made before he elaborates the third note Eb

with its chromatic neighbour and then the Ab to close the rhythm as

a triplet. What follows is an inflection of a Phrygian nature (Ab –

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G, 4th to 3rd degrees of Phrygian dominant/flamenco mode on Eb) to

keep the Spanish idiom unbroken as it leads into the second bar.

Ex.4.3b. Opening bass line motif of ‘Night Streets’

Corea’s omission of the two equal notes that more traditionally

occupy the second half of a habanera, is interesting, especially when

the history of appropriated or assimilated use of the rhythm shows

(especially in the instance of Debussy’s habanera infused Le Parfum de

la nuit, see Ex. 4.3c), the first half construct to be the element with

the most variations incorporated, with the second half construct the

more static and untouched97.

Ex.4.3c. A selection of habanera rhythms used in Debussy’s ‘Les Parfum de la nuit’,

showing the second beat treatments as unchanged.

97 See Mathew Brown Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure, pg.51.

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Taking this unique approach initially, it is not long before Corea

brings the rhythmic identity of the traditional habanera into semi-

realisation again in bars 4 and 6, this time creatively flipping the

harmonic line to a descending pattern rather than an ascending one.

To finally complete this bass line motif Corea presents the harmonic

characteristic as a simplified form of habanera (tonic – dominant –

tonic), in a slightly abridged rhythmic construct joining the two

halves of the habanera with a tie between the quaver and crotchet

notes (G – C), so that the third pulse of the rhythm is removed, but

remarkably, the Spanish nuance inherent in its melodic and rhythmic

nature is still retained. As the main theme of ‘Night Streets’

develops, firstly with this bass motif, then with Corea’s broken-

chord Latin-samba styled accompaniment [Ex. 4.3c], and finally by

the melodic motif on synthesizer [Ex. 4.3d], Corea never strays too

far away from any immediate associations with his Spanish ‘heart’,

despite the overlaying of heavily Latin-styled elements that

exemplify this fusion work.

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Ex.4.3c.‘Night Streets’. The broken-chord samba styled piano accompaniment to the

opening bass-line motif.

Ex.4.3d. ‘Night Streets’. The main melodic theme for synthesizer

Corea has made sure the melodic construct of the synthesizer’s main

theme incorporates just the right amount of Cox’s ‘Spanish clichés’

in the form of recurrent triplets [Ex. 4.3d], alongside brief

moments of Phrygian styled ornamentation which transition

effortlessly into quartal harmonic open chords that both Corea and

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the brass ensemble emphatically punctuate with a Latin/Spanish

styled sensitivity [Ex. 4.3e]. This segment alone not only

illustrates a fusion in itself of varying inspirations from Corea’s

vast catalogue, but embraces what he describes as the “extraversion”

of Latin music98, that which blurs the genre defined boundaries that

lie between Latin and Spanish music and has immediate associations

with both. In an effort to define his music catalogue composed

during the middle part of the 1970s, Corea recollects his interest

for writing extraversion Latin music, describing it as an incorporation

of the “dance and salsa style music” of Tito Puente (Cuban

drummer/percussionist) and the new flamenco style of Paco De Lucia.

He later clarifies it as a distinct music fusion, identifying it as

a “Spanish-Latin-Flamenco”99.

Ex.4.3e. Quartal harmonic chords in piano and brass accentuation (notated as concert

pitch) that immediately follows the main theme.

98 Corea, C., Digital Interviews. 99 Corea, C., Digital Interviews.

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In essence Corea with ‘Night Streets’ presents a fusion within a

fusion, a distinctly original contemporary cultural amalgamation of

music. His re-imagining of one the most identified Spanish folk

music themes in the habanera identified with this analysis, is a

testament to his compositional artistry and ability to assimilate

Spanish themes so definitively. Corea’s understanding of a wider

range of Spanish folklore is further realised when regarding another

composition from My Spanish Heart. Resolving the disparaging,

generalised assumptions of Nicholson and others, Corea’s

assimilative abilities in treating an assortment of Spanish themes

within the confines of one work come into focus more determinedly

with his inspired re-imagining of yet another Cuban dance style

form.

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Armando’s Rhumba

Corea treats his re-imaginings of Spanish folk in much the same way

as he did with ‘Night Streets’ on the energetic dance-like eighth

track from the album, ‘Armando’s Rhumba’. The title of this work

alone elicits a Latin orientation more so than it does a Spanish

one, seeing as the term rumba is principally associated with a

historical Cuban style of ballroom dance music. However, like the

habanera before it, the rumba had been appropriated into Spanish

folklore during the middle part of the 19th century so that it also

became synonymous with their specific musical culture. As a chapter

relating to the ida y vuelta history of Spanish music, the rumba evolved

itself into a musical style that would become part of a larger

flamenco repertoire, with labels such as rumba flamenca or rumba gitana

appearing in both social and musicological discourse as a way of

denoting its cultural generic existence. The rumba flamenca style of

music and dance keeps the same elements of the Cuban rumba, relying

on a specific tresillo rhythmic foundation [Ex. 4.4a] with some

occasional variations. Meaning ‘triplet’, essentially the tresillo

consists of three equal beats in place of two, sharing its original

duple meter format with its Cuban relative the habanera. Modifications

of the rumba’s original rhythmic design include rumba flamenca’s common

and compound quadruple time modifications [Ex.4.4b].

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Ex.4.4a. Standard tresillo rhythm prevelant in Cubam rumba music and dance

Ex.4.4b. Common and compound quadruple modifications of the tresillo used extensively

in rumba flamenca.

Additionally, where Cuban rumba utilises an eclectic texture of

percussion instruments to create their specific sound (claves, agogo

bells, conga drums), rumba flamenca creates its distinctive percussive

timbre from a more traditional Spanish flamenco instrumentation,

namely castanets, handclaps (palmas), feet stamping (golpes de pies) and

guitar slapping (golpes}. Often these percussive elements will

perform polyrhythmic modifications of the tresillo rhythm together,

creating rich patterns and textures.

Once again with his blurring of genre-defined boundaries, ‘Armando’s

Rhumba’ is Corea’s astute re-imagining of rumba flamenca. Armed with

his newly acquired and fusion inspired Latin-Spanish-Flamenco style,

the work immediately transports the listener into a modern Spanish

dance hall. With this piece, Corea’s understanding of how Spanish

music gains much of its distinctive character from the use of

particular textures and timbres is evident to hear. Foregoing the

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electronic mediums that characterised his electric fusion sound of

‘Night Streets’, Corea performs on an acoustic piano surrounded by

the distinct folk texture of Jean-Luc Ponty’s violin, and Clarke’s

double bass. Completing this more conventional array of

instrumentation are the distinct alliterations of folk percussion

synonymous with rumba flamenco, that fill out the acoustic improvised-

folk-music ambience he has created with this work. The expressively

potent aural associations found in this composition’s unique tonal

texture, positions ‘Armando’s Rhumba’ as one of Corea’s most

striking evocations of Spanish culture yet. However, this is a Spain

as seen through the eyes of Corea’s fusion persona, characterised by

the composition’s confident interplay between the generic boundaries

that lie between his Latin and Spanish influences, along with the

jazz and rock elements that have all become a substantial part of

his musical identity. The challenge of isolating distinct Spanish

cultural idioms in this piece confirms just how gifted he was in re-

imagining a plethora of folk music formulae - creating an indelibly

Spanish sounding work without losing each design’s distinctive

cultural sonorities.

The opening passage immediately sets the scene, with Corea taking us

to some imaginative Andalusian ballroom. The recording process is

such that the reverb emitted from the accompanying golpes de pies which

punctuates the beat on wooden floor boards, provides a distinct

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resonance that gives this very real impression. Factor in Corea’s

and Ponty’s melodic line introduction performed on acoustic piano

and violin respectively, and the texture and feel of a social dance

hall is achieved. The melodic design of this brief introduction

possesses formulaic tendencies to be found in many flamenco music

styles, especially the extremely chromatic interplay of notes and

emphasis of these sonorities through the process of repetition (see

Ex.4.5a).

Ex.4.5a. Traditional Basque melody transcr. showing repetition of chromatic motif

with staccato expression.

Ex.4.5b. ‘Armando’s Rhumba’ opening motif.

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Corea achieves this with the opening two bars (see Ex. 4.5b)

cleverly keeping the irregular feel of rumba flamenca’s polyrhythmic

designs by emphasising the weaker final notes of each duple and

triplet turn of the first bar, before gradually bringing the melody

back in time with the strong beat executions of the golpes de pies by

the third bar. The fourth and fifth bar is where Corea cleverly

makes his most important musical statement with this composition –

validating the rumba flamenca inspiration of ‘Armando’s Rhumba’ by

letting the piano and violin instrumentation ‘speak’ its authentic

rhythmic identity. Corea achieves this so easily, but yet so

effectively, by punctuating the tresillo rhythm normally reserved for

drum and percussion instrumentation with three repetitions of one

tone (C). The piano gives this more emphasis than the violin, played

dynamically by Corea at both ends of the keyboard, thus setting the

rhythmic line for the approaching palmas which continues the modified

tresillo polyrhythmic accompaniments to the main melody [see Ex.

4.5c.].

Ex.4.4c. ‘Armando’s Rhumba’. First ten bars of main melody for violin, piano, bass,

and percussion.

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As the melody begins we are presented for the most part, the right

hand piano and violin performing the main melodic motif, with the

left hand piano and double bass performing a harmonised version in

unison with it. Corea interprets the melody with enough sporadic

triplet turns (bars 3-4), repeated chromatic moments (bar 7) and

Phrygian inflections to impart an identifiable sense of ‘Spanish-

ness’ to the music being played. Most notable of these Phrygian

nuances are those that appear in bars 3, 7, and 9, appearing as

augmented second intervals discreetly utilised here for subtle

sonoric association. Not forgetting that this is a fusion piece of

music composed by a veritable fusion artist, Corea transitions

seamlessly into the first instance of a jazz inspired harmonic

construct in the left hand score for the piano [see Ex. 4.4d] – but

only briefly. Arriving as static jazz chords (bars 13-14) to disrupt

the fluidity of the melody in unison that preceded it, Corea reminds

the listener of his jazz roots and his ingenuity for hybridisation

just long enough before he exposes another inspired moment from his

fusion repertoire.

Ex.4.4d. ‘Armando’s Rhumba’. Remaining segment of main melody for violin, piano,

bass, and percussion.

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Presenting a series of chords consisting of stacked fourths and

thirds (bars 17-18) again in the left hand, these arrive soon after

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his jazz-inspired moment to elicit associations not only with the

quartal harmonic devices favoured by Bartok and Debussy, but bare

remarkable similarities with the chordal structures used in de

Lucia’s ‘Desde el primer día cartagenera’ and Enrique de Melchor’s

‘No sé lo que me entraría’ [Ex. 4.4e].

Ex.4.4e. ‘Desde el primer día cartagenera’ (left) and ‘No sé lo que me entraría’

(right) Each show similar chordal structures with those used in bar 17 and 18 of

‘Armando’s Rhumba’(Ex.4.4d.).

Corea’s affinity with hybridity, and his understanding of a wide

range of differing styles of Spanish folk formulae come into focus

more resolutely within his improvised moments from ‘Armando’s

Rhumba’. Beginning at 2:35’ on the digital recording (Decca 2000),

Corea transitions into a flawless piano solo over the harmonic

structure utilised in the main theme. Using what have now become

(at this point of his career) recognisable runs and melodic patterns

that define his natural style of fusion improvisation,

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transcriptions show chromatic ascending patterns, consecutive

triplet turns, and short embellishments at the beginning of lines –

all of which show formulaic similarities with the flamenco toque solos

of Enrique de Melchor and Paco de Lucia [see Ex.4.5a and 4.5b].

Ex.4.5a. Transcribed segment of chromatic ascending pattern with consecutive triplet

turns taken from Corea’s improvisation on ‘Armando’s Rhumba’ (top), and similar

patterns transcribed from Eduardo de Melchor’s solo fandango from ‘Marismas’ (middle)

and a descending alternative heard in de Lucia’s solo bamberas, ‘A columpiar’

(bottom).

Ex.4.5b. Transcribed segment from ‘Armando’s Rhumba’ showing trademark short

embellishment at the beginning of an improvisational line (top), and similar

embellishments heard in the same instance within de Lucia’s solo rumba flamenco,

‘Entres dos aguas’ (bottom).

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In the analyses of these three distinctive works from Corea’s

musical proclamation of his ethnic and cultural heritage, his

engagement with ‘Latin-Spanish-Flamenco’ music along with his jazz,

pop, and rock genre mergings each show justifiable examples to

promote this composer as an original fusion artist and assimilator

of cultural idioms. Had an investigation included every fusion

composition from My Spanish Heart, they would have undoubtedly revealed

many aspects of his compositional technique (outside of his Spanish

folk assimilation) to further validate this theory. Namely, the

allusions to a distinctive classical style, the “incorporation of

the discipline and beauty”100 of the symphony and the orchestra,

along with the contemporary classical inspirations that would

present themselves through an analysis of both of the suites - ‘El

Bozo’ and ‘Spanish Fantasy’. However, ‘My Spanish Heart’, ‘Night

Streets’, and ‘Armando’s Rhumba’ were chosen for this research

specifically because they present, as a collective, the widest range

100 Down Beat, (March 28, 1974), p.15.

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of folklore associations that could support the initial project

outline which governed this investigation. In 1976, during the

height of the fusion movement in America when bands such as ‘Weather

Report’, ‘Caldera’, ‘Dixie Dregs’ and ‘Shakti’, and artists such as

Herbie Hancock, Jeff Beck, and Tony Williams, were achieving varying

levels of success with their own unique mergings of musical material

from disparate musical traditions, Corea, with My Spanish Heart, had

resoundingly solidified his position as an innovative fusion artist

with an innate ability to compose original material more in the

spirit of Spanish music, skillfully merging these elements

effortlessly amongst a pot-pourri of Latin, classical, jazz, pop and

rock themes. Focusing his fusion aesthetic with a purpose to disrupt

generic boundaries, cultural hierarchies, and critical assumptions,

the compositions from My Spanish Heart portrayed an amalgam of such an

extensive re-imagining of authentic and traditional Spanish folklore

music themes and formulae, that the appropriator title used both

implicitly and specifically by fusion writers and scholars (such as

that of main protagonist Nicholson), appears unjustified in this

instance. My Spanish Heart stands as a testament to Corea’s musical,

ethnic, and cultural heritage, as much as it does to his

musicianship and compositional artistry, revealing itself as a full-

scale and completely modern exploration of these traditions.

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Corea as composer/assimilator, fusion’s legacy, and the need

for a critical re-thinking

At the very least, music is a soothing thing …but, at best,

it can be an expanding thing101

By the late 1970s and throughout the next two decades, Corea

continued on his path of musical exploration. Indulging with an

increasingly expanding artistic palette, Corea pursued his

compositional and musical desires with a mélange of creative

projects that continued to challenge the critical assumptions of

reviewers, journalists, and those linked to the music and recording

industry. Another collaboration with vibraphonist Gary Burton, Duet

(ECM, 1979), followed a concert tour and the release of two live

albums with fellow fusion artist and pianist Herbie Hancock. Their

second release together CoreaHancock (Polydor, 1978) comprised of

variations for two pianos of early fusion works from both artists

with improvisations on George Gershwin and Miles Davis standards.

The concert album also included a rendition of one of Corea’s

contemporary classical inspirations, Bartok’s ‘Ostinato’ from

Mikrokosmos for Two Pianos, Four Hands (1940), proving that Corea was just

as comfortable performing on stage on a concert grand piano as he

was with a Fender Rhodes electric piano and jazz ensemble. A series

101 Corea, C., from interview with Woodward, J., Down Beat, March 9, 1978, p.16.

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of successful solo projects included three solo piano improvisation

recordings Delphi I (Polydor, 1979) and Delphi II & III (Polydor, 1982), and

fusion releases with ensembles consisting of varying guest

instrumentalists and contemporaries; Mad Hatter (Polydor, 1978), Secret

Agent (1978), and Friends (Polydor, 1978), all of these rounding out an

incredibly busy period of musical output for Corea.

By 1985, Corea had inhabited a Davis-like role in the formation of a

contemporary fusion ensemble which included a new wave of talented

young artists102. ‘Chick Corea Elektric Band’ marked a return to the

loud, energetic, and hard-hitting offerings that exemplified the

later recordings of its 1970s predecessor ‘Return to Forever’. Five

albums were released with; Chick Corea Elektric Band (GRP Records, 1986),

Light Years (1987), Eye of Beholder (1988), Inside Out (1990), and Behind the

Mask (1991) all exhibiting Corea’s newly acquired FM synthesis, MIDI,

and electric drum programming technologies to add a considerably

modern electronic texture to his compositions103. To balance this

foray into contemporary electronic fusion Corea formed a trio

reduction in 1989, the ‘Chick Corea Akoustic Band’ with two albums

Chick Corea Akoustic Band (GRP, 1989) and Alive (1991). Featuring Corea on

102 Like Bitches Brew had begun the fusion careers of Corea, Zawinul andMcLaughlin, ‘Elektric Band’ would mark the stepping stone for future fusionrecording artists Dave Weckl (drums), Joe Pattitucci (bass guitar) and EricMarienthal (saxophone).103 For the first time in his performance career this new technology allowedCorea to step away from his trademark bench seating position behind a pianoor keyboard, to standing at the front of the stage performing on the YamahaKX-5 keytar hand-held synthesizer.

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piano and ‘Elektric Band’ members Dave Weckl on drums and Joe

Pattitucci on double bass, these records were a throwback to Corea’s

jazz beginnings with variations of Coltrane, Gillespie, Porter and

Gershwin standards interspersed with his own be-bop and free-jazz

inspired compositions. Importantly, in regards to the authenticity

of his musical statement of 1976, and the legacy for which it holds

in the context of Corea’s evolving musical direction, the strikingly

contemporary sounds and musical mergings that epitomised his work

with ‘Elektric Band’, and the more traditional textures that

characterised his arrangements and compositions of ‘Akoustic Band’ -

never deviated too far away from the distinctive styles, nuances,

and sonorities associated with Spanish folk music that would persist

in defining his career. The unique Latin-Spanish-Flamenco themes

inhabited in a plethora of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic formulae

that were perfectly assimilated and re-imagined by Corea in the

latter half of the 1970s, would continue to resonate with varying

degrees of application within almost every fusion, traditional jazz,

or contemporary classical work he wrote and recorded during the

thirty years following the success of his cultural homage, My Spanish

Heart.

Little Flamenco

1999 was possibly his most variably productive year. Following the

release of several live recordings and collaborations with Bobby

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McFerrin and Pat Metheny, Corea undertook his most ambitious project

to date. Finally realising the compositional objective he divulged

to Coryell in 1978 (see pg.32), Corea composed his first piano

concerto and arranged for sextet and orchestra an adaptation of his

signature fusion composition ‘Spain’. Recording them both with the

London Philharmonic Orchestra it led to Corea’s first release under

the esteemed Sony Classical recording label: Corea.Concerto (1999).

Attaining a seamless fusion of the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic

sensibilities of Latin, Spanish, and jazz, along with the bombastic

and luscious blocks of sound the kaleidoscope of textures available

to him within a full orchestra, ‘Spain for sextet and orchestra’

stands as Corea’s reverence to Debussy’s ‘Iberia’ and Ravel’s

‘Rhapsodie Esapgnole’, whilst keeping the spirit of fusion and jazz

improvisation embedded throughout its three movements. The members

of the jazz sextet for which this version of ‘Spain’ was arranged

for, were given ample opportunity to showcase both their

improvisational abilities, and their expertise with handling Latin

and Spanish fusion, all within the confines of Corea’s arrangement.

Having just recorded another album featuring Corea’s first

concentrated return to his Latin-Spanish-Flamenco ideologies since

My Spanish Heart, the sextet Corea named as ‘Origin’, were put together

so he could channel his Spanish sensibilities once again within a

fusion aesthetic, only a few months before Corea.Concerto was to be

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recorded. Their debut album Change (Rykodisc, 1999) featured many

inspired examples of Latin-Spanish-Flamenco re-imaginings such as

‘Armando’s Tango’, ‘Wigwam’ and ‘Home’, but as a model for Corea’s

position as an entirely evolved assimilator of a variety of Spanish

cultural traditions, and as a creator of musical soundscapes

incorporating original material more in the spirit of Spanish music,

the romantically and effervescent composition ‘Little Flamenco’

stands as Corea’s magnum opus.

An extremely demanding work for any acoustic jazz sextet, ‘Little

Flamenco’ is a particularly busy, highly syncopated, and highly

energised affair comprising a seamless fusion of idioms. A

masterwork of Spanish folk theme and jazz mergings, the listener is

immediately transported to an intimate flamenco performance with the

composition’s introduction, not unlike the evocations he achieved

with ‘Armando’s Rhumba’, but with an evocative aural resonance that

is characterised by Corea’s more mature understanding of the finer

details of Spanish textures, timbre, and instrumentation [see

Ex.5.1a.].

Ex.5.1a. Opening segment to ‘Little Flamenco’

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Driven by Corea’s sprightly right and left hand melodic lines,

descending and ascending respectively in contrary motion on the

piano (and accentuated by a stereotypical array of triplets), the

folklore associations are reinforced by the percussion’s divergent

rhythmic lines in accompaniment. Performed in unison, the snare rim,

palmas, and golpes de pies, juxtapose a thunderous and rapid assortment

of rhythms in a four-bar construct that repeats and crescendos on

every cycle – adding an energy to the combined sonorities that

elicit associations to the zapateado technique of footwork in baile

(dance) flamenco104. Additionally, an informed listening of traditional

cante (song) flamenco reveals Corea’s intelligent realisation of the

104 Zapateado foot tapping is characterised also by a repetitive shortrhythmic design, with a dancer employing both feet in the punctuating ofconcurrent rhythms. These dances are also traditionally accompanied bypalmas.

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beginning of a cante song structure in his opening piano line.

Beginning with what is referred to as temple, a soloist will often

vocalise a series of words, revealing melodic elements that will

feature in the main theme of the song, and repeat this process a few

times whilst finding their way into the rhythm. Improvisational in

its nature and treated like a ‘warm-up’, the temple is then followed

by the exposition of the main melody planteo. One gets the feeling

that Corea has astutely re-invented this process as an instrumental

form with ‘Little Flamenco’. The introduction conveys a preparatory

feel, with Corea exposing melodic fragments that feature again later

as distinctive elements to the main theme. For example, an excerpt

from the left hand piano score of the introduction can be seen

sequentially treated in the main theme that follows [Ex.5.1b.] A

similar approach is used with the distinctive triplet melodic shape

that ends the ascent and descent passages of the right hand piano

score in the introduction, revealing itself as the more Phrygian

flamenco mode inflected (B – C –B) triplet that defines the main

theme performed by both flute and piano [Ex.5.1c]. A veritable

simple theme when it first arrives as a repetitive construct, Corea

is simply exploiting the formulaic tendencies of traditional Spanish

folk song from a motivic standpoint, before he elaborates and

develops it further as the theme progresses.

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Ex.5.1b. ‘Little Flamenco’. Fragment from left-hand piano score of introduction

(top) and sequential treatment in later main theme accompaniment (bottom). The

formula used in in the second bar of the introduction example is treated

sequentially over two bars and then repeated during the accompaniment to the main

theme that follows.

Ex.5.1b. Triplet shape that ends the ascending melodic line in the introduction

(left) and its rhythmic re-emergence as the integral motif of the main theme that

follows (right).

Corea spends much of ‘Little Flamenco’ developing this main theme

motif, exploiting its simplest of sonoric folk associations embedded

within its melodic and rhythmic design. Ex.5.1c shows examples

located within the main theme where Corea continually parades the

triplet motif’s ‘Spanish-ness’ sometimes in varying forms of

tonality to the main theme (always keeping the intervallic

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relationship between the three notes identical) and sharing it with

other instrumentalists within the sextet.

Ex.5.1c. ‘Little Flamenco’. Three examples of Corea’s employment of triplets that

define the main melodic motif introduced first by flute and piano (see 5.1b), and

then later shared by other instruments and modified into variant tonalities.

His mastery of formulaic composition comes into focus more

resolutely within bars 41 – 43 of the professional score [see

Ex.5.1d]. Breaking up the uniformity of the triplet driven melody

that preceded it, Corea masterfully interjects a series of

consecutive augmented intervals (bar 42) in the guitar and piano

melody (G – E and E - Db), that impart a stronger Spanish

association within this section, particularly as the E – Db interval

leads into the note C for a modified seis con decima Andalusian cadence.

Punctuated by a return of the palmas and golpes de pies in the percussion

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accompaniment, the energy, drama, and distinct baile flamenco evocations

of the music are increased by its sudden semi-dominant position

within this section’s dynamics, and are skillfully accompanied by

Corea’s assimilation of two Latin-Spanish rhythmic styles for left-

hand piano, bass guitar and snare drum. Re-constructing the rhythmic

design of the rumba flamenca and habanera, Corea combines modifications

of both within the triple meter form of ‘Flamenco’, competently

preserving the characteristic folk rhythmic nuances of each [see

Ex.5.1e].

Ex.5.1d. Bars 41-43 of ‘Little Flamenco’.

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Ex.5.1e. Segment showing the modified habanera in left-hand piano and bass (bar 1

and 3). The adapted tresillo rhythm can be seen in the first two counts of the first

and third bar for snare drum percussion.

Corea’s solo work on piano, during the improvisation passages of

‘Flamenco’, provide inspired moments which reflect Corea’s

inherently secure style of fusion performance, combining

assimilative aspects of Spanish folk formulae and technique. Besides

the existent Phrygian melodic runs, be-bop, jazz, and free-jazz

sensibilities, and the baroque-like embellishments that have

characterised his improvisations since ‘Return to Forever’, the

influence of de Lucia’s new flamenco toque style of performance has

established itself as a solid part of his method. For example, two

fragments containing syncopated triplet styled descending/ascending

lines, and a segment of fast repetition of singular tone exemplify

de Lucia’s impact on Corea’s uniquely mastered technique of re-

imagining the guitarra toque for piano [Exx.5.2a - b]. Corea’s mastery

of polyrhythmic improvisation can also be heard in a segment where

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he ingeniously inserts a habanera fuelled rhythm in his left hand, at

opposition to his right hand syncopations [Ex.5.2c].

Ex.5.2a. ‘Little Flamenco’. Transposed segments from Corea’s solo passages showing

descending/ascending triplet styled flourishes (left) and repetitive tones (right)

Ex.5.2b. Transposed segments from de Lucia’s solo passages in ‘Cuevo del gato’ (top)

showing similar techniques to Corea’s in ascending triplet styled flourishes, and

‘Aires choqueros’ (bottom) with a line of singular repetitive tone.

Ex.5.2c. ‘Little Flamenco’. Transposed segment of Corea’s solo showing the

polyrhythmic effect he creates with the modified habanera in his left hand and

Spanish folk and free-jazz themed syncopations in his right hand.

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A testament to his assimilative abilities of Spanish folk musical

themes as much as it is a masterpiece of fusion, ‘Little Flamenco’s

compositional excellence is especially defined by Corea’s distinct

re-imagining and seamless mergings of all three aspects of flamenco

(baile, cante, and toque) within one instrumental work of divergent

musical traditions. ‘Flamenco’ also speaks to Corea’s musical,

ethnic, and cultural identity in emblematic fashion, not unlike My

Spanish Heart of twenty years earlier, but with the maturity and

assurance of a composer at the very peak of his abilities. The

experimental atmosphere that enveloped his Spanish fusions of 1976,

are superseded with this confident assertion of his compositional

ability and artistic stature, and Corea’s evolution from an

appropriator to an assimilator of Spanish folk music themes are

exemplified with this brilliantly energetic and sprightly example of

a perfect Spanish and jazz synthesis. The authenticity of this work

and his position as a composer of Spanish folk fusion music, along

with the veracity of his creative process and artistic principles,

are best summarised in an interview he gave to El-Pais magazine not

long after Change’s release;

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I personally don’t attempt to define anything in music – but

my Spanish heart is real.105

Conclusion

I remember the New York Times jazz critic saying about 12

years ago, “Thank God, this pestilence known as fusion is

dead.” What? Get a life!106

Although the above quote was never spoken by Corea, ‘Mahavishnu

Orchestra’s’ John McLaughlin’s reminiscence here epitomises a

continuing dichotomy that exists between protagonists and

antagonists of fusion music, perpetuating an unfortunate differing

of opinions that affects the idiom’s precarious position within

academic discourse. Written within the opening pages of the first

substantial piece of literature dedicated to fusion, Stuart

Nicholson’s generalised proclamation that fusion artists sought to

appropriate divergent musical themes in their sole quest to attract

a younger generation of consumer, only fuelled the shared consensus

amongst the predominantly purist jazz view that the music which

emerged during fusion’s formative years and beyond was devoid of

105 Corea, C., quote taken from interview with El-Pais (Nov. 2012). Fortranscript see: http://chickcorea .com/el-pais-november-2012/ 106 Birds of Fire, pg. 222.

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originality, lacked artistic substance, and was therefore unworthy

of any academic recognition. However, recent additions by Kevin

Fellezs and Steven Pond have shifted the sentiment, ever so

slightly, in favour of a more positive approach to its study. With

Birds of Fire especially, Fellezs leaves the topic wide open for careful

ethnomusicological inquiries of fusion music to continue, firmly

positioning a strong foundation for further scholarship. Clearly

demonstrating that fusion music inhabits a wealth of fascinating

components of originality, contradictions, and variable meanings –

sonic traits all eagerly waiting to be studied and explored, Fellezs

created a pathway for fusion to be discussed with academic

precision. Following his lead, by challenging Nicholson’s

‘appropriator’ title as this research’s impetus using the example of

one of Chick Corea with an in-depth analysis of his Spanish folk

treatments, has hopefully contributed to a critical re-thinking of

fusion’s place within academic studies, whilst also considering the

extent to which a fusion artist could be taken seriously as a

composer of divergent musical traditions.

Acknowledging its position as a musical idiom of creativity and

hybridity, where artists sought to disrupt generic boundaries by

mixing different musical and cultural traditions, the notion that

the use of appropriation was a part of this shared aesthetic is one

this research has not set out to disprove. As the analysis of Miles

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Davis’ Sketches of Spain and ‘Spanish Key’ pointed out, the borrowing and

recycling of divergent musical traditions with little or no

alteration existed at the very point of the idiom’s exploratory

beginnings, and by the very artist who every book, article, journal,

and any other form of literature devoted to the music confirms, was

the pioneer of the fusion industry. Appropriation indeed had a role

in fusion’s initial stages, and without analyses to disprove the

theory, it may have continued within the context of works from other

fusion musicians throughout the latter part of its most prevalent

decade. However, Nicholson’s astute observation failed to account

for artists like Chick Corea.

The biographical research of his early musical experiences up until

his composing of ‘Spain’, addressed the important questions that

arise from an enquiry of one’s artistic authenticity in regards to

cultural reproduction. The answers to how he acquired his

understanding of divergent styles of music and of composition; to

why he was so interested in Spain and what he really knew about

Latin and Spanish folk before and during his professional career,

and to what his professional aspirations as a composer were - all

helped to build a solid foundation in Corea’s foothold as an

antithesis to Nicholson’s appropriator title. Corea’s distinct

admiration for Debussy, Bartok, and a knowledge of classical

repertoire under the tutalage of Sullo, the high regard for his

118


father and Armando Snr.’s role in shaping his equal admiration for

jazz composers Gillespie, Coltrane and Silver, his apprenticeship

amongst a plethora of Latin-jazz specialists, and his collaboration

with Miles Davis who would provide for him the pathway into a

creative environment and an opportunity to merge all these varied

musical traditions he admired into the confines of one musical

synthesis - are all elements of his educational and professional

life that adhere to an artist with the relevant groundwork to be

regarded as a talented, committed, and thoroughly capable fusion

composer of divergent musical themes. More importantly, with

Scientology philosophy helping to guide Corea to a better

understanding of himself as an individual and as a fusion artist,

the concurrent introduction to the music of Paco de Lucia opened a

door to a surplus of music styles associated with the flamenco genre

- thus allowing Corea the opportunity to fully embrace a musical

culture with direct links to his own ethnic heritage. Whether it was

a siguriyas, solea, fandango, bulerias, malaguena, sevillana, or polo, Corea

realised his musical, ethnic, and cultural identity, and an ability

to comprehend the formal and technical attributes associated with

each folk style’s melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic structures.

Listening and studying them all intently through de Lucia’s

examples, his genius was that he was able to immerse himself so

completely in the spirit of Spanish folk music. Assimilating every

119


formula attributed to each style and re-imagining them as original

themes, Corea was able to savour their distinct Spanish textures and

merge them effortlessly amongst a synthesis of Latin, jazz,

classical, and rock sensibilities.

The subsequent analyses of some of his most inspired examples of

Spanish fusion composed during the idiom’s formative decade have

helped to exemplify this stature. Examinations of each work’s

associations to Spanish folk within their melodic designs, harmonic

vocabularies, rhythmic profiles and instrumental textures, at first

revealed this research’s initial hypotheses to be accurate. Corea

had indulged with some techniques affiliated with appropriation, as

Rodrigo’s ‘Adagio’ introduction and subsequent harmonic contrafact

in ‘Spain’ has testified to this. However, Corea was only at the

beginnings of his compositional career and fresh from an

apprenticeship with Miles Davis. It is not beyond comprehension to

predict Corea would continue an aesthetic passed on to him by a jazz

hero like Davis during his early experiments. Interview transcripts

confirm that Corea, following his first contributions to the fusion

idiom, was determined to perfect his musicianship skills and forge a

career as an important contributor to the international music world.

His desire to “grow as a composer”107 epitomised a growing

determinism he cited as a result of Scientology practice, an

107 Corea, C., Jazz-Rock Fusion, pg. 149.

120


increase in “one’s own ability to cause something” and “one’s

ability to know”108. As a result of his growing confidence with his

musical direction, his affiliation with Spain would lead to a

greater understanding of its musical and cultural styles, and his

assimilation of Spanish folk themes and music formulae would reveal

itself within the music of his emblematic compilation My Spanish Heart,

personifying a fully realised musical identity in the process.

With the majority of fusion research (as limited as it is) focusing

predominantly on the 1970s period, it was always important for this

particular research to acknowledge fusion’s continued presence as an

idiom within the contemporary music world. Zawinul, McLaughlin,

Burton, and Hancock, are a number of first wave fusion artists of

the 1970s who have enjoyed continued success throughout the

following decades, persistently experimenting with new technologies

and emerging musical and cultural ideologies to prolong the fusion

ideals of hybridity, originality, and creativity. For Corea

especially, the 1980s and 1990s were periods where his artistic

palette expanded beyond fusion ensemble and solo improvisational

work, to pure jazz collaborations, classical, small acoustic

ensemble, and full orchestra recordings. Being able to include a

brief account of his musical and compositional diversification

during this time outside of fusion’s most prevalent decade was an

108 Corea, C., Down Beat, 28th March, 1974, pg. 16.

121


important factor in strengthening the position of Corea as a gifted

and talented musician and composer of creditable original works, and

consequently, as an antithesis to Nicholson’s generalisation.

Moreover, the inclusion of an analysis of ‘Little Flamenco’ showed

how evolved Corea had become in his assimilation of Spanish

folklore, as much as it confirmed that the original 1970s fusion

aesthetic of mixing different musical and cultural traditions, and

the disrupting of generic boundaries, cultural hierarchies, and

critical assumptions, is still being treated within the contemporary

music world by one of its very own innovators. Lying at the heart of

this shared aesthetic is Fellezs’ conception of the “broken middle”.

Referring to the “overlapping yet liminal space of contested, and

never settled, priorities between two or more musical traditions”109,

fusion artists, according to Fellezs, “sounded out the broken

middle, performing the endless possibilities of variation and

mixture between genres”110. Rightly, Corea’s entire compositional

catalogue reveals itself as a pro-active exploration of this ‘broken

middle’ ideal. Even with his recent sojourns into the ‘serious’

contemporary classical arena, one would possibly be able to divulge

jazz or Latin-Spanish-Flamenco sensibilities within the formal or

technical elements of any one of his piano sonatas or orchestral

suites. Moreover, in relation to any future discourses concerning

109 Birds of Fire, p.8110 Birds of Fire, p.68.

122


the musical idiom as a genre, the ‘broken middle’ of the fusion

industry also reveals itself as an important context for fusion as a

musical process. Essentially, fusion gave rise to the modern day

musical landscape which is awash with a staggering array of broken

middles. Whether one might consider Acid-Jazz, Hip-Hop, Rhythm and

Blues, or Rap, mixture is an inevitable component of both popular

musical and cultural production, and crucially, this type of

critical re-evaluation of fusion’s stature as a pre-cursor to

popular music mergings within contemporary musicology, can only

benefit its deserved position as a significant and creditable

academic discipline.

So for this project, researching the life and Spanish fusions of

Chick Corea has ultimately revealed that not only did he possess an

ability to delve much deeper in his assimilation of Spanish

subjects, but that he was able to create a musical landscape which

incorporated original material more in the spirit of Spanish music,

as opposed to stylistic borrowings from popular Spanish folklore. By

portraying Corea as an assimilator of divergent musical traditions,

using intensive score analyses to substantiate the entitlement, the

implications for fusion’s status within academic circles as an

important, original, and innovative music idiom can also be

supported. Furthermore, as a first step to a more comprehensive and

in-depth focus of study, this project has effectively positioned

123


important methodological foundations for future musicological

research within this field. Considering the professional camaraderie

that existed between most fusion musicians during the 1970s and

beyond (evidenced in the sheer amount of collaborations recorded

between each other), and the shared aesthetic of creativity,

hybridity, originality, and ambiguity that Fellezs attests was a

vital component to the music’s legacy, the presumption that Corea

was not the only fusion artist to re-imagine cross-cultural mergings

in an inspired, unique, and original manner is evidently implied.

So as this research aims to complement the more recent fusion

scholarship of Fellezs and Pond, the intention is that similar yet

more in-depth musicological study and future critical attention can

become focussed on the compositional traits of other talented

artists such as Steve Morse, Eduardo Del Barrio, Josef Zawinul or

Jean-Luc Ponty, and how they specifically handled the divergent

musical traditions (outside of the jazz, rock, and funk genres) they

chose to assimilate within their hybridised works. Without question,

the result of continued research such as this would further support

a re-evaluation of fusion’s reason for existence, hypothesised by

Nicholson and other purist jazz scholars, and most certainly

solidify fusion’s status as a worthy and more respected topic for

future ethnomusicological study.

124


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Music recordings

Berenice Lipson-Gruzen, 1996, Debussy: Pour Piano, [CD], New York:

Columbia/Sony Records.

Caldera, 2013, Sky Islands, [CD], Los Angeles: Soul Music Records.

Chick Corea Akoustic Band, 1990, Chick Corea Akoustic Band [CD], New

York: GRP Records.

Chick Corea Akoustic Band, 1991, Alive, [CD], New York: GRP

Records.

Chick Corea and Gary Burton, 1999, Crystal Silence [CD], Europe:

ECM Records.

Chick Corea and Hebie Hancock, 1998, An Evening with Chick Corea and

Herbie Hancock in Concert [CD], 1998, New York: Columbia/Legacy.

Chick Corea and Origin. 1999, Change [CD], New York: Stretch.

Chick Corea and Return To Forever, 1990, Light as a Feather [CD],

London: Polydor.

Chick Corea and Return To Forever, 1999, Return To Forever [CD],

Europe: ECM Records.

Chick Corea Elektric Band, 1988, Light Years [CD], New York: GRP

Records.

Chick Corea Elektric Band, 1990, Chick Corea Elektric Band [CD], New

York: GRP Records.

Chick Corea Elektric Band, 1990, Eye of Beholder [CD], New York:

GRP Records.

Chick Corea Elektric Band, 1991, Beneath the Mask [CD], New York:

GRP Records.

Chick Corea Elektric Band, 2012, Inside Out [CD], New York: GRP

Records.

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Chick Corea, 1991, Friends [CD], New York: Polygram.

Chick Corea, 1993, The Leprechaun [CD], New York: Polygram.

Chick Corea, 1999, Tones for Joan’s Bones [CD], Europe: Rhino/Wea.

Chick Corea, 2000, My Spanish Heart [CD], Europe: Decca (UMO).

Chick Corea, 2000, Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 [CD], Europe: ECM

Records.

Chick Corea, 2000, Piano Improvisations Vol. 2 [CD], Europe: ECM

Records.

Chick Corea, 2002, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs [CD], New York: Blue

Note Records.

Chick Corea, 2005, Mad Hatter [CD], Japan: Universal.

Chick Corea, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Origin, 1999,

Corea.Concerto / Spain for Sextet & Orchestra / Piano Concerto No. 1, [CD],

London: Sony Classical.

Chick Corea: Circle, 2008, Early Circle, [CD], Los Angeles: Capitol

Records.

Chuck Mangione, 1994, Land of Make Believe, [CD], Europe: Import

Music Services.

Classic FM presents Carlos Bonell and the Montreal Symphony

Orchestra, 2008, Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez, [CD], London: Decca.

Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra, 1990, Debussy:

La Damoiselle Elue; L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune; Images for Orchestra N 2 Iberia,

[CD], Europe: Polygram.

Dave Pike Octet, 2004, Manhattan Latin, [CD], Los Angeles: Verve

Records.

Enrique de Melchor, 2012, Antalogia, [CD], Spain: WEA.

Jean Martinon and the Chicago Symphony, 2000, Ravel: Rapsodie

Espagnole; Daphnis et Chloe; Suite No. 2, [CD], New York: RCA Red Label.

Jeno Jando, 2006, Bartok: Mikrokosmos, [CD], Europe: Naxos.

Mahavishnu Orchestra, 2010, Birds of Fire, [CD], New York: Columbia.

Miles Davis, 1997, Sketches of Spain, [CD], Europe: Sony Records.

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Miles Davis, 1998, Miles in the Sky, [CD], New York: Columbia.

Miles Davis, 1998, Nefertiti, [CD], New York: Columbia.

Miles Davis, 1999, Bitches Brew, [CD], Europe: Sony Records.

Miles Davis, 2002, Filles de Kilimanjaro, [CD], New York: Columbia.

Miles Davis, 2002, In a Silent Way, [CD], Europe: Sony Records.

Montego Joe Septet, 1994, Ariba Con Montego Joe, [CD], New York:

Prestige.

Paco de Lucia, 2005, El Mundo del Flamenco, [CD], Europe: Universal

International.

Paco de Lucia, 2011, Almoraima, [CD], Madrid: Universal Music.

Paco de Lucia, 2011, Fuente Y Caudal, [CD], Madrid: Universal

Music.

Sonny Stitt Septet, 2011, Sonny Stitt Goes Latin [CD], Japan: EMI.

Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, 1997, Jazz Samba [CD], New York:

Polygram.

Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, 1997, Getz/Gilberto [CD], Los

Angeles: Verve Records.

Stan Getz, 1998, What the World Needs Now, [CD], Los Angeles: Verve

Records.

Stan Getz, 2008, Sweet Rain, [CD], Los Angeles: Verve Records.

Walter Gieseking, 2000, Debussy: Suite bergamasque; Pagodes; La Soirée

dans Grenade; Reflets dans l'eau; L'Isle joyeuse / Ravel: Sonatine; La Vallee des

cloches / Schumann, [CD], Europe: Alliance Records.

Wayne Shorter, 1999, Native Dancer, [CD], Europe: Sony

Music Scores

135


Bizet, G., Carmen Suites No. 1 and No.2, [Full Score], (New York:

Dover Publications, 1998).

Corea, C., Armando's Rhumba [Score & Parts] (Milwaukee: Hal

Leonard Professional Editions, Hal Leonard, 2007)

Corea, C., Little Flamenco [Score & Parts], (Milwaukee: Hal

Leonard Professional Editions, Hal Leonard, 2007)

Corea, C., Night Streets [Piano Solo], (Europe: Schott, 1982)

Corea, C., Spain [Score & Parts], (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard

Professional Editions, Hal Leonard, 2009).

Corea, C., Tones for Joan’s Bones, [Score & Parts], (Milwaukee: Hal

Leonard Professional Editions, 2007).

Corea. C., My Spanish Heart [Piano Solo] (Europe: Schott, 1982)

Davis, M., Spanish Key, [Trumpet solo with chords], (Kobalt Music

Publishing America, 2001).

Debussy, C., Images No. 2: Iberia, ‘Edition Eulemberg’, [Orchestral

Score], (Europe: Ernst Eulenburg Co Gmbh, 1992).

Debussy, C., La Soiree dans Grenade: Estampes, [Piano Solo], (Europe:

United Music Publications, 2000).

Rodrigo, J., ‘Aranjuez Ma Pensee’, Adagio from Concierto De Aranjuez,

[Piano Solo], (Edicion Joaquin Rodrigo, 1988)

Published transcriptions of other works

(Page 39, 42, and 49) - Laparra, R., ‘La Musique et la danse

populaires en Espagne’ in Lavignac, A., (ed.), Encyclopedie de la

musique et Dictionnaire du Conservatoire, vol. I, pt. 4 (Paris: Librairie

Delagrave, 1920), p. 2396.

(Page 49) - Delage, R., and Durif, F., ‘Emmanuel Chabrier en

Espagne’, in Revue de musicology, 56 (1970), pp.73.

(Page 39) - Lacome, P., ‘La Jota Aragonesa’ in Echos d’Espagne:

Chansons et danses populaires, (Paris: Durand, 1872), p.98.

136


(Page 61) - Chase, G., The Music of Spain, 2nd rev. edn. (New York:

Dover, 1959), p.234.

Transcriptions from recordings

(Page 17) - Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, 1997, ‘Doralice’ –

Transcribed from Getz/Gilberto [CD], Los Angeles: Verve Records.

(Page 40) - Paco de Lucia and Fosforito, 2000, ‘Que es lo que

tu quieres’ (Solea) – Transcribed from Seleccion Antalogica del Cante

Flamenco [CD], Europe: Qualiton Imported Labels.

(Page 64) - Paco de Lucia and Fosforito, 2000, ‘Desde el

primer día cartagenera’ – Transcribed from Seleccion Antalogica del

Cante Flamenco [CD], Europe: Qualiton Imported Labels.

(Page 42) - Paco de Lucia and Fosforito, 2000, ‘No me cuentes

penas’ (Tangos dei titi) – Transcribed from Seleccion Antalogica del

Cante Flamenco [CD], Europe: Qualiton Imported Labels.

(Page 65) - Paco de Lucia and Fosforito, 2000, ‘A columpiar ’

(Bamberas) – Transcribed from Seleccion Antalogica del Cante Flamenco

[CD], Europe: Qualiton Imported Labels.

(Page 66) - Paco de Lucia, 2011, ‘Entres dos aguas’ (Rumba

Flamenco) – Transcribed from Fuente Y Caudal, [CD], Madrid:

Universal Music.

(Page 74) – Paco de Lucia, 2011, ‘Cuevo del gato’ –

Transcribed from Almoraima, [CD], Madrid: Universal Music.

(Page 74) – Paco de Lucia, 2011, ‘Aires choqueros’ –

Transcribed from Fuente Y Caudal, [CD], Madrid: Universal Music.

137


(Page 64) - Enrique de Melchor, 2012, ‘No sé lo que me

entraría’ (Bulerias) – Transcribed from Antalogia [CD], Spain,

WEA.

(Page 65) - Enrique de Melchor, 2012 ‘Marismas’ (Fandango) –

Transcribed from Antalogia [CD], Spain, WEA.

Appendix

1) Enrico Merlin’s analysis of Miles Davis ‘Spanish Key’ with a

breakdown of each performer’s solo sections, their beginning

key signature and final modulations. Reprinted from online

source: http://www.plosin.com /MilesAhead/CodeMD.html

INTRO + THEME played by Miles: E (0:36) --> conclusion in A/D

(1:06); Solo by Miles (1:19/3:23): D --> E (2:39) --> break by Corea

and modulation: E --> G (3:11); Solo by McLaughlin (3:31/5:16): G ; Break by Corea: G --> E (5:20) followed by THEMATIC extract

played by Miles; Solo by Shorter (5:37/9:13): E --> D (6:47) --> E (7:49) -->

break by Corea and modulation: E --> G (8:41); THEME played by Miles: E (9:17) --> conclusion in A/D (9:39);

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Duet by McLaughlin + Corea: D (9:48/10:45); Solo by Miles (10:46/13:58): D --> E (11:41) --> break by

Corea and modulation: E --> G (13:49); Solo by Corea (13:57/15:07): G; Solo by Maupin (15:07/16:48): G --> E (15:20); THEME played by Miles: E (16:48) --> conclusion in A/D

(17:11).

2) Chart detailing the chords, chord symbols, and their harmonic

components for those identified and printed within the music

score examples of this dissertation.

Chord Symbol Chord Name Example Intervalsmaj, M Major C, Cmaj, CM 1-3-5

6 Major Sixth C6 1-3-5-6maj7, Δ7, M7 Major Seventh Cmaj7, CΔ7, CM7 1-3-5-7min, m, - Minor Cmin, Cm, C- 1-b3-5

min7, m7, -7 Minor Seventh Cmin7, Cm7, C-7 1-b3-5-77, dom7 Dominant

SeventhC7, Cdom7 1-3-5-b7

min7(b5), m7b5,-7b5

Half-Diminished Cmin7(b5), Cm7b5,C-7b5

1-b3-b5-b7

min9, m9, -9 Minor Ninth Cmin9, Cm9, C-9 1-3-(5)-b7-97(#9), 7#9 Dominant

Seventh SharpNine

C7(#9), C7#9 1-3-(5)-b7-#9

+7, 7(#5), 7#5 DominantSeventh Sharp

Fifth

C+7, C7(#5), C7#5 1-3-#5-b7

maj7(#11),maj7#11,

M7(#11), M7#11

Major SeventhSharp Eleventh

Cmaj7(#11),Cmaj7#11,

CM7(#11), CM7#11

1-3-(5)-7-#11

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