Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (born June 12, 1941) is an American jazz and fusion pianist, keyboardist, and composer.
Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Keith Jarrett, he has been described as one of the major jazz piano voices to emerge in the post-John Coltrane era.
Corea continued to pursue other collaborations and to explore various musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He is also known for promoting and fundraising for a number of social issues.
Armando Corea was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He is of southern Italian and Spanish descent. His father, a jazz trumpet player who had led a Dixieland band in Boston in the 1930s and 1940s, introduced him to the piano at the age of four. Growing up surrounded by jazz music, he was influenced at an early age by bebop and stars such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, and Lester Young. At eight Corea also took up drums, which would later influence his use of the piano as a percussion instrument.
Change is the first studio recording of the acoustic jazz sextet Origin featuring Chick Corea on piano. The sextet is unchanged except for Jeff Ballard replacing Adam Cruz on drums. The album was released on Rykodisc on June 8, 1999.