[#248] April 22, 2024
2020/2023 | Solo trombone and Wind Ensemble | Grade 6 | 20’ – 25’ | Solo Work
Concerto for trombone, by American jazz-pianist and composer Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea is our Composition of the Week.
The concerto was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and solo trombonist Joseph Alessi.
Alessi premiered the concerto on August 5, 2021, in Brazil, with the San Pablo’s Symphony Orchestra and Giancarlo Guerrero conducting.
Chick Corea completed the concerto in 2020, but he wouldn’t be able to listen to the premiere performance as initially planned, since he would pass away on February 9, 2021.
Composer, pianist, and French horn player John Dickson, a close musical ally who first worked with Corea in 1994 and had been his longtime arranger, scored the work in 2020 for piccolo and 3 flutes (3rd doubling alto flute), 2 oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets and bass clarinet, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings. He would also prepare the wind ensemble version in 2023.
The concerto has a duration of around 24 minutes.
“Cast in four movements, each given a title, the Concerto begins with a lengthy trombone soliloquy that serves as the prelude to A Stroll as the first movement (and the Concerto as a whole) is titled. A Stroll draws on Corea’s memories of living in New York City and imagines the things he would hear and see while walking the length of Manhattan, from north to south. Alessi asked Corea to spend some time with the trombone’s lyrical side, which comes to the fore in Waltse for Joe. "He described it to me as a ‘leisured waltz,’ not a typical waltz, Alessi explains, taking time and enjoying the easy groove and feel. A bit like Erik Satie. The third movement, Hysteria, reflects Corea’s response to the chaotic reactions he observed while composing during the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Tango for Joe, the finale, originally was to have a quiet, somber ending, according to Alessi, like the other movements. I summoned the courage to ask him to rewrite the coda in a big way.” The result is a thrilling final summons of virtuosity, with the trombone landing on exuberantly repeated high F-sharps in the final measure." Program notes by Thomas May for Nashville Symphony
Chick Corea's father, a jazz trumpeter who led a Dixieland band in Boston in the 1930s and 1940s, introduced him to the piano at the age of four. Surrounded by jazz, he was influenced at an early age by bebop and Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, and Lester Young. When he was eight, he took up drums, which would influence his use of the piano as a percussion instrument.
He developed his piano skills by exploring music on his own. A notable influence was concert pianist Salvatore Sullo, from whom Corea started taking lessons at age eight and who introduced him to classical music, helping spark his interest in musical composition. He also spent several years as a performer and soloist for the St. Rose Scarlet Lancers, a drum and bugle corps based in Chelsea.
Given a black tuxedo by his father, he started playing gigs when in high school. He enjoyed listening to Herb Pomeroy's band at the time and had a trio that played Horace Silver's music at a local jazz club. He moved to New York City, where he studied musical education for one month at Columbia University and six months at the Juilliard School. He quit after finding both disappointing but remained in New York City.
Corea began his career in the early 1960s with Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, Blue Mitchell, Herbie Mann, and Stan Getz. He released his debut album, Tones for Joan's Bones, in 1966. Two years later he released a trio album, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, with Roy Haynes and Miroslav Vitous.
In the 1970s Corea started working with vibraphonist Gary Burton, with whom he recorded several duet albums for ECM, including 1972's Crystal Silence. In December 2007 Corea recorded a duet album, The Enchantment, with banjoist Béla Fleck.
Corea's other bands included the Chick Corea Elektric Band, its traditional jazz trio reduction called Akoustic Band, Origin, and its traditional jazz trio reduction called the New Trio.