Legendary pianist/keyboardist/composer Chick Corea has announced a new band featuring iconic drummer Steve Gadd, the percussive architect of such well known drum masterpieces as Paul Simon's 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover and Steely Dan’s Aja. Co-leading a band for the first time, they pick up where they left off, this time with young guns filling out the lineup: Lionel Loueke, the Benininan genius on guitar; Steve Wilson, Chick’s Origin protege, on sax and flute; the great Carlitos Del Puerto on bass; and Venezuelan master Luisito Quintero on percussion.
Chick Corea:
Corea has attained iconic status in music. The keyboardist is a DownBeat Hall of Famer and NEA Jazz Master, as well as the fourth-most nominated artist in Grammy Awards history with 63 nods and 22 wins. From straight-ahead to avant-garde, bebop to jazz-rock fusion Chick has touched an astonishing number of musical bases in his career since playing with the genre-shattering bands of Miles Davis in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Steve Gadd:
If there’s a pantheon of all-time greats in the world of drums, Steve Gadd is a full-time resident. In 1975 alone, Gadd began his long association with Chick (on The Leprechaun), and recorded (arguably) the most iconic drum lick in pop music history, for Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” Since then, on his legendary work with Steely Dan, Eric Clapton and many, many others, Gadd cemented his reputation as one of the true masters of the instrument.