Legendary jazz musician Chick Corea died

Jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea died at the age of 79.

“It is with the greatest sadness that we announce that on February 9, Chick Corea died at the age of 79 from a rare form of cancer that was diagnosed only recently,” – the musician's website said. The musician died at his home in Tampa Bay, Florida.

In 1962-1963 he began his professional career: he played the piano in bands performing Latin American pop music. In the mid-1960s, in collaboration with the trumpet player Blue Mitchell, he made his first audio recordings.

Corea was a pianist in the Miles Davis collective in the 1960s. In the 1970s he founded the group Return To Forever.

He is the recipient of 23 Grammy awards and is a member of the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame.

Over the course of his more than forty-year career, Corea has released a myriad of records, experimenting with style.

Corea is considered one of the most influential and respected jazz musicians in the world.

The future musician was born into a family of Italian immigrants on June 12, 1941 in Massachusetts.

He began to master the piano at the age of four, and preferred to listen to such performers as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Lester Young.

In 1972, Corea married pianist and singer Gail Moran. Children from his first marriage – Tadeusz and Layana.