One of the most creatively restless and indefatigably imaginative artists in jazz, Chick Corea defies categorization. He’s a musical omnivore. He is equally at home in acoustic settings as in plugged-in formats. He performs sublime solo concerts and welcomes richly arranged collaborations with orchestras. In recent years, he has explored new collaborations (for example, with banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck on their duo album The Enchantment) as well as revisited old bands (including an extensive tour with a quartet featuring Hubert Laws, Eddie Gomez and Airto Moreira as well as the 35th anniversary celebration of his chamber jazz duo partnership with Gary Burton that resulted in this year’s two-CD set The New Crystal Silence).

Corea broke onto the jazz scene in the early ‘60s, working with bands led by such stars as Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, Blue Mitchell, Herbie Mann and Stan Getz. One of his significant sideman gigs was with Miles Davis’ seminal electric fusion bands, from 1968-70. As a solo artist, Corea recorded his debut in 1966, Tones for Joan’s Bones, followed by what’s come to be known as a classic jazz recording, 1968’s Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, with Miroslav Vitous and Roy Haynes

While Corea’s musical career teems with significant explorations and advances, one of his highlight moments came in 1971 when he created Return to Forever, the legendary jazz-rock fusion band. While it lasted just seven years in three different editions, RTF is heralded as one of the most important and forward-looking bands in jazz history. 2008’s reunion of the quartet version of the band is the most anticipated event in recent years, as the four partners in fusion revisit past material played in the present tense.