# Chick Corea reignites a Flamenco Flame with ‘Antidote,’ featuring his Spanish Heart Band: Photos, Videos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/05/11/chick-corea-reignites-a-flamenco-flame-with-antidote-featuring-his-spanish-heart-band-photos-videos/
- Published: 2019-05-11T21:51:38+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Pianist and composer Chick Corea isn’t typically slotted into the category of 
Latin jazz — but he’s had a substantial influence on its sound, and been influenced
in turn.**

One of his first appointments as a sideman, some 60 years ago, was with the indomitable
Afro-Cuban percussionist Mongo Santamaría. Later there came notable Corea albums
like _My Spanish Heart_, not to mention the enduring standard [“Spain.”](https://youtu.be/2oHPrdizBuk)

Corea, who at 77 is an NEA Jazz Master and the recipient of nearly two dozen Grammy
awards, has now formed an octet he calls The Spanish Heart Band. A new album by 
this group, _Antidote_, will be released on Concord Jazz on June 28.

At the core of the eight-piece band is a sterling rhythm team: bassist Carlitos 
Del Puerto, originally from Cuba, and drummer Marcus Gilmore, the grandson of longtime
Corea associate Roy Haynes. Last year, Corea enlisted these same musicians for a
riveting trio date featured on Jazz Night in America.

Also in the ranks are trumpeter Michael Rodriguez, trombonist Steve Davis, saxophonist
and flutist Jorge Pardo, and percussionist Luisito Quintero. Two notable flamenco
artists, guitarist Niño Josele and dancer Nino de los Reyes, are prominently featured
on the album’s lead single, “The Yellow Nimbus – Part 2,” which has its exclusive
premiere on WBGO.

“The Yellow Nimbus” originally appeared on Corea’s 1982 album _Touchstone_, as a
[custom showpiece](https://youtu.be/QpRKHQGvhAM) for the incomparable flamenco guitarist
Paco de Lucía. That version featured Corea on an array of analog synthesizers as
well as acoustic piano; de Lucía provided the percussive handclaps himself, through
overdubs.

Corea has revisited flamenco periodically since, notably during his 75th birthday
celebration at the Blue Note in New York. Speaking with him for a preview feature
in _The New York Times_, I asked about those mutual affinities. “Something got turned
on when I met Paco de Lucía,” Corea responded. “Then I started meeting other flamencos
and got turned on to their music and their history and seeing how that connected
to my universe. When I get with those guys, it brings out something in me that I
take with me even after I leave them.”

[[

Chick Corea, right, with flamenco guitarist Nino Josele

_Antidote _features a few other reimagined pieces from Corea’s back pages, including“
Duende,” another track on _Touchstone_, and “Armando’s Rhumba,” from _My Spanish
Heart. _The album’s title track is a new original that Corea composed for the charismatic
Panamanian singer Rubén Blades, who turns it into a depth charge.

Blades also performs on a version of “My Spanish Heart” featuring new lyrics by 
Corea. “My heart beat / Dances always to the rhythm,” he sings. “That feeling always
lives / So strong that it will never die.”

As for the album title: Corea frames _Antidote _in terms related to our tumultuous
cultural moment. “Music and art are a kind of antidote to the dark side of life,”
he said in an interview last year. Similar remarks are echoed in the Concord Jazz
press release; one only has to wonder whether Corea ever considered a more thematically
in-tune album title, _Antídoto._

Chick Corea & The Spanish Heart Band will go on a concert tour in Europe this summer,
culminating in a single North American date, on Aug. 3 at the 50th Annual Concord
Jazz Festival.

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.wbgo.org/sites/wbgo/files/styles/medium/public/201905/
chick_corea_crop.png?w=640&ssl=1)

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