Jazz great Chick Corea to perform at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts on Oct. 20 | Press Releases

Twelve-time Grammy award winner Chick Corea will make a rare solo appearance in concert at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts on Friday, Oct. 20 at 8 p.m. Adding to the festivities is a free wine tasting from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., sponsored by Wine Seller Spirits.

In a monumental career spanning over 40 years, Chick Corea has produced such a staggering volume of recordings it is not an overstatement to call him one of the most prolific composers of the latter 20 ^th century. His interests have always been varied and the diversity of his music reflects a restlessly creative spirit.

He began his career listening to and learning his keyboard skills through the influence of jazz legends Horace Silver and Bud Powell. In addition, his access to Mozart and Beethoven inspired his compositional instincts. From avant-garde to bebop, from hard-hitting fusion to heady forays into classical, to children's songs, Corea has touched an astonishing number of musical bases while maintaining an impeccable standard of excellence.

Corea's career was formed by his innate musical curiosity and his profound determination to explore: "I decided when I was a young man to make ... my primary policy to always keep myself interested and challenged with music."

In the early 1960s, he played with a dazzling array of talent, including Cab Calloway, Latin bands led by Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo, trumpeter Blue Mitchell, flutist Herbie Mann, Cal Tjader, Stan Getz, Donald Byrd, Dizzy Gillespie and the great Sarah Vaughan.

By the late 1960s, Corea was playing with Miles Davis' band and he appeared on some of Miles' major transitional and groundbreaking recordings, among them, "Filles de Kilimanjaro" and "Bitches Brew." Then, in 1970, he joined Davis' electronic ensemble for the historic Isle of Wight Festival in England. After that, he pursued his own avant-garde direction with like-minded musicians, making three adventurous albums. The groundwork laid for his own particular brand of innovation, Corea has continued to follow his formidable creative instincts into the 21 ^st century with ever-increasing sensitivity.

Since those formative years, Corea has met with abandon, the artistic challenges he set for himself early on. He has moved easily from jazz to fusion, to Brazilian flavored jazz, to solo piano improvisations, to classical, to new fusion forming the Elektric Band and his Akoustic Band. The "Los Angeles Times" encapsulated the pleasure of a Chick Corea concert by saying, "There's nothing quite like the experience of hearing jazz at its optimal level, performed with virtuosic brilliance, combined with unfettered improvisation and synergistic music interaction."

Tickets are $50, $45, $40 and can be purchased by calling the Quick Center Box Office at (203) 254-4010 or toll free at 1-877-ARTS-396. For more information, visit the website, www.quickcenter.com.