Forever Yours: The Final Performance (Live) Chick Corea

• 1 Chick's Welcome (Live) 01:17
• 2 Armando's Rhumba (Live) 06:00
• 3 It Could Happen To You (Live) 05:24
• 4 Overjoyed (Live) 03:42
• 5 Mozart: Piano Sonata in F, KV332 (2nd Part - Adagio) (Live) 05:03
• 6 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Live) 05:26
• 7 Chick Talks About Monk And Bud (Live) 01:01
• 8 Round Midnight (Live) 04:43
• 9 Trinkle Tinkle (Live) 02:27
• 10 Dusk In Sandi (Live) 04:05
• 11 Waltz For Debby (Live) 04:45
• 12 In A Sentimental Mood (Live) 04:13
• 13 Chick Talks Portraits (Live) 01:21
• 14 Portrait: Sam (Live) 02:57
• 15 Chick Introduces The Next Portrait (Live) 00:29
• 16 Portrait: Terri (Live) 02:45
• 17 Chick Talks Children's Songs (Live) 01:42
• 18 Children's Song No. 1 (Live) 01:52
• 19 Children's Song No. 2 (Live) 01:00
• 20 Children's Song No. 10 (Live) 03:50
• 21 Children's Song No. 17 (Live) 04:11
• 22 Children's Song No. 19 (Live) 03:34
• 23 Children's Song No. 20 (Live) 03:17
• Total Runtime 01:15:04

Info for Forever Yours: The Final Performance (Live)

Chick Corea’s final concerts come to life on Forever Yours: The Farewell Performance, a poignant solo-piano release that captures his unmatched virtuosity, warmth, and gift for connection just months before his passing.

Chick Corea’s final concerts were never meant to be farewells. In October 2020, the jazz giant walked onstage at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Florida, with the same spirit of generosity and curiosity that defined his fifty-year career. Four months later, Corea was gone. What remains is Forever Yours: The Farewell Concert, a release that captures the warmth, virtuosity, and playfulness of those last two solo-piano recitals.

Recorded by longtime collaborator Bernie Kirsh and co-produced by Gayle Corea and Jordin Pinkus, the album reflects the way Corea always approached music: as conversation. His dazzling technique and harmonic command were matched by a program that stitched together his own classics, including “Armando’s Rhumba” and selections from Children’s Songs, with tributes to Monk, Powell, Evans, Ellington, Mozart, and Stevie Wonder. “He wanted the composers to have a conversation with one another as he was also having a conversation with them,” Kirsh says. “He really looked up to the musicians he loved, and in these solo performances, he wanted to showcase the similarities between them. ”That instinct for connection permeates the recording.

Corea’s spoken introductions remain intact, filled with his affable humor and insights. Two pieces, improvised in real time for audience members named Sam and Terri, reveal his endless curiosity and openness. Even the house lights tell a story: Corea insisted they never be fully dimmed, so he could see his listeners and feel the shared experience. “He never saw concerts as simply going out on stage and playing,” Kirsh explains. “Solo piano was the purest form of this exchange that he loved.”

The performances also marked a rare return to in-person music during the pandemic. After months of livestream recitals from his Florida studio, Corea craved the presence of a live audience. Florida’s restrictions had loosened just enough, and with careful planning his team made it possible. “Looking back at this particular window of time, it was all very fortuitous that these final performances were able to happen when they did,” says Pinkus.

Forever Yours: The Farewell Concert is both a parting gift and a reminder of why Chick Corea remains a singular voice in music. It captures the artistry, humanity, and light he carried with him until the very end, shining just brightly enough for the audience to see him, and for him to see them.

Chick Corea, piano

Chick Corea
An NEA Jazz Master, 16-time Grammy® winner, prolific composer and undisputed keyboard virtuoso, Chick Corea has attained living legend status after four decades of unparalleled creativity and an artistic output that is simply staggering.

From straight ahead to avant-garde, bebop to fusion, children’s songs to chamber music, along with some far-reaching forays into symphonic works, Chick Corea has touched an astonishing number of musical bases in his illustrious career while maintaining a standard of excellence that is awe-inspiring. A tirelessly creative spirit, Chick Corea continues to forge ahead, continually reinventing himself in the process.

Chick Corea began his career with apprenticeships with the likes of Stan Getz, Sarah Vaughan and Miles Davis’s band, where he participated in such landmark sessions as In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Embarking on a solo career in 1966, Chick Corea has been at the forefront of jazz, both as a renowned pianist forging new ground with his acoustic jazz bands and as an innovative electric keyboardist with Return to Forever and the Elektric Band. His extensive discography boasts numerous essential albums, beginning with his 1968 classic, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs.

Chick Corea continues to make a significant impact on the scene, as evidenced by 2007’s Grammy®-winning The Enchantment (duets with banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck), 2008’s The New Crystal Silence (duets with long-standing collaborator Gary Burton), 2009’s Returns (documenting Return To Forever’s 2008 reunion tour) and 2009’s Grammy®-winning Five Peace Band Live (with John McLaughlin, Christian McBride, Kenny Garrett and Vinnie Colaiuta).

2011 demonstrated Chick Corea’s virtuosity in all its forms: he mounted a hugely successful world tour with Return to Forever IV, received a Latin Grammy® for the Corea, Clarke & White album Forever, released the acclaimed piano duet album Orvieto with Stefano Bollani, recorded his second concerto, The Continents, with a 30-piece orchestra (due for release on Deutsche Grammophon in February 2012) and capped the year with a month-long, career-spanning residency at New York’s Blue Note, featuring ten bands, including John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock and Bobby McFerrin.

This album contains no booklet.