2021年经济学人 奇克·科瑞亚-音乐无极限(1)（在线收听）

Obituary Chick Corea

讣告 奇克·科瑞亚

Music without limits

音乐无极限

Armando “Chick” Corea, pianist, composer and pioneer of jazz fusion, died on February 9th, aged 79

钢琴家、作曲家、爵士融合乐的先驱阿曼多·“奇克”·科瑞亚于2月9日逝世，享年79岁

The instrument was new and shiny, trailing black cables across the stage, and Chick Corea did not much like the look of it. Nor, as he sat down and tapped the keys in his clear, springy style, did he much like the sound of it. The year was 1968, he was in trumpeter Miles Davis’s band, and he was sitting at a Fender Rhodes electric piano.

这架崭新的钢琴，通体发亮，几根黑色的电线蜿蜒在舞台上，奇克·科瑞亚对这架新琴无感。当他坐定，以自己独有的清晰、轻快的风格敲击琴键时，他也不太喜欢琴发出的声音。那是1968年，当时的他还是小号手迈尔斯·戴维斯(Miles Davis)的乐队成员，经常坐在Fender Rhode电子钢琴前。

This was the future, though. He and Miles had been wondering for a while whether jazz could move authentically from acoustic instruments to electric, fuse with rock and rhythm ‘n’ blues, and thus bring in audiences of thousands.

然而，这就是爵士乐的未来。他和迈尔斯有一段时间一直在摸索，爵士乐能否真正地从原声乐器过渡到电子乐器，与摇滚乐和蓝调节奏融合，从而吸引成千上万的观众。

A few more notes and runs, and he began to like it fine. They tried it out together on an album called “Filles de Kilimanjaro”; then, by the early 1970s, he was playing a Rhodes in his own band, called Return to Forever, with Stanley Clarke and Bill Connors (later Al di Meola) on electric guitars and Lenny White on drums.

经过多次尝试——多弹几个音符，多来几次快速弹奏——他开始喜欢上了这种乐器。他们尝试录制了一张名为《乞力马扎罗山的一列人》电钢琴专辑；到了二十世纪七十年代初，奇克组建了“重返永恒”乐队，他负责演奏劳斯电钢琴，斯坦利·克拉克和比尔·康若斯（后来是艾尔·迪·梅奥拉）弹奏电吉他，蓝尼·怀特负责打鼓。

They looked like any other shaggy tight-trousered rock group of the time. But when they launched into his “Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy” in 1973 he began to realise what they had done.

他们看起来与当时那些蓬头垢面、穿着紧身衣的摇滚乐队没有区别。但是当他们在1973年开始制作《第七星系赞美歌》时，奇克方才意识到他们创作的音乐价值。

This jazz was so new and so exciting that it made the hairs stand up on his arms. Under his wiry control at the keyboards, challenging, beaming, wriggling his shoulders with delight (“Chick” came from “Cheeky”, which he was), the band became his Mothership, adventuring in the limitless space where all musical styles flowed round each other.

这种爵士乐十分新颖，令人振奋，激动的奇克胳膊上的汗毛都竖起来了。他游刃有余地敲击着键盘，微笑地迎接每次挑战，高兴地扭动着肩膀(“奇克（chick）”这个名字来源于“放肆的（cheeky）”，人如其名。)乐队在他的带领下似乎成为一艘母舰，在无限的空间里冒险，在那里各种音乐风格相互碰撞，融合。