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Jazz Master Chick Corea Jams with Russian Jazz Players
University of Louisville (Louisville, KY)
Posted on February 29, 2008
By Mike Tracy, Professor of Music and Jazz, University of Louisville School of Music
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| Piano great Chick Corea takes over on drums while jamming with saxophonist Stanislav Dolzhkov and Sergey Korchagin, on bass, at a University of Louisville jazz clinic. | Louisville, KY - Imagine the following improbable story line: four young Russian jazz musicians depart from Moscow for their first-ever trip to the United States. They land in a city in Middle America near midnight on a Saturday – then on Monday, still jet-lagged and a little culture-shocked, they perform for one of the living legends of jazz: Chick Corea. As unlikely as it may seem, this happened to four very accomplished Russian jazz musicians who visited the Jamey Aebersold Jazz Studies Program at the University of Louisville Feb. 16–March 3 on the Open World Program. Corea, recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master, held a master class at the university for the visiting quartet and about 100 other jazz musicians, young and old. The great pianist shared priceless reminiscences and words of encouragement with the extremely excited and appreciative Russian musicians as they performed for him. Corea then delighted the crowd by joining the Open World group on drums before going to the keyboard. Said contrabass player Sergey Korchagin of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: “It was an incredible experience – to act together with someone of this level of musicianship … someone I had only heard on records before. It felt absolutely wonderful to play together.”
Professor Tracy, an acclaimed jazz saxophonist and recording artist, coordinated the Louisville exchange for Open World.
[Reprinted with Permission]
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