Chick Corea And Touchstone To Perform At The Florida Theatre In Jacksonville, FL On Monday February 20, 2006

Jacksonville , FL –Chick Corea and Touchstone are on stage at The Florida Theatre Monday, February 20, 2006 at 8 PM . Tickets are on sale now!

Considering his prolific output over the past few years, it’s safe to say that Chick Corea has been on a creative roll of late. In the wake of his Rendezvous in New York— a career retrospective recorded over three consecutive weeks of performances at New York’s Blue Note nightclub in December of 2001 to commemorate his 60th birthday― the 12-time GRAMMY® Award winner and recently named NEA Jazz Master has produced two fully-realized concept albums inspired by the works of his favorite author, L. Ron Hubbard. In 2004, Chick reunited his early 1980s Elektric Band for a trip To The Stars. This time out, he has assembled a crew of old and new friends for The Ultimate Adventure.

An exotic blend of passionate flamenco melodies, North African and Middle Eastern grooves and adventurous improvisation, Corea’s latest score was inspired by Hubbard’s fantasy novel, which has a backdrop scenes from the ancient tales of “The Arabian Nights.” This scintillating suite of world-jazz reunites Chick with key colleagues from the past, including flutist Hubert Laws (who played on 1969’s Is and 1978’s Tap Step), Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira (drummer on 1972’s Light As A Feather and percussionist on 1978’s Tap Step and Secret Agent) and drummer Steve Gadd (whose precision playing fueled 1975’s Leprachaun, 1976’s My Spanish Heart and 1978’s Mad Hatter and who also provided the swinging momentum on 1978’s Friends and 1981’s Three Quartets).

Together with more recent Corea collaborators like Elektric Band guitarist Frank Gambale, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, Origin saxophonist Tim Garland, and Egyptian percussionist Hossam Ramzy, they join members of Chick’s current Touchstone band―drummer and longtime collaborator Tom Brechtlein, percussionist Rubem Dantas, saxophonist-flutist Jorge Pardo and bassist Carles Benavent—for some high-spirited, tightly-crafted ensemble playing that blends electric and acoustic instruments into one seamless, cinematic and organic whole. Flutist Steve Kujala, a frequent collaborator in the early ‘80s (Again and Again, Touchstone, Voyage, Septet), also appears on a rendition of Corea’s classic “Captain Marvel” (a bonus track which appears on the Japanese release only).

“A force that has come to the fore for these last two projects was my lifelong connection with L. Ron Hubbard’s works,” explains the celebrated pianist-composer-bandleader. “I had such an inspiring time doing the To The Stars project. There was a synergy created with me writing musical portraits of his fiction work that I didn’t want it to stop. So one project followed on the heels of the other.”

In fact, Corea was already composing portions of The Ultimate Adventure while on tour in 2004 with his Elektric Band. “To me, as soon as the creative part of the project is done—the conceiving of it, the writing of the music, the arranging and then getting the band to learn the material—then the rest of it, in a way, is kind of a follow-through. So while I was in the performance stage of To The Stars, I started looking for some more of Hubbard’s books to work with, and found this wonderful story that has a southern Spain-northern Africa-Arabian background to it. And as I began reading the book again...because I had read it before...I realized how neatly the Touchstone band would be able to realize the music.”

For tickets or performance information please call the Florida Theatre Box Office at (904) 355-2787 or visit us at floridatheatre.com. Tickets are $36.50 and $30.50. The Florida Theatre is conveniently located at 128 East Forsyth Street in Downtown Jacksonville. Tickets are also available through TicketMaster.