The Week - USA (2021-02-26)

For Chick Corea, jazz

was all about free-

dom. On more than

90 albums recorded

with scores of groups and collabora-

tors, the piano virtuoso and 23-time

Grammy winner ranged joyfully

across genres, playing free jazz,

bebop, Latin jazz, and classical con-

certos. Most notably, he was an inte-

gral figure in the 1970s jazz fusion

movement, both as the keyboardist

in Miles Davis’ first electric band—

performing on groundbreaking albums includ-

ing In a Silent Way (1969) and Bitches Brew

(1970)—and from 1971 as the leader of the group

Return to Forever. With a driving, progressive

rock–influenced sound and a roster that included

bassist Stanley Clarke and guitarist Al Di Meola,

Return to Forever was among the most success-

ful fusion bands of all time, filling arenas and

cracking the Billboard Top 40 with albums such

as 1976’s Romantic Warrior. “Great art is made

when the artist is free to try whatever techniques

he wants and combine things any way he wants,”

Corea said. “I try to live that way as best I can.”

Armando Corea grew up outside Boston in a

musical family, said the Los Angeles Times. “His

trumpet-playing dad led a Dixieland band,” and

Corea—nicknamed “Cheeky” by a

cheek-pinching aunt, a name that

morphed into Chick—began study-

ing piano at age 4. After high school

he moved to New York City to study

at Columbia University and the

Juilliard School. But Corea “quickly

found himself lured out of the

classroom and into the clubs,” said

The New York Times. He gigged

with Latin percussionists Mongo

Santamaría and Willie Bobo and top

jazz artists including Stan Getz and

Hubert Laws. His first two albums as a leader

“earned rave reviews,” and in 1968 he joined

Davis’ band, experimenting with the Fender

Rhodes piano and other electronic keyboards.

In the decades that followed, “Corea remained a

musical chameleon, adapting to almost any musi-

cal setting with ease,” said The Washington Post.

A tireless touring artist who relished collabora-

tion, “he often had three or four working groups

going at a time.” He performed into his late 70s,

until sidelined by a rare form of cancer. “My mis-

sion has always been to bring the joy of creating

anywhere I could,” he wrote in a final message

to fans. “To have done so with all the artists that

I admire so dearly—this has been the richness of

my life.”

Obituaries

Ge

tty
(^2
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The virtuoso pianist who pioneered jazz fusion

Chick

Corea

1941–2021

When Mary Wilson and the

rest of the Supremes signed

with Motown in 1961, the

record label sent the teen-

age singers to its famed in-

house “charm

school.”

Etiquette

coach Maxine

Powell told

Wilson and bandmates Diana

Ross and Florence Ballard

that they were “diamonds

in the rough” who needed a

little polish because “one day

you’re going to be singing

before kings and queens.”

The Supremes, neighbors

from Detroit’s Brewster-

Douglass Housing Projects,

all laughed. “We were like,

‘Yeah, sure,’” recalled Wilson.

But seven years and a dozen

No. 1 singles later— including

“Baby Love” and “Stop!

In the Name of Love”—the

Supremes were performing

for British royalty at a tele-

vised London gala, having

established themselves as

pop-soul superstars.

Born in Greenville, Miss.,

and raised in Detroit, Wilson

teamed up with Ballard

and Ross in high school

to form a girl group, said

The Washington Post. After

signing with Motown, the

Supremes scored a hit with

1963’s “When the Lovelight

Starts Shining Through His

Eyes.” The group had its first

No. 1 the following year with

“Where Did Our Love Go?”

Fractures soon emerged,

said the Associated Press.

Ballard “became resentful of

Ross’ growing prominence”

and was replaced by Cindy

Birdsong in 1967. The group

was renamed Diana Ross and

the Supremes by Motown—a

name that held until 1970,

when the fiercely ambitious

Ross went solo. Replacement

members came and went,

and Wilson finally disbanded

the Supremes in 1977. She

went on to write best-selling

autobiographies and to per-

form solo. Wilson said she

hoped fans left her shows

thinking, “Wow, it wasn’t just

one girl in the Supremes.

Maybe it was three.”

Mary

Wilson

1944–2021

35

The soul singer who

was the linchpin

of the Supremes

Larry Flynt took delight

in demolishing the

boundaries of decency.

Scoffing at Playboy’s

idea of pornography as art, the Hustler

magazine founder built a $400 mil-

lion raunch empire by printing graphic

nude close-ups and depicting women in

every degrading pose imaginable: on a

leash, nailed to a cross, and, for a 1978

cover, halfway through a meat grinder.

Hustler taunted conservative religious

leaders and feminists and ran cartoons that

depicted rape, botched abortions, and children in

sexual poses. Flynt relished the ensuing outrage

and obscenity lawsuits, once appearing in court

wearing an American-flag diaper, and another

time in a shirt that read “F--- this court.” His

goal, he later explained, was simple: “I wanted to

offend everyone on an equal-opportunity basis.”

Flynt was born to an “alcoholic father and a

teenage mother” in the “hardscrabble hollows

of Magoffin County, Ky.,” said The Washington

Post. At age 15, he quit school and—using a fake

birth certificate—joined the Army and then the

Navy, where he served as a radar operator for five

years. After being discharged in 1964, Flynt began

buying bars in Dayton, Ohio, and opened his first

strip joint, naming it the Hustler Club. There were

soon Hustler Clubs across Ohio, and

in 1974 Flynt converted his popular

four-page “Hustler” newsletter into

a glossy, national magazine. Hustler

“became a sensation in 1975” when

it published photos of Jacqueline

Kennedy Onassis sunbathing nude

in Greece, said The Hollywood

Reporter. Flynt had paid a paparazzo

$18,000 for the shots; sales of the

issue made him a millionaire.

“Arriving for a 1978 obscenity trial

in Georgia,” Flynt was shot by a white suprema-

cist who objected to Hustler’s depictions of

interracial sex, said the Los Angeles Times. Left

paralyzed from the waist down, Flynt bought an

$85,000 gold-plated wheelchair. He remained

a regular in courtrooms. In his most notorious

case—portrayed in the 1996 film The People vs.

Larry Flynt—he was hit with a $45 million libel

suit by televangelist Jerry Falwell after Hustler

published a parody in which the preacher remi-

nisced about an outhouse rendezvous with his

mother. A jury awarded Falwell $200,000, but the

Supreme Court threw out the damages, affirming

the right to publish “outrageous opinions” about

public figures. “If the First Amendment will pro-

tect a scumbag like me,” Flynt said, “then it will

protect all of you. Because I’m the worst.”

Larry

Flynt

1942–2021

The ‘smut peddler’ who relished free-speech fights