John McLaughlin and Chick Corea

As a high schooler, I was obsessed with jazz’s fusion movement of the 1970s. Bands such as Return to Forever, Tony Williams’ Lifetime, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra were in constant rotation on my CD player, because those were the groups that appealed to an inexperienced musician obsessed with technique and speed. Now, 15 years later as a 30-something, my tastes lean heavily toward pure emotion and sentiment instead of flash. But my inner 16-year-old smiled with glee on Wednesday night at the Music Center at Strathmore, as Chick Corea and John McLaughlin, two pioneers from that time, led The Five Peace Band, a throwback to that vibrant era that changed jazz.

The ensemble was nothing short of a supergroup, which can always be an iffy thing because even though the level of musicianship is a given, the chemistry onstage is not. There was nothing to fear in this case. McLaughlin and Corea have a collaboration that reaches back 40 years, when they first played with Miles Davis in his groundbreaking In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew ensembles. And the band wasn’t simply thrown together; they have been touring together since October. Furthermore, saxophonist Kenny Garrett (another Miles alum from the ’80s), bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Brian Blade, all of whom are established bandleaders in their own right, were also in their formative years devotees of Corea and McLaughlin.