The band behind the pun
Yes, the name is a joke. The music isn’t. Chick Magnet is built from Denver’s deepest bench of jazz musicians, led by bassist Jordan Lovinger — and named for the composer whose songbook makes it all possible.
Jordan Lovinger
Jordan is a Denver bassist and bandleader who has spent years inside the city’s jazz scene — from headline nights at Dazzle to museum galas, country clubs, and the weekly jam he hosts on Colfax. Chick Magnet is his flagship project: the band he built to play the music he loves most, with the players he trusts most.
Rather than a fixed lineup, the band draws from a rotating roster of Denver’s top jazz musicians. That’s by design — it keeps every show fresh, and it means the band scales honestly from a duo to a quintet without ever sounding thin.
Who was Chick Corea?
Chick Corea (1941–2021) was one of the most influential musicians in the history of jazz — a pianist and composer with 27 Grammy wins, an NEA Jazz Masters honor, and a songbook that runs from flamenco-tinged Latin jazz to full-throttle electric fusion. He founded Return to Forever, launched the Elektric Band, and wrote tunes — Spain, La Fiesta, Armando’s Rhumba, 500 Miles High — that musicians will be playing for the next hundred years.
Why build a band around his music? Because it’s the most fun you can have on a bandstand. Corea’s catalog breathes: it works as an intimate piano-and-bass conversation and as a five-piece firestorm. It’s harmonically deep enough for the jazz heads and rhythmic enough that people who’ve never heard his name end up dancing to Spain. He believed music should be joyful — and that’s the whole point of this band.
As for the name: we think Chick would have approved.
