A master of many genres, Armando “Chick” Corea started with Cab Calloway’s swing band, believe it or not, and was a piano-chair mainstay of the hard-bopping Blue Note label in the late 1960s. A pioneer of jazz fusion with Miles Davis and then with his own Return to Forever, he has since written orchestral works and soundtracks, and led various acoustic and electric bands with guitarist John McLaughlin and others.

Along the way, Corea has also specialized in offbeat duets, repeatedly collaborating with vibes master Gary Burton, singer Bobby McFerrin, and even other pianists, including Herbie Hancock and Stefano Bollani. (Of 63 Grammy nominations, he has won 22, and five were for collaborations with Burton.) But the most unusual setting so far may be with Béla Fleck and his beyond-versatile banjo.

“I’ve never been a big fan of the banjo,” admits the veteran pianist, calling from Austin, Texas. “And I’m still not! But I never think about the instrument; I think about the musician. I love working with Béla because he’s such a creative guy, and he’s fun to play with. The banjo isn’t really a chordal instrument, so there’s no conflict there, but he’s brilliant and we have a ball, so that’s the main thing.”

The duo is getting ready to play a string of shows that will carry Corea, who’ll turn 75 next month, right through December. He didn’t go looking for someone to add fingerpicking techniques to his intricate pianisms. But Fleck has played everything from jazz fusion to J.S. Bach on his instrument, with his Flecktones or his banjo-plucking wife, Abigail Washburn.

“Béla came after me,” Corea recalls. “He first introduced himself as a young fan, and now I’ve known him for decades.” (This the Massachusetts native pronounces idiosyncratically, as dee-cades.) “We met again at the Grammys a while back, when he was nominated for something with the Flecktones, and he invited me to play on his next record.”

It turned out to be a natural fit, later resulting in the 2007 album The Enchantment, and a live, two-disc set dubbed Two, from last year. On the newer album, they chat about the songs, which include everything from folkish Fleck tunes to Corea classics, like “Armando’s Rhumba”, to old-timey jazz, as when the pianist makes like a wild Thelonious Monk on “Bugle Call Rag”. The whole thing is more like an ongoing conversation than formal concertizing.

“We sent each other songs through the email, since we were both so busy travelling. And by the time we got into the studio for our first record, we really whipped it together in two or three days. It was a lot of fun and continues to be. Béla’s a very spontaneous guy and he can really go places, improvisationally. It’s also a challenge to me to work with the timbre of his instrument and make music out of it. Sometimes we play in unison, and that’s a nice effect.”

Indeed. That way we get to hear their strings both hammered and plucked—which could be a good name for their next tour.

Chick Corea and Béla Fleck perform at the Orpheum on Friday (April 22).