Herbie Hancock 'still learning,' as eclectic music icon works on new album with Kendrick Lamar, Wayne Shorter and more
by George Varga - Contact Reporter march 2, 2018
If anyone is surprised that such hip-hop stars as Common, Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg have been recording with Herbie Hancock for the 77-year-old jazz keyboard legend’s next album, they haven’t paid attention to this genre-leaping maverick’s career.
The as-yet-untitled album also teams 14-time Grammy Award-winner Hancock with saxophone giant Wayne Shorter, who was his band mate in the fabled Miles Davis Quintet in the 1960s. And it features West African guitar ace Lionel Loueke, Indian tabla master Zakir Hussein and such young hip-hop and jazz-funk dynamos as shape-shifting producer Flying Lotus, bassist-singer Thundercat, tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington and alto saxophonist and keyboardist Terrace Martin.
Loueke and Martin will perform in San Diego as members of Hancock’s latest band on Wednesday at the Balboa Theater in a concert presented by the La Jolla Music Society. The lineup is completed by bassist James Genus and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, who also performed with Hancock at the keyboardist’s 2011 Balboa Theater concert.
Martin, 39, is producing Hancock’s still-in-progress album, after having previously done production work for Lamar, Snoop, Stevie Wonder and others. Hancock, in turn, has inspired at least two generations of hip-hop performers, thanks to his futuristic 1983 instrumental hit, “Rockit.” It has been sampled on more than 70 recordings by such diverse artists as Eric B. & Rakim, Grandmixer DST, Janet Jackson and C&C Music Factory.
read more at: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/music/sd-et-music-herbie-hancock-20180302-story.html
Dec 1, 20172:10 pm PST By Scott Bernstein Legendary jazz musician Herbie Hancock has detailed his first series of 2018 dates. Hancock will focus on the West Coast with a band to be announced. Herbie Hancock will play the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on January 28. Then, Herbie and the to be announced lineup embarks on what for now is a five-date run. Up first is a performance at McCaw Hall in Seattle on March 1. From there, Hancock plays Portland, Oregon on March 2, Oakland on March 4, Tucson on March 6 and San Diego on March 7.
Tickets are on sale now for all shows. read more at: https://www.jambase.com/article/herbie-hancock-announces-2018-winter-tour
Herbie Hancock performs at the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival in August 2016. (NPR)
August 4, 20179:00 AM ET NATE CHINEN There's an emblematic photograph of Herbie Hancock on the back cover of his album Sunlight, which he began recording 40 years ago this month. He's depicted against a red backdrop with a Sennheiser vocoder headset on his cranium, which is bowed in deep focus. He's also totally boxed in by his keyboards. The LP insert sleeve includes a diagram to help identify them by name: Oberheim Polyphonic Synthesizer, Sequential Circuits Prophet Synthesizer, ARP 2600, ARP Odyssey, Micro-Moog, Mini-Moog, Poly-Moog. (This is not a complete tally.)
At the time, Hancock had already proven his ability to work in a few divergent modes: taut acoustic postbop, of the sort he'd refined in the Miles Davis Quintet; coloristic chamber-jazz, on albums including Speak Like a Child; and earthy jazz-funk, in and out of his spectacularly successful band The Headhunters. But Sunlight opened yet another door to pop crossover, pushing even some admiring listeners to their limit. read more at: http://www.npr.org/2017/08/04/541565573/on-the-cusp-of-his-north-american-tour-herbie-hancock-is-still-hurtling-forward
Published on Apr 11, 2015 Miles Davis-trumpet.... Herbie Hancock-keyboards.... Bill Evans-sax ..... Kenny Garrett-sax.... Foley-guitar.... Al Foster-drums.... Richard Patterson-bass....
AFRO BLUE CHICK COREA HERBIE HANCOCK CARLOS SANTANA JOHN MAC LAUGHLIN WAYNE SHORTER RAVI COLTRANE BENNY RIETVELD DENNIS CHAMBERS RAUL REKOW CHESTER THOMPSON KARL PERAZZO
For the "Masterpiece" column in this weekend's Review section of The Wall Street Journal, I write about Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage"—the strange circumstances that led to its conception and why the album remains special (go here or please pick up a copy of the paper in the U.S.). Here are the first three paragraphs...
"In January 1965, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock received a call from a Hollywood jingle agency. Its client, Yardley, needed background music for a TV commercial and wanted a trio playing something jazzy, since the men’s fragrance ad took place in a sophisticated club. But instead of writing straight-ahead jazz, Mr. Hancock arranged a catchy rhythmic line that was closer to rock.
"In the weeks ahead, Mr. Hancock completed the assignment and then used the rhythmic chords as the bones for Maiden Voyage—the title song of what would become his most iconic and majestic album. The recording combined the freer, modal jazz popular at the time with a fresh romantic lyricism and vulnerability. The result is a timeless, career-defining opus of emotional uncertainty and guarded optimism——an album that would become his equivalent to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.”
"In the years since the release of Maiden Voyage, the album’s title song, The Eye of the Hurricane and Dolphin Dance have become jazz standards, and the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. Today, 50 years after it was recorded on March 17, 1965, Maiden Voyage remains Blue Note’s third-most-popular legacy album and Mr. Hancock’s No. 2 best-selling recording after Head Hunters, his electro-funk hit from 1973."
More in this weekend's Review section of The Wall Street Journal.
Photo: AP JAN 23, 2015 NEW YORK – Jazz greats Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock share much in common, but the last time they toured together was 37 years ago when Jimmy Carter was in the White House and Sony had just introduced the Walkman. The performers announced a world tour of duo piano concerts on Thursday. It kicks off March 14 in Seattle.
“Chick and I have always had an open door toward the possibility of touring again,” Hancock said in an email. “We both felt that enough time has passed since our last major tour in 1978, and considering all of the experiences we have had in music and in life, that this was the perfect time to pass through that doorway again.” read more: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2015/01/23/entertainment-news/jazz-greats-hancock-corea-announce-first-tour-37-years/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jazz-greats-hancock-corea-announce-first-tour-37-years#.VMVQhMazf9t
In a candid interview, the ever-innovative pianist traces the lines between Buddhist chants, Sly Stone and Miles Davis, while shedding new light on some hard facts about his past.
World
Renowned Jazz Legend And Music Icon Herbie Hancock To Be Named UNESCO Goodwill
Ambassador
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova
will designate American jazz musician Herbie Hancock as a UNESCO Goodwill
Ambassador in a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on July 22nd.
Recognizing Herbie Hancock's “dedication
to the promotion of peace through dialogue, culture and the arts," the
Director-General has asked the celebrated jazz musician “to contribute to
UNESCO's efforts to promote mutual understanding among cultures, with a
particular emphasis on fostering the emergence of new and creative ideas
amongst youth, to find solutions to global problems, as well as on ensuring
equal access to the diversity of artistic expressions."
Now in the fifth decade of his professional life,
Herbie Hancock remains where he has always been: at the forefront of world
culture, technology, business and music. In addition to being recognized as a
legendary pianist and composer, Herbie Hancock has been an integral part of
every popular music movement since the 1960's.
From his tenure as a member
of the Miles Davis Quintet to the record-breaking Headhunters to the electronic
dance music sounds of Rockit and FutureShock, Hancock has continuously
pioneered a groundbreaking, more expansive sound and direction in all genres of
music. Many of his compositions, including “Cantaloupe Island," “Maiden
Voyage," “Watermelon Man" and “Chameleon," are modern standards.
Hancock received an Academy Award for his Round
Midnight film score and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year for
“River: The Joni Letters," and two 2011 Grammy Awards for the recently
released globally collaborative CD, “The Imagine Project." Hancock is
currently touring the European Jazz Festival circuit with Wayne Shorter and
Marcus Miller as part of the celebrated Tribute To Miles Tour saluting legendary
trumpeter Miles Davis. More on: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=84066
An interesting connection, largely unknown, formed between Herbie Hancock and British art rock group King Crimson (led by guitarist Robert Fripp) during the early days of the Headhunters’ band. This is noted by Sid Smith in his book about King Crimson. I thank guitarist James Keepnews for pointing me to it.
In his book, Smith quotes bassist John Wetton about how Wetton and drummer Bill Bruford (best known for being the original drummer in Yes, followed by King Crimson, and then his more jazz oriented Earthworks) used to warm up playing vamps from ‘Crossings’. I decided to ask Bill Bruford about it, and found that he had rich and warm memories.
It turns out that Bruford had long followed Herbie’s work during the Miles period, and he attended an Mwandishi show in 1972, probably in Kansas City. This was shortly after the release of ‘Crossings’, a recording that Bruford says “to this day sends hairs up the back of my neck.” Herbie himself visited the Crimson band backstage, showing particular interest in their use of the Mellotron, long a staple in British rock of the period.
Bruford had felt that American jazz was far ahead of British jazz, but he also had the impression that some British musicians (like King Crimson of the ‘Islands’ period) may have provided musical stimulus to Americans like Herbie Hancock, providing “some of our ideas on form and arrangement and texture” that furthered the move “out of the old head-solo-solo-solo-head cul-de-sac that jazz had got itself in to.”
Of course, that shift emerges from a longer American history (Coltrane, Colemen, Art Ensemble of Chicago, and even Miles’s second Quintet), but my recollection of hearing King Crimson band several times during that period reminds me that something very musically significant and unusual was happening there, and the more I think about it, the greater seem the possibilities of cross fertilization between musical worlds – particularly textural – than we assume. Like Miles before him, Herbie Hancock was listening to a tremendous array of forms and styles of music, and had done so for much of his life.
On a slight side note, the current musical success of Cindy Blackman’s Another Lifetime band (with Vernon Reid and others) brings to mind the broader cross fertilization taking place. Another Lifetime captures the sensibility and renews the repertoire of Tony Williams Lifetime, the pioneering band that engaged elements of rock and jazz in the late 60s and early 70s.
The guitarists that Williams recruited, first John McLaughlin, emerged from the British blues and jazz scene, as was the case for Dave Holland, who joined Miles around the same time. There were indeed interesting musical synergies brewing between musicians like King Crimson, Soft Machine, pianist Keith Tippet, and the more blues-rock scene that included McLaughlin and Jack Bruce, formerly band mates. But that’s really a side story, one worth telling on another occasion.
When Neil Diamond called Herbie Hancock to do a collaboration, the jazz legend readily says he didn't share much in common with the singer—other than a fiscal one.
“I had never even met Neil before. The connection we have is we have the same accountant," Hancock says, laughing about the unlikely pairing. “I was happy we did it. He's such a great talent. It gave me the opportunity to do something with him for a great cause."
The cause being the “Stand Up to Cancer" telethon.
In only its second telethon—the first in 2008 raised more than $100 million—the live and commercial-fee special airing Friday brings together a mix of music, film and television stars making their own pleas for donations to cancer research. The two legends teamed together to take on the moving Beatles classic “Yesterday," though the pair didn't have much time to perfect the tune, as they had just physically met for the first time a day prior to Wednesday's rehearsal on the Sony Pictures lot.
“I was happy to do it for a couple of reasons, mainly for the real purpose which is supporting 'Stand Up to Cancer.' But also because I love the idea of collaborating with someone who may not be in the same generic family of jazz," Hancock said, “something that's outside of something I've done before."
The performance—and the song—hit home for the two musicians, as Hancock and Diamond each lost a grandmother to the disease, and Diamond's mother is a cancer survivor who just celebrated her 92nd birthday, which he uses as the intro to the song.
Do you think I look in the mirror and say ‘You’re a legend?’ ” Herbie Hancock asks.
No, but the mirror wouldn’t argue the point. Relaxed and professorial in a Manhattan hotel salon, Hancock drew laughs as he gently zinged the attempted flattery of an ingratiating Italian journalist.
We had gathered for The Imagine Project, an album of recast classics featuring an international musical cast and promoting “peace through global collaboration” — specifically, collaboration between Hancock and major-leaguers Pink, Seal, Dave Matthews, Jeff Beck, John Legend, Wayne Shorter, India.Aire, and a global who’s-who: Oumou Sangare (Mali), Konono No 1 (Congo), the Chieftains and Lisa Hannigan (Ireland), Juanes (Colombia), Ceu (Brazil), K.S. Chithra (India) and K’Naan (Somalia/Canada).
Imagine there’s no countries … or imagine all of them.
Stylistically, with a light-footed AfroCarib beat behind the title track, or a kora and the Chieftains behind Bob Dylan’s lyrics, the album flows from Hancock’s native omnivorousness and that one-world concept. It has potentially broad appeal — hence the New York news conference with heavily accented foreign journalists from Spain, Italy, Ireland and Mexico.
“This is the 21st century now, we don’t need to think ‘nationally’ anymore,” Hancock says. “We need to be open enough to respect cultures outside [our] own. I thought, ‘How many ways could I implement that?’ ”
“One of the ways — it hit me like a ton of bricks one day — is language.” And so, vocals include Irish Gaelic, Hindi and Bambara.
“In Buddhism, they say if you try to do something for the greater good, there’s no question that you’ll get obstacles,” the 70-year-old jazzman says. “Boy, did I get obstacles.”
Sting, Elton John and the Black Eyed Peas had all been possibilities who fell through for logistical reasons.
Scheduling was lunacy. And given the nature of the recording — which took place in seven countries — he never even met Track 9 singer James Morrison, “not even on the phone.” Those details were left to producer Larry Klein.
The music presented a more recognizable landscape. Since “jazz players don’t have any untouchable songs,” he was free to go after The Times They Are A-Changin’ and A Change Is Gonna Come.
And since we’re speaking of jazz now, the Italian writer tries to float back on a trail of bebop smoke to Hancock’s early days in the bohemian era, when everyone struck moody poses in the lone spotlight, and contrast it with current state of jazz that “looks like a business.”
“The way you look at it is very romantic, but it’s not real,” Hancock says.
“When I first started off, if you played with a trumpet player and a saxophone player, they had one mic. The piano had one mic that they stuck somewhere. No monitors. The singer had one — if there was a singer.” So no faux nostalgia here.
“I’ve been playing jazz so long I don’t have to think about it.”
When he does think about it, however, he thinks of former mentor Miles Davis.
“You asked me about missing Miles? I get that question a lot. I don’t feel like I’m missing him because I don’t feel like he’s gone anywhere. He feels present.”
“Miles never told us what to play. Never. In five-and-a-half years.” He then tells a story that seems to contradict it, but also affirms it.
During a gig, Davis tells Hancock to “put a B in the bass” on his keyboard. Hancock does, but can’t make it work with the piece. He fiddles around, finds an alternative, makes it cohere. Miles leans in and croaks “See?” “If I didn’t have that jazz background, I couldn’t make a record like [The Imagine Project],” he says, citing the freedom, courage and “being in the moment.”
So the jazz will be present and progressive, purists be damned. His upcoming dates at jazz festivals in Montreal and Ottawa will feature a first half of earlier material from his jazz/fusion/funk evolution — Actual Proof, Watermelon Man, Court and Spark, a medley of Maiden Voyage, Dolphin Dance, Round Midnight, Cantaloupe Island — and a second half focused on the new record.
He’s hopeful about today’s jazz scene. Despite a rising median audience age, “I’m seeing a lot of new young players emerging from high schools. And they’re good, and they want to play the music.”
And so, sharing in the generous spirit as Hancock hangs around to have lunch and chat with everyone, you’re reminded of another Miles quotation that sums up afternoon, project and career: “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”
Read more > :http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/Herbie+Hancock+unites+pragmatism+with+progress/3197428/story.html
Herbie Hancock has always had his feet planted firmly in both the jazz and pop worlds. In 1962, his tune "Watermelon Man" was a mash-up of gospel, R&B and so-called "soul jazz" that became a Top 10 hit in the hands of Mongo Santamaria when he recorded it as a Cuban cha-cha-cha a year later. In 1973, Head Hunters landed on the pop charts, fueled by a song that has become a funk standard, "Chameleon." In 1983, Hancock became a pop-music video star with the release of "Rockit" from Future Shock. And in 2007, his tribute to Joni Mitchell, River: The Joni Letters, won the 2008 Album of the Year Grammy.
Keep in mind that he's done all this while also becoming one of the most respected jazz pianists and composers of his generation. Like River, Hancock's new album, The Imagine Project, is a collection of collaborations with pop-music vocalists, though there are also a few "world" musicians jazz artists involved. There is an unmistakable pop production sheen that may leave some diehard jazz fans groaning.
But Hancock has always rolled with his artistic credibility intact, and this project is no exception. It's musically challenging as much as it is engaging and accessible. Pop music could stand to exude this kind of sophistication a little more often. The Imagine Project will stream here in its entirety until its release on June 22. Please leave your thoughts on the album in the comments section below. Hear at > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127577860
by Neal on May 30, 2010 Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man. He plays it on solo piano and then talks about how he came up with the melody. Watermelon Man is a 16 bar form that is a blues modified a little bit.
Pianist releases The Imagine Project on June 22 and headlines special concert at Carnegie Hall on June 24
By Lee Mergner
On April 11, 2010, Herbie Hancock turned 70. To the average middle-aged jazz fan, that fact is sobering, in the same way a rock fan of a certain age finds it unfathomable that Paul McCartney will turn 70 in a few years. In Hancock’s case, he has seemed ageless, looking about the same at 60-something that he did at 30-something.
Creatively, too, the pianist has never stopped looking forward with new ideas and new approaches. Somehow Hancock has uniquely been able to attain commercial success without sacrificing artistic integrity. His River album saluting the music of Joni Mitchell was a perfect example of the sort of “big idea” that he keeps pulling off.
Hancock’s latest big idea is The Imagine Project, in which he performs an assortment of iconic songs with universal messages of harmony and peace, with a variety of guests from around the globe. Hancock traveled all over to record the sessions and brought together artists from a wide range of genres.
The distinctly multi-cultural album includes: Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A’ Changin’” featuring the Chieftains, Toumani Diabete, Lionel Loueke and Lisa Hannigan recorded in Ireland; “The Song Goes On” with Anoushka Shankar, Chaka Khan and Wayne Shorter, with noted Indian musicians, recorded in Mumbai, India; and “Tempo de Amour” with Ceu, recorded in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Among the album’s producing consultants was Larry Klein, perhaps best known for his work with Joni Mitchell. In addition, the recording sessions were shot for a documentary. The album will be released on June 22 on his own Hancock Records label.
And what’s a birthday without a party? Appropriate for a pianist of his stature, Hancock will blow out the candles at Carnegie Hall on Thursday, June 24 as part of the CareFusion Jazz Festival New York. Among his special guests already announced are: India.Arie, Terence Blanchard, Ron Carter, Bill Cosby, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Joe Lovano, Wallace Roney, Wayne Shorter.
More guests are expected as well. And after the concert at Carnegie Hall, the ebullient Jeff “Tain” Watts will host a jam session dedicated to Hancock at City Winery beginning at 11 PM. Watts’ band, with Dave Kikoski on piano, James Genus on bass and Jean Toussaint on saxes, will kick things off. Watts told JT that the band will do a few of his tunes, then a bunch of Hancock’s tunes and then they’ll kick out the jams. He said that with an incredible lineup of drummers expected there, he’s looking forward to being the MC.
Watts was effusive in explaining why he got involved in saluting Hancock. "Herbie is a special one," said Watts. "On one hand you have this gifted and deeply informed soloist,composer, and accompanist, whose jazz improvisations have probably grown more profound and abstract through the years. By the time I first met him in 1982, he was already a legend, yet he still keeps pushing. Keith Jarrett has spoken about being 'musically awake' with regards to optimizing solo or group improv. Herbie pretty much lives in that space."
Watts was clear that the legend is a living one. "The other side involves his sustained popularity and relevance," explained Watts. "If you include the Us3 cover 'Cantaloop,' Herbie has had a hit in each decade since the 60's. And not simply a hit, but 'the jam' of the year pretty much, making him the Ronald Isley of instrumentalists. Although I'm sure that he appreciates the record sales, the payoff for him seems to be the joy of sincerely interfacing with different musics and artists, and the resultant acknowledgement of listeners. The man really loves music, is one of the coolest people I have ever met, and there will not be another like him anytime soon."
Indeed, there are few living jazz musicians cooler than Hancock. And many of his songs have been standards in the books of jazz musicians at every level all over the world. Beyond his own tours and albums, Hanocks’s work with the Thelonious Monk Institute has kept him at the forefront of modern jazz education and his recent tenure as Jazz Chair for the Los Angeles Philharmonic enabled him to exercise his programming chops. To keep up, or try to keep up, with this 70 year young jazz great, visit his web site.
Tickets ($35 - $100) for Herbie Hancock - Seven Decades: The Birthday Celebrationand other CareFusion Jazz Festival New York concerts scheduled at Carnegie Hall are available at the Carnegie Hall web site or at CarnegieCharge at (212) 247-7800. For tickets ($15) and more information about the Late Night Jam Session at City Winery, call (212) 608-0555 or go to City Winery's site. http://jazztimes.com/sections/news/articles/26123-herbie-hancock-celebrates-70th-with-new-album-special-concert
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