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https://soundprojections.blogspot.com/2014/12/herbie-hancock-b-april-12-1940_83.html

PHOTO: HERBIE HANCOCK (b. April 12, 1940)

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/herbie-hancock-mn0000957296

Herbie Hancock

(b. April 12, 1940)

Biography by Richard S. Ginell

Herbie Hancock will always be one of the most revered and controversial figures in jazz, just as his employer/mentor Miles Davis was when he was alive. Unlike Miles, who pressed ahead relentlessly and never looked back until near the very end, Hancock has cut a zigzagging forward path, shuttling between almost every development in electronic and acoustic jazz and R&B over the last third of the 20th century and into the 21st. Though grounded in Bill Evans and able to absorb blues, funk, gospel, and even modern classical influences, Hancock's piano and keyboard voices are entirely his own, with their own urbane harmonic and complex, earthy rhythmic signatures -- and young pianists cop his licks constantly. Having studied engineering and professing to love gadgets and buttons, Hancock was perfectly suited for the electronic age; he was one of the earliest champions of the Rhodes electric piano and Hohner clavinet, and would field an ever-growing collection of synthesizers and computers on his electric dates. Yet his love for the grand piano never waned, and despite his peripatetic activities all over the musical map, his piano style continued to evolve into tougher, ever more complex forms. He is as much at home trading riffs with a smoking funk band as he is communing with a world-class post-bop rhythm section -- and that drives purists on both sides of the fence up the wall.

Having taken up the piano at age seven, Hancock quickly became known as a prodigy, soloing in the first movement of a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony at the age of 11. After studies at Grinnell College, Hancock was invited by Donald Byrd in 1961 to join his group in New York City, and before long, Blue Note offered him a solo contract. His debut album, Takin' Off, took off after Mongo Santamaria covered one of the album's songs, "Watermelon Man." In May 1963, Miles Davis asked him to join his band in time for the Seven Steps to Heaven sessions, and he remained with him for five years, greatly influencing Davis' evolving direction, loosening up his own style, and, upon Davis' suggestion, converting to the Rhodes electric piano. During that time, Hancock's solo career blossomed on Blue Note, as he poured forth increasingly sophisticated compositions like "Maiden Voyage," "Cantaloupe Island," "Goodbye to Childhood," and the exquisite "Speak Like a Child." He also played on many East Coast recording sessions for producer Creed Taylor and provided a groundbreaking score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up, which gradually led to further movie assignments.

Having left the Davis band in 1968, Hancock recorded an elegant funk album, Fat Albert Rotunda, and in 1969 formed a sextet that evolved into one of the most exciting, forward-looking jazz-rock groups of the era. By then deeply immersed in electronics, Hancock added Patrick Gleeson's synthesizer to his Echoplexed, fuzz-wah-pedaled electric piano and clavinet, and the recordings became spacier and more complex rhythmically and structurally, creating their own corner of the avant-garde. By 1970, all of the musicians used both English and African names (Herbie's was Mwandishi). Alas, Hancock had to break up the band in 1973 when it ran out of money, and having studied Buddhism, he concluded that his ultimate goal should be to make his audiences happy.

The next step, then, was a terrific funk group whose first album, Head Hunters, with its Sly Stone-influenced hit single, "Chameleon," became the biggest-selling jazz LP up to that time. Handling all of the synthesizers himself, Hancock's heavily rhythmic comping often became part of the rhythm section, leavened by interludes of the old urbane harmonies. Hancock recorded several electric albums of mostly superior quality in the '70s, followed by a turn into disco around the decade's end. In the meantime, Hancock refused to abandon acoustic jazz. After a one-shot reunion of the 1965 Miles Davis Quintet (Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, and Freddie Hubbard sitting in for Miles) at New York's 1976 Newport Jazz Festival, they went on tour the following year as V.S.O.P. The near-universal acclaim of the reunions proved that Hancock was still a whale of a pianist; that Miles' loose mid-'60s post-bop direction was far from spent; and that the time for a neo-traditional revival was near, finally bearing fruit in the '80s with Wynton Marsalis and his ilk. V.S.O.P. continued to hold sporadic reunions through 1992, though the death of the indispensable Williams in 1997 cast much doubt as to whether these gatherings would continue.

Hancock continued his chameleonic ways in the '80s: scoring an MTV hit in 1983 with the scratch-driven, electro-influenced single "Rockit" (accompanied by a striking video); launching an exciting partnership with Gambian kora virtuoso Foday Musa Suso that culminated in the swinging 1986 live album Jazz Africa; doing film scores, and playing festivals and tours with the Marsalis brothers, George Benson, Michael Brecker, and many others. After his 1988 techno-pop album, Perfect Machine, Hancock left Columbia (his label since 1973), signed a contract with Qwest that came to virtually nothing (save for A Tribute to Miles in 1992), and finally made a deal with Polygram in 1994 to record jazz for Verve and release pop albums on Mercury.

Well into a youthful middle age, Hancock's curiosity, versatility, and capacity for growth showed no signs of fading, and in 1998 he issued Gershwin's World. His curiosity with the fusion of electronic music and jazz continued with 2001's Future 2 Future, but he also continued to explore the future of straight-ahead contemporary jazz with 2005's Possibilities. An intriguing album of jazz treatments of Joni Mitchell compositions called River: The Joni Letters was released in 2007 and won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2008. Two years later, Hancock released his The Imagine Project album, recorded in seven countries with a host of collaborators including Dave Matthews, Juanes, and Wayne Shorter. He was also named Creative Chair for the New Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 2013, he was the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honors award, acknowledged for his contribution to American performing arts. An expanded tenth anniversary edition of River: The Joni Letters was released in 2017, and he continues to perform regularly.

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/herbie-hancock/

Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock is a true icon of modern music. Throughout his explorations, he has transcended limitations and genres while still maintaining his unique, unmistakable voice. Herbie's success at expanding the possibilities of musical thought has placed him in the annals of this century's visionaries. With an illustrious career spanning five decades, he continues to amaze audiences and never ceases to expand the public's vision of what music, particularly jazz, is all about today.

Herbie Hancock's creative path has moved fluidly between almost every development in acoustic and electronic jazz and R&B since 1960. He has attained an enviable balance of commercial and artistic success, arriving at a point in his career where he ventures into every new project motivated purely by the desire to expand the boundaries of his creativity.

There are few artists in the music industry who have gained more respect and cast more influence than Herbie Hancock. As the immortal Miles Davis said in his autobiography, "Herbie was the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and I haven't heard anybody yet who has come after him."

Born in Chicago in 1940, Herbie was a child piano prodigy who performed a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the tender age of 11. He began playing jazz in high school, initially influenced by Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. Also at this time, an additional passion for electronic science began to develop. As a result, he took a double major in music and electrical engineering at Grinnell College.

In 1960, at age 20, Herbie was discovered by trumpeter Donald Byrd, who asked him to join his group. Byrd also introduced Herbie to Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records, and after two years of session work with the likes of Phil Woods and Oliver Nelson, he signed to the legendary label as a solo artist. His 1963 debut album, Takin’ Off, was an immediate success, producing “Watermelon Man,” a big hit on jazz and R&B radio. Also in 1963, Herbie received the call that was to change his life and secure his place in jazz history. Miles Davis invited Herbie to join the Miles Davis Quintet. During his five years with Davis, Herbie and his colleagues thrilled audiences and recorded classic after classic, including the albums ESP, Nefertiti, and Sorcerer. Most jazz critics and fans regard this group, which also included Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums), as the greatest small jazz group of the 1960s. Even after he left Davis' group, Herbie still made appearances on Davis' groundbreaking recordings In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, which heralded the birth of jazz-fusion.

Simultaneous with his work for Miles, Herbie's own solo career blossomed on Blue Note, creating such classic albums as Maiden Voyage, Empyrean Isles, and Speak Like a Child. In 1966, he composed the score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film, Blow Up. This led to a successful career in feature film and television music, including music for Bill Cosby’s Emmy-winning Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert and many other film scores in following years.

1970s: The Headhunters and VSOP

After leaving Miles Davis in 1968, Herbie stepped full-time into the new electronic jazz-funk that was sweeping the world. Herbie gathered a new band called The Headhunters and, in 1973, recorded Head Hunters—a hugely successful crossover hit which became the first jazz album to go platinum. With its Sly Stone-influenced hit single "Chameleon," this album (and its follow-up, Thrust) signaled once and for all that Herbie Hancock would not be pigeonholed or categorized.

By mid-decade, Herbie was playing for stadium-sized crowds all over the world and had no fewer than four albums in the pop charts at once. In total, Herbie had eleven albums in the pop charts during the 1970s. What's even more remarkable about Herbie's ’70s output is the inspiration and inexhaustible supply of samples he provided for the generations of hip hop and dance music artists that followed almost twenty years after these recordings were at their peak popularity. This, though, would not be the only time in his career that Herbie’s work would have such an influence.

Not content to travel one creative path, Herbie also stayed close to his love of acoustic jazz in the ’70s. He recorded and performed with VSOP (a reunification of the ’60s Miles Davis Quintet, substituting the great Freddie Hubbard for Davis), with various trios and quartets under his own name, and in duet settings with fellow pianists Chick Corea and Oscar Peterson.

1980s: Future Shock, Film & TV

In 1980, Herbie introduced the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis to the world as a solo artist, producing the young musician's debut album and touring with him as well. In 1983, a new pull to the alternative side led Herbie to a series of collaborations with the notorious musical architect Bill Laswell. The first, Future Shock, again struck platinum, and the single "Rockit" rocked the dance and R&B charts, winning a Grammy for Best R&B Instrumental. Moreover, the video of the track, created by Kevin Godley and Lol Crème, won five MTV awards. Sound System, the follow-up to Future Shock, also received a Grammy in the R&B instrumental category. Once again, Herbie Hancock had blazed a new path for younger musicians to follow.

In addition to his Grammy and MTV Award successes, Herbie won an Oscar in 1986 for scoring the film 'Round Midnight—in which he also appeared as an actor. During this time, he composed the soundtracks for a number of other films including Colors, Jo Jo Dancer, Action Jackson and Harlem Nights. Numerous television appearances over the years led to two hosting assignments in the 1980s. The first, Rock School, was an innovative educational music show for PBS, the second, Showtime's Coast To Coast, was a unique series of in-concert performances, interviews and collaborations, and ran from 1989-91.

1990s: Verve Records and Headhunters Reunited

Herbie once again scaled the charts in 1994, but in a most unique way. A British hip-hop group called US3 sampled a classic Blue Note side, "Cantaloupe Island," for a track called "Cantaloop" which became a huge international hit for Herbie's old label. The track went Top 20 in a number of countries and was licensed countless times for TV commercials and promos, leading to the resurrection of many great Herbie Hancock tracks throughout the decade.

Herbie signed to the Polygram Label Group in 1994. After an adventurous pop-oriented project for Mercury Records, Dis Is Da Drum, he moved on to Polygram's Verve label, forming an all-star band to record 1996's Grammy- winning The New Standard. This album, another landmark, adapted rock and R&B tunes from recent times to a straight ahead jazz format. In 1997, an eloquent and daring album of duets with Wayne Shorter, 1+1, was released. The legendary Headhunters reunited in 1998, recording an album for Herbie's own Verve-distributed imprint, and touring with the Dave Matthews Band at the arena-rock giant's own request. But the crowning achievement of Herbie Hancock's Verve years thus far has been Gershwin's World. Recorded and released in 1998, this masterwork brought artists from all over the musical spectrum together in a celebration of George Gershwin and his entire artistic milieu. Herbie's collaborators included Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Kathleen Battle, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Wayne Shorter and Chick Corea. Gershwin's World won three Grammies in 1999, including Best Traditional Jazz Album and Best R&B Vocal Performance for Stevie Wonder's "St. Louis Blues." The entire music world celebrated this album as one of the very finest in Herbie Hancock's incomparable career.

At the end of 1999, Herbie joined two partners—his manager David Passick and former Verve Records president Chuck Mitchell—to form Transparent Music, a multi-media music company dedicated to the presentation of barrier-breaking music of all types, at all tiers of distribution including recordings, films and TV, concert events and the Internet.

2000 and Today: FUTURE2FUTURE and Possibilities

In yet another innovative stylistic move, Herbie reunited with Bill Laswell in the creation of a 21st Century collaboration with some of the young hip-hop and techno artists who have drawn on his massive influence to create their own music of the future. The album was released in spring, 2001, and is entitled FUTURE2FUTURE. Another collaborative work followed in 2002 when Herbie teamed with Roy Hargrove and Michael Becker to record a live concert album, Directions In Music: Live at Massey Hall—a tribute to John Coltrane and Miles Davis. The three musicians then embarked upon a tour.

His latest studio project, Possibilities, released in August 2005 is aptly named, as it consists of an even wider-ranging collection of sounds and styles than his previous collaborative works. For Possibilities, Herbie teamed with established artists such as Sting, Annie Lennox, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Paul Simon and Carlos Santana, as well as serious up-and-comers like Joss Stone and Damien Rice. Also in 2005, Herbie re-staffed his famed Headhunters ensemble with a host of notable names such as guitarists John Mayer and Lionel Loueke, bassist Marcus Miller, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, trumpeter Roy Hargrove and percussionist Munyungo Jackson to play a number of concert dates in the summer.

Herbie Hancock also maintains a thriving career outside the performing stage and recording studio. Since 1991, he has been the Distinguished Artist in Residence at Jazz Aspen Snowmass in Colorado; a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and performance of jazz and American music. Herbie also serves as Institute Chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, the foremost international organization devoted to the development of jazz performance and education worldwide. He has taken on a number of roles on behalf of the institute, from competition judge to master class teacher, to guest performer with the Institute's prestigious college program.

Now in the sixth decade of his professional life, Herbie Hancock remains where he has always been: in the forefront of world culture, technology, business and music. Though one can't track exactly where he will go next, he is sure to leave his own inimitable creative style and imprint wherever he lands.

https://www.herbiehancock.com/

Herbie Hancock: An Introduction

Herbie Hancock is a true icon of modern music. Throughout his explorations, he has transcended limitations and genres while maintaining his unmistakable voice. With an illustrious career spanning five decades and 14 Grammy® Awards, including Album of the Year for River: The Joni Letters, he continues to amaze audiences across the globe.

There are few artists in the music industry who have had more influence on acoustic and electronic jazz and R&B than Herbie Hancock. As the immortal Miles Davis said in his autobiography, “Herbie was the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and I haven’t heard anybody yet who has come after him.”

Born in Chicago in 1940, Herbie was a child piano prodigy who performed a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 11. He began playing jazz in high school, initially influenced by Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. He also developed a passion for electronics and science, and double-majored in music and electrical engineering at Grinnell College.

In 1960, Herbie was discovered by trumpeter Donald Byrd. After two years of session work with Byrd as well as Phil Woods and Oliver Nelson, he signed with Blue Note as a solo artist. His 1963 debut album, ‘Takin’ Off’, was an immediate success, producing the hit “Watermelon Man.”

In 1963, Miles Davis invited Herbie to join the Miles Davis Quintet. During his five years with Davis, Herbie and his colleagues Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums) recorded many classics, including ‘ESP’, ‘Nefertiti’ and ‘Sorcerer’. Later on, Herbie appeared on Davis’ groundbreaking ‘In a Silent Way.’

Herbie’s own solo career blossomed on Blue Note, with classic albums including ‘Maiden Voyage’, ‘Empyrean Isles’, and ‘Speak Like a Child’. He composed the score to Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film ‘Blow Up’, which led to a successful career in feature film and television music.

After leaving Davis, Herbie put together a new band called The Headhunters and, in 1973, recorded ‘Head Hunters.’ With its crossover hit single “Chameleon,” it became the first jazz album to go platinum. By mid-decade, Herbie was playing for stadium-sized crowds all over the world and had no fewer than four albums in the pop charts at once. In total, Herbie had 11 albums in the pop charts during the 1970s. His ’70s output inspired and provided samples for generations of hip-hop and dance music artists. Herbie also stayed close to his love of acoustic jazz in the ’70s, recording and performing with VSOP (reuniting him with his Miles Davis colleagues), and in duet settings with Chick Corea and Oscar Peterson.

In 1980, Herbie introduced the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis to the world as a solo artist, producing his debut album and touring with him as well. In 1983, a new pull to the alternative side led Herbie to a series of collaborations with Bill Laswell. The first, ‘Future Shock’, again struck platinum, and the single “Rockit” rocked the dance and R&B charts, winning a Grammy for Best R&B Instrumental. The video of the track won five MTV awards. ‘Sound System’, the follow-up, also received a Grammy in the R&B instrumental category.

Herbie won an Oscar in 1986 for scoring the film “‘Round Midnight”, in which he also appeared as an actor. Numerous television appearances over the years led to two hosting assignments in the 1980s: “Rock School” on PBS and Showtime’s “Coast To Coast”.

After an adventurous 1994 project for Mercury Records, ‘Dis Is Da Drum’, he moved to the Verve label, forming an all-star band to record 1996’s Grammy-winning ‘The New Standard’. In 1997, an album of duets with Wayne Shorter, ‘1+1’, was released.

The legendary Headhunters reunited in 1998, recording an album for Herbie’s own Verve-distributed imprint, and touring with the Dave Matthews Band. That year also marked the recording and release of ‘Gershwin’s World’, which included collaborators Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Kathleen Battle, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Wayne Shorter and Chick Corea. ‘Gershwin’s World’ won three Grammys in 1999, including Best Traditional Jazz Album and Best R&B Vocal Performance for Stevie Wonder’s “St. Louis Blues.”

Herbie reunited with Bill Laswell to collaborate with some young hip-hop and techno artists on 2001’s FUTURE2FUTURE. He also joined with Roy Hargrove and Michael Brecker in 2002 to record a live concert album, ‘Directions In Music: Live at Massey Hall’, a tribute to John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

‘Possibilities’, released in August 2005, teamed Herbie with many popular artists, such as Sting, Annie Lennox, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Paul Simon, Carlos Santana, Joss Stone and Damien Rice. That year, he played a number of concert dates with a re-staffed Headhunters, and became the first-ever Artist-In-Residence at the Tennessee-based festival Bonnaroo.

In 2007, Hancock recorded and released ‘River: The Joni Letters’, a tribute to longtime friend and collaborator Joni Mitchell featuring Wayne Shorter, guitarist Lionel Loueke, bassist Dave Holland and drummer

Vinnie Colaiuta and co-produced by Larry Klein. He enlisted vocalists Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Corinne Bailey Rae, Luciana Souza, Leonard Cohen and Mitchell herself to perform songs she wrote or was inspired by. The album received glowing reviews and was a year-end Top 10 choice for many critics. It also garnered three Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year; Herbie is one of only a handful of jazz musicians ever to receive that honor.

In 2010 Hancock released the critically-acclaimed CD, ‘Herbie Hancock’s The Imagine Project,’ winner of two 20ll Grammy Awards for Best Pop Collaboration and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. Utilizing the universal language of music to express its central themes of peace and global responsibility, the ‘Imagine’ project was recorded around the world and features a stellar group of musicians including Jeff Beck, Seal,Pink, Dave Matthews, The Chieftains, Lionel Loueke, Oumou Sangare, Konono #l, Anoushka Shankar, Chaka Khan, Marcus Miller, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Tinariwen, and Ceu.

Herbie Hancock also maintains a thriving career outside the performing stage and recording studio. Recently named by the Los Angeles Philharmonic as Creative Chair For Jazz, he currently also serves as Institute Chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, the foremost international organization devoted to the development of jazz performance and education worldwide. Hancock is also a founder of The International Committee of Artists for Peace, and was awarded the much esteemed “Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres” by French Prime Minister Francois Fillon.

In July of 2011 Hancock was designated a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. 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 ensuring equal access to the diversity of artistic expressions.” UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassadors are an outstanding group of celebrity advocates who have generously accepted to use their talent and status to help focus the world’s attention on the objectives and aims of UNESCO’s work in its fields of competence: education, culture, science and communication/information.

In December of 2013, Hancock was the recipient of a prestigious Kennedy Center Honor, and in 2014 he was was named the 2014 Norton Professor Of Poetry at Harvard University, completing his lectures series, “The Ethics Of Jazz,” as part of the Charles Eliot Norton Lecture Series for a period of six weeks. His memoir, Herbie Hancock: Possibilities, were published by Viking in 2014, and in February 2016 he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. A member of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hancock is currently in the studio at work on a new album.

Now in the sixth decade of his professional life, Herbie Hancock remains where he has always been: in the forefront of world culture, technology, business and music. Though one can’t track exactly where he will go next, he is sure to leave his inimitable imprint wherever he lands.

https://www.herbiehancock.com/biography/awards/

Awards

Award Type

Award Category

Name
2014
- Jazz Foundation of America
  
  Lifetime Achievement Award
2014
- SF Jazz
  
  Lifetime Achievement Award
2014
- Harvard
  
  Norton Professor of Poetry
2013
- Kennedy Center Honors
2012
- UNESCO
  
  Ambassador of Goodwill
2011
- Grammy®
  
  Best Pop Collaboration w/ Vocals
  
  The Imagine Project
- Grammy®
  
  Best Improvised Jazz Solo
  
  The Imagine Project
2007
- Grammy®
  
  Album Of The Year
  
  River: The Joni Letters
- Grammy®
  
  Best Contemporary Jazz Album
  
  River: The Joni Letters
2004
- Grammy®
  NEA Jazz Masters Award
  
  Best Jazz Instrumental Solo
  
  Speak Like A Child
- NEA
  
  Jazz Masters Award
2002
- Grammy®
  
  Best Jazz Instrumental Album
  
  Directions In Music
- Grammy®
  
  Best Jazz Instrumental Solo
  
  My Ship
2001
- VH1's 100 Greatest Videos
  
  10th Greatest Video
  
  Rockit
1998
- Grammy®
  
  Best Jazz Instrumental Performance
  
  Gershwin's World
- Grammy®
  
  Best Instrumental Arrangement
  Accompanying Vocals
  
  St. Louis Blues
1997
- Soul Train Music Award
  
  Best Jazz Album
  
  The New Standard
- Festival International Jazz de Montreal Prix
  
  Best Jazz Album
  
  Miles Davis
1996
- Grammy®
  
  Best Instrumental Composition
  
  Manhattan (Island of Lights and Love)
1994
- Grammy®
  
  Best Jazz Instrumental Album
  By A Group
  
  A Tribute to Miles
1989
- BMI
  
  Film Music Award
  
  Colors
1988
- Playboy
  
  Music Poll
  
  Best Jazz Instrumentalist
- Keyboard Magazine
  
  Best Jazz Pianist
- BMI
  
  TV/Film Award
  
  25yrs Affiliation
1987
- Keyboard Magazine
  Readers' Poll
  
  Best Jazz Keyboardist
- Keyboard Magazine
  Readers' Poll
  
  Best Jazz Keyboardist
- Grammy®
  
  Best Instrumental Composition
  
  Call Sheet Blues
- Playboy Music Poll
  
  Best R&B Instrumentalist
1986
- Los Angeles Film Critics Association
  
  Best Score
  
  Round Midnight
- Oscar®
  
  Best Original Score
  
  Round Midnight
- BMI
  
  Film Music Award
  
  Round Midnight
- Playboy Music Poll
  
  Best Jazz Keyboardist
- Clio Award
- U.S. Radio Award
  
  Best Original Music Scoring
  
  Thom McAnn Shoes
1985
- Playboy Music Poll
  
  Best Jazz Group
- Playboy Music Poll
  
  Best Jazz Album
  
  Future Shock
- Gold Note Jazz Awards
  
  Best R&B Instrumental Performance
  
  Rockit
- National Black MBA Association
  
  Member, NY Chapter
- France
  
  Officer of The Order of Arts & Letters
1984
- MTV Video Awards
  
  Most Experimental Video
  
  Rockit
- MTV Video Awards
  
  Best Art Direction in a Video
  
  Rockit
- MTV Video Awards
  
  Best Concept Video
  
  Rockit
- MTV Video Awards
  
  Best Video Editing
  
  Rockit
- MTV Video Awards
  
  Best Special Effects in a Video
  
  Rockit
- Grammy®
  
  Best R&B Instrumental Performance
  
  Sound-System
1983
- Keyboard Magazine Readers Poll
  
  Best Jazz & Pop Keyboardist
- Grammy®
  
  Best R&B Instrumental Performance
  
  Rockit

Herbie has received six honorary doctorates

2013

Columbia College
2011

Julliard
2009

Bentley University
1997

CSU Fresno
1986

Berklee College of Music
1972

Grinnell College

Music

http://www.ted.com/speakers/herbie_hancock.html

TED Talks: Ideas Worth Spreading

Speakers Herbie Hancock: Jazz legend

Herbie Hancock is an iconic jazz musician, known as much for his mastery of the traditional as he is for entirely changing the game.

Why you should listen to him:

Pianist and composer Herbie Hancock has been a part of every permutation and development of both acoustic and electronic jazz since his career began. He truly stepped into the spotlight in 1963, releasing his first hit “Watermelon Man” and then joining the Miles Davis Quintet. From these promising beginnings, Hancock went on to outdo all expectations, earning critical acclaim, the respect of his peers and commercial success. He has generated more than 50 albums, won 12 Grammys, received an Academy Award and even scored five MTV Awards in the 1980s.

Hancock is known for his extraordinary career as well as for his penchant for experimentation. A double major in music and electrical engineering at college, his fascination with musical gadgets led him to become one of the first jazz pianists to work with electronic keyboards. As well as using unexpected instruments, Hancock’s landmark albums blurred the boundaries of music, effortlessly mixing jazz with the once unlikely partners of funk, soul, rhythm and blues, and more. Hancock’s experimentation has changed the face of jazz forever, and even as he approaches his 70th year he continues to perform, create, push the envelope and amaze.

International Jazz Day 2014: Herbie Hancock & Marcus Miller: Artists for Peace and Cultural Diplomacy

Published on May 14, 2014

This panel discussion features UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock and UNESCO Artist for Peace Marcus Miller. Organized by UNESCO and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, the 2014 International Jazz Day Daytime Educational Program took place at the Osaka School of Music in Osaka, Japan.

http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/norton-lecture

The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship in Poetry was endowed in 1925 by C.C. Stillman (Harvard 1898). Incumbents are in residence through their tenure of the Chair, and deliver six lectures. The term "poetry" is interpreted in the broadest sense, including all poetic expression in language, music, or fine arts. Previous holders of the Chair include Gilbert Murray (1926-27), T.S. Eliot (1932-33), Igor Stravinsky (1939-40), Paul Hindemith (1949-50), Ben Shahn (1956-57), Leonard Bernstein (1972-73), Frank Stella (1982-84), John Cage (1988-89), and Luciano Berio (1992-93).

The Norton Lecturer in 2014 is Herbie Hancock.

THE ETHICS OF JAZZ

4pm, Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street

Set 1 - THE WISDOM OF MILES DAVIS
Monday, February 3

Set 2 - BREAKING THE RULES
Wednesday, February 12

Set 3 - CULTURAL DIPLOMACY AND THE VOICE OF FREEDOM
Thursday, February 27

Set 4 - INNOVATION AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Monday, March 10

Set 5 - BUDDHISM AND CREATIVITY
Monday, March 24

Set 6 - ONCE UPON A TIME…
Monday, March 31

Events are free, but tickets are required. Tickets will be available starting at noon on the day of each lecture at Sanders Theatre and online (handling fee applies). Limit of 2 tickets per person. Tickets valid until 3:45 p.m. on the day of the event.

2014 Norton Lectures Committee:

Homi K. Bhabha
Director, the Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University

Chaya Czernowin
Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music, Harvard University

Ingrid Monson
Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music, Harvard University

Carol Oja
William Powell Mason Professor of Music, Harvard University

Martin Puchner
Byron and Anita Wien Professor of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature, Harvard University

Alex Rehding
Fanny Peabody Professor of Music, Harvard University

David Schiff
R.P. Wollenberg Professor of Music, Reed College

Anne Shreffler
James Edward Ditson Professor of Music, Harvard University

Diana Sorensen
Dean of Arts and Humanities, Harvard University

Selected past lectures:

T.S. Eliot, 1932-33
Igor Stravinsky, 1939-40
e.e. cummings, 1952-53
Jorge Luis Borges, 1967-68
Lionel Trilling, 1969-70
Leonard Bernstein, 1972-73 (For audio excerpts, click here.)
Italo Calvino, 1985-86
John Cage, 1988-89
John Ashbery, 1989-90
Nadine Gordimer, 1994-95
George Steiner, 2001-02
Orhan Pamuk, 2009-10
William Kentridge, 2011-12

Herbie Hancock | Profile on TED.com

TED.COM

Filmed February 2009 at TED2009

Herbie Hancock: An all-star set:

Herbie Hancock--Piano, computer generated keyboards

Marcus Miller--Bass guitar

Harvey Mason--Drums

http://www.ted.com/talks/herbie_hancock_s_all_star_set

Herbie Hancock- the Norton Lectures at Harvard 2014:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626804579362732405104134

Music

The Genius of Miles
by Stuart Isacoff
Feb. 5, 2014
Wall Street Journal

Herbie Hancock Getty Images

Cambridge, Mass.

Icon, virtuoso, revolutionary, provocateur, the "Prince of Darkness" and a shining light, trumpeter Miles Davis was to jazz what Johannes Kepler was to planetary motion—radically redefining the way we think about the subject. And he did so more than once, shifting styles relentlessly like the boxer he wanted to be—darting musically from here to there, changing up his approaches unexpectedly, feinting just when you thought you had him pegged.

Decade-by-decade, as he moved from bebop to cool jazz, free-form experimentalism to jazz-rock fusion, the rest of the jazz world followed. So it's not surprising that Herbie Hancock, 73, who helped shape the sounds of Davis's pathbreaking quintet of the 1960s, would open his 2014 Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University on Monday (the first in a series of six over a two-month period, entitled "The Ethics of Jazz") with "The Wisdom of Miles Davis."

Mr. Hancock is himself a major force in music—most recently, the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor in 2013, with 14 Grammy Awards and an Academy Award to his credit. In his autobiography, Davis called him "the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk. ... I haven't heard anybody yet who has come after him."

Yet the speaker and subject were an unusual choice for the Norton lectures, which have been given by such cultural standard-bearers as T.S. Eliot (on the relation of criticism to poetry), Lionel Trilling (on "Sincerity and Authenticity"), Igor Stravinsky (on the "Poetics of Music"), Leonard Bernstein (on seeing music through the lens of Noam Chomsky's literary theories) and William Kentridge (on visual art). Clearly, after 88 years, it was time for a jazz master to be invited to the table. ( Homi K. Bhabha, director of Harvard's Mahindra Humanities Center, noted with pride that Mr. Hancock was also the first African-American to be so honored, but at this late date that hardly reflects well on Harvard. It brought to mind the lamentable early history of the Pulitzer Prize commission, especially in its refusal to recognize Duke Ellington. )

The lecture took place in the Sanders Theatre, a 1,166-seat structure inspired by Christopher Wren's Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford University, with rich, dark wood pews and stained-glass windows. It was nearly full. The audience of students, professional musicians (including pianists Danilo Perez and Vijay Iyer ) and longtime fans greeted him with sustained applause, followed by reverential silence.

On stage, along with Mr. Hancock's speaker's podium, was a piano. (At the end of the session, he was cajoled into playing it, offering a haunting, otherworldly version of "Stella by Starlight.") Like his predecessors, the pianist was thought provoking. In his view, the genius of Davis is rooted in the kind of ethical stance he also finds in his own Buddhist practice: placing a high value on collaboration, an openness to new ways of seeing and a generosity of spirit. The trumpeter often demonstrated this in ways only a master musician could.

Mr. Hancock recounted, for example, one extraordinary moment in Stockholm in 1967, during a performance by the quintet. "This night was magical," he remembered. "We were communicating almost telepathically, playing 'So What'"—one of the group's signature pieces. "Wayne [Shorter] had taken his solo. Miles was playing and building and building, and then I played the wrong chord. It was so, so wrong. In an instant, time stood still and I felt totally shattered. Miles took a breath. And then he played this phrase that made my chord right. It didn't seem possible. I still don't know how he did it. But Miles hadn't heard it as a wrong chord—he took it as an unexpected chord. He didn't judge what I played. To use a Buddhist turn of phrase, he turned poison into medicine."

Other examples bolstered this point. While first auditioning to join the quintet, in the spring of 1963, Mr. Hancock was placed, along with another newcomer, drummer Tony Williams, and bassist Ron Carter, in the basement of Davis's New York home; they were told to play together as the trumpeter wandered off to another part of the house. This went on for days. It turned out that Davis spent that time listening to them over an intercom. "He knew his presence would intimidate us," explains Mr. Hancock. He was fostering the group's process of bonding by withdrawing from the scene.

And then there was the time when Mr. Hancock felt musically stuck. "Everything I played sounded the same," he confessed. Davis saw his frustration and offered some enigmatic advice. "Don't play the butter notes," he said.

"Butter notes?" thought Mr. Hancock. "What is that? Does 'butter' mean 'fat'? Or does it mean 'obvious'? I had to think about it, and finally realized that if I left out the notes that most clearly define the chords it would allow the harmonies to open up to various views. It affected my playing for the rest of my life. And the audience responded—they felt my openness."

As we sat and chatted together after the lecture, Mr. Hancock was expansive on the ethical dimensions of the Davis legacy. Take those dramatic shifts of style. They might be seen as a flitting from one musical territory to another, he explained. "Or, you could say that the palette he chose to explore was one broad territory. Miles was not the kind of person who closed doors. With him, anything could be a source of inspiration."

Mr. Hancock applies these lessons to more than just music. When a student asked during a Q&A at the end of the lecture, "How do I develop a beautiful touch?" Mr. Hancock replied, "Develop your life."

"Every aspect of the life that you live can be used as a source for creativity," he told me. He found the "classroom of Miles Davis to be potent, intoxicating, stimulating." It was a place where he learned the value of commitment ("There is no Plan B"), as well as how to "turn your demons into allies." Those ideas have spurred him to devote time and energy as a Good Will Ambassador for Unesco, as well as to teaching and performing. In many ways, the world has not been doing so well. Through the ethics of jazz and the model of Miles Davis, he believes, "we can work toward developing the orchestra of life, for a sustainable future."

Mr. Isacoff's latest book is "A Natural History of the Piano" (Knopf).

http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/

HERBIE HANCOCK IS A 2013 KENNEDY CENTER HONOREE

(Pianist, keyboardist, bandleader and composer; born April 12, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois)

As far back as ragtime's early days and the birth of jazz, American music's love of the keyboard has never been a casual fling. It's the real thing, and above all it is free. Freedom is at the very heart of that constantly changing, most American of all art forms, and few, if any, jazz masters have made as much of that freedom as Herbie Hancock.

Beginning as a classical piano prodigy who played with the Chicago Symphony at the age of 11, learning jazz on his own in high school simply by listening, Hancock quickly developed into a major force of change and a dazzling example of sheer musical beauty by expanding the possibilities of the keyboard from the grand piano to synthesizers, iPads and beyond. As the great Miles Davis put it in his autobiography, "Herbie was the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and I haven't heard anybody yet who has come after him."

He's been hailed by the New Yorker as "one of the most accomplished and inventive modern jazz pianists." Today, at 73, "Hancock is still further ahead of the technological curve than counterparts a third his age," said the Vancouver Sun after a 2013 concert. "Herbie Hancock isn't so much a chameleon as he is a true master of mutation."

Hancock has found a way to fuse Miles Davis and Maurice Ravel, zigzagging between classical music and pop, funk, gospel, soul and the blues—not so much ignoring as redefining the frontiers of jazz. With an Oscar and 14 Grammys and counting to his name, as well as with prestigious positions as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and a professor at UCLA, Hancock is a true living treasure of American culture.

Herbert Jeffrey Hancock was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1940. The piano came first, and his talent was noticed: young Herbie played a Mozart concerto with the Chicago Symphony at the age of 11. He never had a jazz teacher, but by his own account he developed an ear for jazz and a profound understanding of harmony by listening to records by the Hi-Los and others as well as by deep listening of Ravel and Debussy. "I started picking that stuff out," Hancock recalled, "my ear was happening… Bill Evans and Ravel, and Gil Evans finally, you know, that's where it really came from."

He graduated from Grinnell College with a degree in music and electrical engineering, following this by studies in composition with the opera composer Vittorio Giannini at the Manhattan School of Music. New Yorkers heard him play, and in 1962 Blue Note released Hancock's first solo album, Takin' Off, including his first hit "Watermelon Man." That was a prelude to the history Hancock was about to make.

In 1963 he joined the Miles Davis Quintet, possibly the pinnacle of Davis' own jazz artistry and certainly one of the great ensembles in the history of jazz. It was here that Hancock had a chance to explore rhythms, harmonics, colors and every other possibility available at his fingertips. Tellingly, Hancock always played well with others—as any true jazz master should. While still in the Miles Davis Quintet, he also played and recorded as a sideman with other great musicians including Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Bobby Hutcherson, Donald Byrd and Freddie Hubbard.

Hancock's own albums, beginning with Empyrean Isles in 1964 and Maiden Voyage in 1965, set the tone for both the jazz standards and the surprises that followed. In 1966, Hancock composed the original soundtrack score for Michelangelo Antonioni's era-defining existentialist masterpiece Blow-Up, the first of several film scores that culminated in Hancock's Academy Award–winning jazz score for Bertrand Tavernier's 'Round Midnight, in which Hancock also acted to wide acclaim.

He then ventured full-speed ahead into electronic music, inspired by his mentor Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. Fat Albert Rotunda and Mwandishi revealed an adventurous new sextet where Hancock became one of the first jazz pianists to fully embrace electronic keyboards, alongside bassist Buster Williams, drummer Billy Hart and a trio of horn players comprised of Eddie Henderson, Julian Piester, and Bannie Maupin. The ensemble became a septet with the addition of Patrick Gleeson, who helped Hancock program the synthesizers.

Changing lineups again, Hancock's albums Head Hunters, Manchild and Secrets drew a not-so-straight line to a new funk and jazz fusion. The aptly titled Future Shock, the improbably disco-inflected Sunlight and the mainstream jazz hit "Rockit" kept Hancock before the public in all its diversity. He appeared at the Grammys jamming with Stevie Wonder, Howard Jones and Thomas Dolby; was a guest on Arcadia's album So Red the Rose; and recorded a moving 1994 Tribute to Miles with his friends Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter and Wallace Roney. That album won a Grammy.

Seeking out ever-newer collaborations, Hancock released a duet album called Possibilities in 2005, with an impressive lineup of a new generation of stars including Annie Lennox, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Sting and others. A tribute to his old friend Joni Mitchell followed in Hancock's River: The Joni Letters, supported vocally by Tina Turner, Leonard Cohen and Norah Jones. River won the 2008 Album of the Year Grammy, one of only a handful of jazz musicians ever to receive that honor. On January 18, 2009, Hancock performed at the We Are One concert that opened the inaugural celebrations for President Barack Obama.

The music world continues to be surprised. Take it from the man himself. "I think people have learned that Herbie Hancock can be defined as someone that you won't be able to figure out what he's going to do next," said Hancock after his introduction to the Grammy Hall of Fame. "The sky is the limit as far as I'm concerned."

Herbie Hancock

Explore the Arts provides viewers with diverse biographic, multimedia and interactive explorations into the rich field of the performing arts, plus exclusive access to content.

KENNEDY-CENTER.ORG

The Kennedy Center Honors Herbie Hancock

Recorded on December 8, 2013 at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, DC. :

Herbie Hancock http://amzn.to/1djnLdm ITunes http://bit.ly/Herbietns

1) "Walkin'" composed by Richard Carpenter.

Terence Blanchard - Trumpet
Wayne Shorter - Soprano Saxophone
Chick Corea - Piano
Dave Holland - Bass
Jack DeJohnette - Drums

2) "Watermelon Man" composed by Herbie Hancock.

Terence Blanchard - Trumpet
Joshua Redman - Tenor Saxophone
Kurt Rosenwinkel - Guitar
Aaron Parks - Fender Rhodes
James Genus - Bass
Terri Lyne Carrington - Drums

3) "Cantaloupe Island" composed by Herbie Hancock.
4) "Rockit" composed by Herbie Hancock, Bill Laswell & Michael Beinhorn.

Snoop Dogg - MC
Mix Master Mike - Turntables
Terence Blanchard - Trumpet
Michael Bearden - Keyboards
Lionel Loueke - Guitar
Marcus Miller - Electric Bass
Vinnie Colaiuta - Drums
...among others.

5) "Chameleon" composed by Herbie Hancock, featuring all of the above.

http://panopticonreview.blogspot.com/2013/04/long-live-herbie-hancock-b-april-12-1040.html

Friday, April 12, 2013

LONG LIVE HERBIE HANCOCK! (b. April 12, 1940):

LEGENDARY PIANIST AND COMPOSER,

JAZZ INNOVATOR AND WORLD MUSIC PIONEER

HERBIE HANCOCK

(b. April 12, 1940)

All,

The incredibly versatile and consistently creative Herbie Hancock (b. April 12, 1940) has been and continues to be one of the most important and influential pianists and composers in the world over the past half century. Still going strong at age 73 the ever youthful and dynamic Hancock has not only played on an astonishing number of outstanding recordings as a leader and sideman of many excellent ensembles since 1962 but has also played and recorded with an extraordinary and truly eclectic list of contemporary iconic musicians and composers that includes everyone from Wayne Shorter, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner, Eric Dolphy, Bobby Hutcherson, Grachan Moncur, Tony Williams, Joe Henderson, Donald Byrd, Jackie McLean, Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman, Lee Morgan and Sam Rivers to Herbie's stellar six year membership in the famed Miles Davis "Second Great Quintet" from 1963-1969 that cemented Hancock's international reputation as one of the leading and most imaginative musicians and composers in the pantheon of the modern Jazz tradition since WWII. From this pinnacle of influence and inspiration Hancock has gone on to further excel in a very wide and broad array of musical styles and genres that often pioneered in the challenging creative synthesis of various styles of jazz with the best in pop, rhythm and blues, funk, and ethnic/world music traditions from the entire range of global styles and structural forms. Thus it is with great pleasure and genuine gratitude that we pay homage to the work and life of this artistic giant who continues to epitomize the very best in the always fecund African American tradition. Happy Birthday Herbie!...

Kofi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie_Hancock

Herbie Hancock

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer.^[2] Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, using a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, Head Hunters.^[3]

Hancock's best-known compositions include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man", "Maiden Voyage", and "Chameleon", all of which are jazz standards. During the 1980s, he enjoyed a hit single with the electronic instrumental "Rockit", a collaboration with bassist/producer Bill Laswell. Hancock has won an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for his 2007 Joni Mitchell tribute album River: The Joni Letters.

Since 2012, Hancock has served as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.^[4] He is also the chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz^[4] (known as the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz until 2019).

Early life

Hancock was born in Chicago, the son of Winnie Belle (née Griffin), a secretary, and Wayman Edward Hancock, a government meat inspector. His parents named him after the singer and actor Herb Jeffries.^[5] He attended Hyde Park High School.^[6] Like many jazz pianists, Hancock started with a classical education.^[7] He started playing piano when he was seven years old, and his talent was recognized early. Considered a child prodigy,^[8] he played the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 26 in D Major, K. 537 (Coronation) at a young people's concert on February 5, 1952, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (led by CSO assistant conductor George Schick) at age 11.^[9]

Throughout his teens, Hancock never had a jazz teacher; however, he developed his ear and sense of harmony by listening to the records of jazz pianists such as George Shearing, Erroll Garner, Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson. He was also influenced by records of the vocal group the Hi-Lo's. In his words:

by the time I actually heard the Hi-Lo's, I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings – like the harmonies I used on Speak Like a Child – just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept ... he and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it came from.^[10]

In 1960, he heard Chris Anderson play just once and begged him to accept him as a student.^[11] Hancock often mentions Anderson as his harmonic guru.^[12]

Hancock graduated from Grinnell College in 1960^[13] with degrees in electrical engineering and music. Hancock then moved to Chicago,^[13] and began working with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins. During this time he also took courses at Roosevelt University.^[14] Grinnell also awarded him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1972.^[9]^[15] Byrd was attending the Manhattan School of Music in New York at the time and suggested that Hancock study composition with Vittorio Giannini (which he did for a short time in 1960). The pianist quickly earned a reputation, and played subsequent sessions with Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods.

He recorded his first solo album Takin' Off for Blue Note Records in 1962. "Watermelon Man" (from Takin' Off) was to provide Mongo Santamaría with a hit single, but more importantly for Hancock, Takin' Off caught the attention of Miles Davis, who was at that time assembling a new band. Hancock was introduced to Davis by the young drummer Tony Williams, a member of the new band.

Career

Miles Davis Quintet (1963–1968) and Blue Note Records (1962–1969)

Hancock received considerable attention when, in May 1963,^[9] he joined Davis's Second Great Quintet. Davis personally sought out Hancock, whom he saw as one of the most promising talents in jazz. The rhythm section Davis organized was young but effective, comprising bassist Ron Carter, 17-year-old drummer Williams, and Hancock on piano. After George Coleman and Sam Rivers each took a turn at the saxophone spot, the quintet gelled with Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone. This quintet is often regarded as one of the finest jazz ensembles^[16] yet.

While in Davis's band, Hancock also found time to record dozens of sessions for the Blue Note label, both under his own name and as a sideman with other musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Williams, Grant Green, Bobby Hutcherson, Rivers, Byrd, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, and Eric Dolphy.

Hancock also recorded several less-well-known but still critically acclaimed albums with larger ensembles – My Point of View (1963), Speak Like a Child (1968) and The Prisoner (1969), albums which featured flugelhorn, alto flute and bass trombone in addition to the traditional jazz instrumentation. 1963's Inventions and Dimensions was an album of almost entirely improvised music, teaming Hancock with bassist Paul Chambers and two Latin percussionists, Willie Bobo and Osvaldo "Chihuahua" Martinez.

During this period, Hancock also composed the score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup (1966), the first of many film soundtracks he recorded in his career. As well as feature film soundtracks, Hancock recorded a number of musical themes used on American television commercials for such then-well-known products as Pillsbury's Space Food Sticks, Standard Oil, Tab diet cola, and Virginia Slims cigarettes. Hancock also wrote, arranged and conducted a spy type theme for a series of F. William Free commercials for Silva Thins cigarettes. Hancock liked it so much he wished to record it as a song but the ad agency would not let him. He rewrote the harmony, tempo and tone and recorded the piece as the track "He Who Lives in Fear" from his The Prisoner album of 1969.^[17]

Davis had begun incorporating elements of rock and popular music into his recordings by the end of Hancock's tenure with the band. Despite some initial reluctance, Hancock began doubling on electric keyboards, including the Fender Rhodes electric piano at Davis's insistence. Hancock adapted quickly to the new instruments, which proved to be important in his future artistic endeavors.

Under the pretext that he had returned late from a honeymoon in Brazil, Hancock was dismissed from Davis's band.^[18] In the summer of 1968 Hancock formed his own sextet. However, although Davis soon disbanded his quintet to search for a new sound, Hancock, despite his departure from the working band, continued to appear on Davis records for the next few years. Appearances included In a Silent Way, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and On the Corner.

Fat Albert (1969) and Mwandishi era (1971–1973)

Hancock left Blue Note in 1969, signing with Warner Bros. Records. In 1969, Hancock composed the soundtrack for Bill Cosby's animated prime-time television special Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert.^[19] Music from the soundtrack was later included on Fat Albert Rotunda (1969), an R&B-inspired album with strong jazz overtones. One of the jazzier songs on the record, the moody ballad "Tell Me a Bedtime Story", was later re-worked as a more electronic sounding song for the Quincy Jones album Sounds...and Stuff Like That!! (1978).

Hancock became fascinated with electronic musical instruments. Together with the profound influence of Davis's Bitches Brew (1970), this fascination culminated in a series of albums in which electronic instruments were coupled with acoustic instruments.

Hancock's first ventures into electronic music started with a sextet comprising Hancock, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart, and a trio of horn players: Eddie Henderson (trumpet), Julian Priester (trombone), and multireedist Bennie Maupin. Patrick Gleeson was eventually added to the mix to play and program the synthesizers.

The sextet, later a septet with the addition of Gleeson, made three albums under Hancock's name: Mwandishi (1971), Crossings (1972) (both on Warner Bros. Records), and Sextant (1973) (released on Columbia Records); two more, Realization and Inside Out, were recorded under Henderson's name with essentially the same personnel. The music exhibited strong improvisational aspect beyond the confines of jazz mainstream and showed influence from the electronic music of contemporary classical composers.

Hancock's three records released in 1971–73 later became known as the "Mwandishi" albums, so-called after a Swahili name Hancock sometimes used during this era ("Mwandishi" is Swahili for "writer"). The first two, including Fat Albert Rotunda were made available on the 2-CD set Mwandishi: the Complete Warner Bros. Recordings, released in 1994. "Hornets" was later revised on the 2001 album Future2Future as "Virtual Hornets".

Among the instruments Hancock and Gleeson used were Fender Rhodes piano, ARP Odyssey, ARP 2600, ARP Pro Soloist Synthesizer, a Mellotron and the Moog synthesizer III.

From Head Hunters (1973) to Secrets (1976)

Hancock formed The Headhunters, keeping only Maupin from the sextet and adding bassist Paul Jackson, percussionist Bill Summers, and drummer Harvey Mason. The album Head Hunters (1973) was a hit, crossing over to pop audiences but criticized within his jazz audience.^[20] Stephen Erlewine, in a retrospective summary for AllMusic, said, "Head Hunters still sounds fresh and vital three decades after its initial release, and its genre-bending proved vastly influential on not only jazz, but funk, soul, and hip-hop."^[21]

Drummer Mason was replaced by Mike Clark, and the band released a second album, Thrust, in 1974. (A live album from a Japan performance, consisting of compositions from those first two Head Hunters releases was released in 1975 as Flood). This was almost as well received as its predecessor, if not attaining the same level of commercial success. The Headhunters made another successful album called Survival of the Fittest in 1975 without Hancock, while Hancock himself started to make even more commercial albums, often featuring members of the band, but no longer billed as The Headhunters. The Headhunters reunited with Hancock in 1998 for Return of the Headhunters, and a version of the band (featuring Jackson and Clark) continues to play and record.

In 1973, Hancock composed his soundtrack to the controversial film The Spook Who Sat by the Door.^[22] Then in 1974, he composed the soundtrack to the first Death Wish film. One of his memorable songs, "Joanna's Theme", was re-recorded in 1997 on his duet album with Shorter, 1+1.

Hancock's next jazz-funk albums of the 1970s were Man-Child (1975) and Secrets (1976), which point toward the more commercial direction Hancock would take over the next decade. These albums feature the members of the Headhunters band, but also a variety of other musicians in important roles.

From V.S.O.P. (1976) to Future Shock (1983)

In 1978, Hancock recorded a duet with Chick Corea, who replaced him in the Davis band a decade earlier. Hancock also released a solo acoustic piano album, The Piano (1979), which was released only in Japan. (It was released in the US in 2004). Other Japan-only albums include Dedication (1974), V.S.O.P.'s Tempest in the Colosseum (1977), and Direct Step (1978). VSOP: Live Under the Sky was a VSOP album remastered for the US in 2004 and included a second concert from the tour in July 1979.

From 1978 to 1982, Hancock recorded many albums of jazz-inflected disco and pop music, beginning with Sunlight (featuring guest musicians including Williams and Pastorius on the last track) (1978). Singing through a vocoder, he earned a British hit,^[23] "I Thought It Was You", although critics were unimpressed.^[24] This led to more vocoder on his next album, Feets, Don't Fail Me Now (1979), which gave him another UK hit in "You Bet Your Love".^[23]

Hancock toured with Williams and Carter in 1981, recording Herbie Hancock Trio, a five-track album released only in Japan. A month later, he recorded Quartet with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, released in the US the following year. Hancock, Williams, and Carter toured internationally with Wynton Marsalis and his brother, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, in what was known as "VSOP II". This quintet can be heard on Wynton Marsalis's debut album on Columbia (1981). In 1984 VSOP II performed at the Playboy Jazz Festival as a sextet with Hancock, Williams, Carter, the Marsalis Brothers, and Bobby McFerrin.

In 1982, Hancock contributed to the album New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84) by Simple Minds, playing a synthesizer solo on the track "Hunter and the Hunted".

In 1983, Hancock had a pop hit with the Grammy Award-winning single "Rockit" from the album Future Shock. It was the first jazz hip-hop song^[25]^[26]^[27] and became a worldwide anthem for breakdancers and for hip-hop in the 1980s.^[28]^[29] It was the first mainstream single to feature scratching, and also featured an innovative animated music video, which was directed by Godley and Creme and showed several robot-like artworks by Jim Whiting. The video was a hit on MTV and reached No. 8 in the UK.^[30] The video won in five categories at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards. This single ushered in a collaboration with noted bassist and producer Bill Laswell. Hancock experimented with electronic music on a string of three LPs produced by Laswell: Future Shock (1983), the Grammy Award-winning Sound-System (1984), and Perfect Machine (1988).

During this period, he appeared onstage at the Grammy Awards with Stevie Wonder, Howard Jones, and Thomas Dolby, in a synthesizer jam. Lesser known works from the 1980s are the live album Jazz Africa (1987) and the studio album Village Life (1984), which were recorded with Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso. Also, in 1985 Hancock performed as a guest on the album So Red the Rose (1985) by the Duran Duran spinoff group Arcadia. He also provided introductory and closing comments for the PBS rebroadcast in the United States of the BBC educational series from the mid-1980s, Rockschool (not to be confused with the most recent Gene Simmons' Rock School series).

In 1986, Hancock performed and acted in the film 'Round Midnight. He also wrote the score/soundtrack, for which he won an Academy Award for Original Music Score. His film work was prolific during the 1980s, and included the scores to A Soldier's Story (1984), Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986), Action Jackson (1988 with Michael Kamen), Colors (1988), and the Eddie Murphy comedy Harlem Nights (1989). Often he would also write music for TV commercials. "Maiden Voyage", in fact, started out as a cologne advertisement. At the end of the Perfect Machine tour, Hancock decided to leave Columbia Records after a 15-plus-year relationship.

1990s to 2000

This departure resulted in a recording hiatus and several compilations during the first half of the 1990s.^[31] Hancock resurfaced together with Carter, Williams, Shorter, and Davis admirer Wallace Roney to record A Tribute to Miles, which was released in 1994. The album contained two live recordings and studio recording songs, with Roney playing Davis's part as trumpet player. The album won a Grammy for best group album. Hancock also toured with Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland and Pat Metheny in 1990 on their Parallel Realities tour, which included a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1990, and scored the 1991 comedy film Livin' Large, which starred Terrence C. Carson.

Hancock's next album, Dis Is da Drum, released in 1994, saw him return to acid jazz. Also in 1994, he appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album, meant to raise awareness and funds in support of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the African-American community, was heralded as "Album of the Year" by Time magazine.

1995's The New Standard found Hancock and an all-star band including John Scofield, DeJohnette and Michael Brecker, interpreting pop songs by Nirvana, Stevie Wonder, the Beatles, Prince, Peter Gabriel and others.

A 1997 duet album with Shorter, entitled 1+1, was successful; the song "Aung San Suu Kyi" winning the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition. Hancock also achieved great success in 1998 with his album Gershwin's World, which featured readings of George and Ira Gershwin standards by Hancock and a plethora of guest stars, including Wonder, Joni Mitchell and Shorter. Hancock toured the world in support of Gershwin's World with a sextet that featured Cyro Baptista, Terri Lynne Carrington, Ira Coleman, Eli Degibri and Eddie Henderson.

2000 to 2009

In 2001, Hancock recorded Future2Future, which reunited Hancock with Laswell and featured doses of electronica as well as turntablist Rob Swift of The X-Ecutioners. Hancock later toured with the band, and released a concert DVD with a different lineup, which also included the "Rockit" music video. Also in 2001 Hancock partnered with Brecker and Roy Hargrove to record a live concert album saluting Davis and John Coltrane, entitled Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall, recorded live in Toronto. The threesome toured to support the album, and toured on-and-off through 2005.

The year 2005 saw the release of a duet album called Possibilities. It featured duets with Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, Annie Lennox, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Sting and others. In 2006, Possibilities was nominated for Grammy Awards in two categories: "A Song for You" (featuring Aguilera) was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, and "Gelo No Montanha" (featuring Trey Anastasio on guitar) was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Performance, although neither nomination resulted in an award.

Also in 2005, Hancock toured Europe with a new quartet that included Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke, and explored textures ranging from ambient to straight jazz to African music. Plus, during the summer of 2005, Hancock re-staffed the Headhunters and went on tour with them, including a performance at The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. This lineup did not consist of any of the original Headhunters musicians. The group included Marcus Miller, Carrington, Loueke and Mayer. Hancock also served as the first artist in residence for Bonnaroo that summer.

Also in 2006, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (which bought out Hancock's old label, Columbia Records) released the two-disc retrospective The Essential Herbie Hancock. This set was the first compilation of his work at Warner Bros., Blue Note, Columbia and Verve/Polygram. This became Hancock's second major compilation of work since the 2002 Columbia-only The Herbie Hancock Box, which was released at first in a plastic 4 × 4 cube then re-released in 2004 in a long box set. Also in 2006, Hancock recorded a new song with Josh Groban and Eric Mouquet (co-founder of Deep Forest), entitled "Machine". It is featured on Groban's CD Awake. Hancock also recorded and improvised with guitarist Loueke on Loueke's 1996 debut album Virgin Forest, on the ObliqSound label, resulting in two improvisational tracks – "Le Réveil des agneaux (The Awakening of the Lambs)" and "La Poursuite du lion (The Lion's Pursuit)".

Hancock, a longtime associate and friend of Mitchell, released a 2007 album, River: The Joni Letters, that paid tribute to her work, with Norah Jones and Tina Turner adding vocals to the album,^[32] as did Corinne Bailey Rae. Leonard Cohen contributed a spoken piece set to Hancock's piano. Mitchell herself also made an appearance. The album was released on September 25, 2007, simultaneously with the release of Mitchell's newest album at that time: Shine.^[33] River won the 2008 Album of the Year Grammy Award. The album also won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, and the song "Both Sides Now" was nominated for Best Instrumental Jazz Solo. That was only the second time in history that a jazz album won those two Grammy Awards.

On June 14, 2008, Hancock performed with others at Rhythm on the Vine at the South Coast Winery in Temecula, California, for Shriners Hospitals for Children. The event raised $515,000 for Shriners Hospital.^[34]

On January 18, 2009, Hancock performed at the We Are One concert, marking the start of inaugural celebrations for American President Barack Obama.^[35] Hancock also performed Rhapsody in Blue at the 2009 Classical BRIT Awards with classical pianist Lang Lang. Hancock was named as the Los Angeles Philharmonic's creative chair for jazz for 2010–12.^[36]

2010 to present

**Hancock in Warsaw, Poland, November 29, 2010, with his Imagine Project**

In June 2010, Hancock released The Imagine Project.

On June 5, 2010, he received an Alumni Award from his alma mater Grinnell College.^[37] On July 22, 2011, at a ceremony in Paris, he was named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of Intercultural Dialogue. In 2013, Hancock joined the University of California, Los Angeles faculty as a professor in the UCLA music department teaching jazz music.^[38]

In a June 2010 interview with Michael Gallant of Keyboard magazine, Hancock talks about his Fazioli giving him inspiration to do things.^[39]

On December 8, 2013, he was given the Kennedy Center Honors Award for achievement in the performing arts with artists like Snoop Dogg and Mixmaster Mike from the Beastie Boys performing his music.

He appeared on the album You're Dead! by Flying Lotus, released in October 2014.

Hancock was the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. Holders of the chair deliver a series of six lectures on poetry, "The Norton Lectures", poetry being "interpreted in the broadest sense, including all poetic expression in language, music, or fine arts". Previous Norton lecturers include musicians Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky and John Cage. Hancock's theme is "The Ethics of Jazz".^[40]

Hancock's next album is being produced by Terrace Martin,^[41] and will feature a broad variety of jazz and hip-hop artists including Wayne Shorter, Kendrick Lamar, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Flying Lotus, Lionel Loueke, Zakir Hussein and Snoop Dogg.^[42]

On May 15, 2015, Hancock received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Washington University in St. Louis.^[43]

On May 19, 2018, Hancock received an honorary degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.^[44]

On June 26, 2022, Hancock performed at the Glastonbury Festival.^[45]^[46]

Hancock was featured on the track "MOON" by the jazz duo Domi and JD Beck on their debut album NOT TiGHT, released July 29, 2022.

On February 4, 2023, Hancock performed at the Arise Fashion Week & Jazz Festival^[47] at Eko Hotel, Lagos, Nigeria.

Discography

Studio albums

Takin' Off (1962)
My Point of View (1963)
Inventions & Dimensions (1963)
Empyrean Isles (1964)
Maiden Voyage (1965)
Speak Like a Child (1968)
The Prisoner (1969)
Fat Albert Rotunda (1969)
Mwandishi (1971)
Crossings (1972)
Sextant (1973)
Head Hunters (1973)
Dedication (1974)
Thrust (1974)
Man-Child (1975)
Secrets (1976)
Third Plane (1977)
Herbie Hancock Trio (1977)
Sunlight (1978)
Directstep (1979)
The Piano (1979)
Feets, Don't Fail Me Now (1979)
Monster (1980)
Mr. Hands (1980)
Magic Windows (1981)
Herbie Hancock Trio (1982)
Quartet (1982)
Lite Me Up (1982)
Future Shock (1983)
Sound-System (1984)
Village Life (1985)
Perfect Machine (1988)
A Tribute to Miles (1994)
Dis Is da Drum (1994)
The New Standard (1996)
1+1 (1997)
Gershwin's World (1998)
Future 2 Future (2001)
Possibilities (2005)
River: The Joni Letters (2007)
The Imagine Project (2010)

Concert films

2000: DeJohnette, Hancock, Holland and Metheny – Live in Concert
2002: Herbie Hancock Trio: Hurricane! with Ron Carter and Billy Cobham^[57]
2002: The Jazz Channel Presents Herbie Hancock (BET on Jazz) with Cyro Baptista, Terri Lynne Carrington, Ira Coleman, Eli Degibri and Eddie Henderson (recorded in 2000)
2004: Herbie Hancock – Future2Future Live
2005: Herbie Hancock's Headhunters Watermelon Man (Live in Japan)
2006: Herbie Hancock – Possibilities with John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Joss Stone, and more

Books

Herbie Hancock: Possibilities (2014) ISBN 978-0-670-01471-2
Reaching Beyond: Improvisations on Jazz, Buddhism, and a Joyful Life (2017) ISBN 978-1-938-25276-1

Awards

**Hancock presented with Gold Record Award by Kazimierz Pułaski of Sony Music Poland, November 29, 2011**

Academy Awards

1986, Best Original Score, for Round Midnight

Grammy Awards

1984: Best R&B Instrumental Performance, for Rockit
1985: Best R&B Instrumental Performance, for Sound-System
1988: Best Instrumental Composition, for Call Sheet Blues
1995: Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group, for A Tribute to Miles
1997: Best Instrumental Composition, for Manhattan (Island of Lights and Love)
1999: Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s), for St. Louis Blues
1999: Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group, for Gershwin's World
2003: Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group, for Directions in Music at Massey Hall
2003: Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, for My Ship
2005: Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, for Speak Like a Child
2008: Album of the Year, for River: The Joni Letters
2008: Best Contemporary Jazz Album, for River: The Joni Letters
2011: Best Improvised Jazz Solo, for A Change Is Gonna Come
2011: Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, for Imagine

Other awards

Keyboard Readers' Poll: Best Jazz Pianist (1987, 1988); Keyboardist (1983, 1987)
Playboy Music Poll: Best Jazz Group (1985), Best Jazz Album Rockit (1985), Best Jazz Keyboards (1985, 1986), Best R&B Instrumentalist (1987), Best Jazz Instrumentalist (1988)
MTV Awards (5), Best Concept Video, "Rockit", 1983–'84
Gold Note Jazz Awards – New York Chapter of the National Black MBA Association, 1985
French Award Officer of the Order of Arts & Letters, 1985
BMI Film Music Award, Round Midnight, 1986
Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music, 1986 ^[58]
U.S. Radio Award, Best Original Music Scoring – Thom McAnn Shoes, 1986
Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Best Score – 'Round Midnight, 1986
BMI Film Music Award, Colors, 1989
Miles Davis Award, Montreal International Jazz Festival, 1997
Soul Train Music Award, Best Jazz Album – The New Standard, 1997
VH1's 100 Greatest Videos, "Rockit" is 10th Greatest Video, 2001
NEA Jazz Masters Award, 2004
Downbeat Readers' Poll Hall of Fame, 2005^[59]
Kennedy Center Honors, 2013
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2013^[60]
Benjamin Franklin Medal (Royal Society of Arts), 2018

External links

Official website
Herbie Hancock discography at Discogs
Herbie Hancock at IMDb
Herbie Hancock at TED
Herbie Hancock interview about music and technology at AppleMatters
Herbie Hancock Outside The Comfort Zone interview at JamBase
Hancock Article by C.J Shearn on the New York Jazz Workshop blog, November 2014
Herbie Hancock Interview at NAMM Oral History Collection (2006)
Herbie Hancock on YouTube

http://www.jazz.com/dozens/the-dozens-twelve-essential-herbie-hancock-performances

THE DOZENS: TWELVE ESSENTIAL HERBIE HANCOCK PERFORMANCES

by Ted Gioia

Musicians:
Herbie Hancock (piano).
Composed by Frank E. Churchill and Larry Morey
.

Recorded: Tokyo, October 25 and 26, 1978

Rating: 92/100 (learn more)

Why does Herbie Hancock always save his best solo work for the Japanese market? When he was at the high point (low point?) of his career as a "fusion" artist, he released a solid, serious, solo keyboard effort called Dedication -- but only in Japan. I had to convert the holdings of my piggy bank into yen and find an import-export agent just to sniff the vinyl. The Piano is much the same story: a great collection of solo piano performances, but kept out of the US market for 25 years. "Someday My Prince Will Come" is a smart reworking of the famous Disney soundtrack song, with constant change-ups in mood, dynamics and attack. Although Hancock has recorded some 50 recordings as a leader, there are very few examples of him playing standards without accompaniment. This is one of the finest.

Reviewer: Ted Gioia

Herbie Hancock (featuring John Mayer): Stitched Up

Track

Stitched Up

Group

Herbie Hancock (featuring John Mayer)

CD

Possibilities (Hear Music / Hancock Music 70013)

Buy Track

Musicians:
Herbie Hancock (piano), John Mayer (vocals, guitar),
Michael Bearden (keyboards), Willie Weeks (bass), Steve Jordan (drums)
. Composed by John Mayer and Herbie Hancock
.

Recorded: Van Nuys, CA, no recording date given (CD released in 2005)

Rating: 90/100 (learn more)

Sometimes these pop-star-meets-jazzcat dream dates go bad before the appetizers are on the table. But Mayer is not your typical pop star, and Hancock knows how to cross over without losing his balance. It helps that the song is hot, with an irresistible dance beat on the refrain. Hancock deserves a lot of credit for the groove, digging in with that acoustic funk sound he pioneered back in his Blue Note days, but the rest of the band is also in the pocket. Steve Jordan may be a rock-pop drummer, but he could teach jazz snobs how to lay down a beat. And Mayer sings with the white Motown soulfulness he pioneered on that crazy Continuum release -- yeah, you know, that disk that looked like ECM on the cover but sounded like Marvin Gaye when you popped in into the CD player. Hey guys, how about a second date?
Reviewer: Ted Gioia

Herbie Hancock (with Corinne Bailey Rae): River

Track

River

Artist

Herbie Hancock (piano) and Corinne Bailey Rae (vocals)

CD

River: The Joni Letters (Verve 10063)

Buy Track

Musicians:
Herbie Hancock (piano), Corinne Bailey Rae (vocals), Dave Holland (bass), Vinnie Colaiuta (drums), Wayne Shorter (soprano sax).
Composed by Joni Mitchell
.

Recorded: New York and Hollywood, except for Corinne Bailey Rae's vocal, which was recorded in Yorkshire, England, no dates given (CD released in 2007)

Rating: 90/100 (learn more)

I love jazz and I love Joni . . . but I get nervous when they are mixed together. Joni Mitchell's idiosyncratic delivery is already so jazzy, that it is hard enough just singing it straight. Trying to jazz up these songs further is like adding more cayenne pepper to grandma's prizewinning chili. As I have always said, nobody sings Joni better than the diva herself. But Corinne Bailey Rae makes me reconsider. This is the best version of "River" I've heard since that rude classmate drew a mustache on the cover of my Blue LP back in the Nixon era. Rae sings with sweet, almost girlish forthrightness, and just the right touch of melancholy. Hancock, Shorter, Holland and Colaiuta provide thoughtful accompaniment (albeit in a different studio on another continent) for a richly layered performance in which every phrase and micro-rhythm is perfectly placed.

Reviewer: Ted Gioia

Click here for comments and discussion on Twelve Essential Herbie Hancock Performances Check out more ‘Dozens’ here

https://www.herbiehancock.com/music/discography/

Discography

"Maiden Voyage"
by Herbie Hancock

From the Album:
Maiden Voyage (1965)--on Blue Note record label

Composition written by:
Herbie Hancock

Personnel:
Herbie Hancock — piano
Freddie Hubbard — trumpet
George Coleman — tenor saxophone
Ron Carter — bass
Tony Williams — drums

"Chan's Song"

by Herbie Hancock:

"Chameleon"
by Herbie Hancock:

AVO Session, Messe Basel, Switzerland, 10 November 2006:

Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Brian Blade live in concert - JazzBaltica 2004:

● Tracklist:

1. Sonrisa
2. V
3. Pathways
4. Aung San Sun Kyi
5. Prometheus Unbound
6. Cantaloupe Island

● Personnel:

Herbie Hancock - piano - http://www.herbiehancock.com/
Wayne Shorter - sax - http://www.wayneshorter.com/
Dave Holland - bass - http://daveholland.com/
Brian Blade - drums - http://www.brianblade.com/

● Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Brian Blade: Live at Große Konzertscheue, Jazzbaltica, Salzau, Germany, 2004:

Herbie Hancock--"Sleeping Giant", "Quasar" and "Water Torture" (From Mwandishi: The Complete Warner Brothers recordings, 1970-1973);

All compositions and arrangements by Herbie Hancock. Original recording of these compositions from 1971 album entitled "Crossings"

Personnel:
Herbie Hancock - Piano, Electric Piano, Mellotron, Percussion
Eddie Henderson - Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Percussion
Billy Hart - Drums, Percussion
Julian Priester - Bass, Tenor and Alto Trombone, Percussion
Buster Williams - Electric Bass, Bass, Percussion
Bennie Maupin - Soprano Saxophone, Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet, Piccolo, Percussion

With:
Patrick Gleeson - Moog Synthesizer
Victor Pontoja - Congas
Voices - Candy Love, Sandra Stevens, Della Horne, Victoria Domagalski, Scott Breach

Herbie Hancock - Fat Albert Rotunda (Full Album)-1969:

Herbie Hancock - "Cantaloupe Island":

Empyrean Isles (1964)

Composed by Herbie Hancock

Personnel: Herbie Hancock — piano Freddie Hubbard — cornet Ron Carter — bass Tony Williams — drums

Head Hunters | Herbie Hancock | 1973 | Full Album

https://www.herbiehancock.com/music/jukebox/

Maiden Voyage
Cantaloupe Island
Watermelon Man
Speak Like A Child
Dolphin Dance
Succotash
Driftin'
Blind Man, Blind Man
Oliloqui Valley
Fat Mama
Bring Down The Birds
Wiggle-Waggle
Fat Albert Rotunda
You'll Know When You Get There
Chameleon
Watermelon Man
Hidden Shadows
Cantaloupe Island
Butterfly
Actual Proof
Death Wish (Main Title)
Hang Up Your Hang Ups
Sun Touch
Bubbles
Steppin' In It
Gentle Thoughts
Palm Grease
Doin' It
Swamp Rat
Hang Up Your Hang Ups (Live)
Spider (Live)
Sunlight
I Thought It Was You
Ready Or Not
Motor Mouth
Stars In Your Eyes
Spiraling Prism
Textures
Solitude
Sweet Bird
Edith And The Kingpin
My Man's Gone Now
Summertime
St. Louis Blues
Sister Moon (ft. Sting)
River (Live)
Prelude: Medley A
Both Sides Now
Maiden Voyage (Live)
Someday My Prince Will Come
Manhattan
Manhattan Island

Sound Projections

Welcome to Sound Projections

Saturday, May 25, 2024

WELCOME TO THE NEW SOUND PROJECTIONS MUSICAL ARTISTS SCHOLARLY RESEARCH AND REFERENCE ARCHIVE

Herbie Hancock

(b. April 12, 1940)

Biography by Richard S. Ginell

Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock: An Introduction

Awards

Herbie has received six honorary doctorates

Herbie Hancock: An all-star set:

Herbie Hancock--Piano, computer generated keyboards

Marcus Miller--Bass guitar

Harvey Mason--Drums

Herbie Hancock- the Norton Lectures at Harvard 2014:

Herbie Hancock: The Ethics of Jazz | Mahindra Humanities Center

Herbie Hancock: Breaking the Rules | Mahindra Humanities Center

Herbie Hancock: Cultural Diplomacy and the Voice of Freedom | Mahindra Humanities Center

Herbie Hancock: Buddhism and Creativity | Mahindra Humanities Center

Herbie Hancock: Once Upon a Time... | Mahindra Humanities Center

The Kennedy Center Honors Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Early life

Career

Miles Davis Quintet (1963–1968) and Blue Note Records (1962–1969)

Fat Albert (1969) and Mwandishi era (1971–1973)

From Head Hunters (1973) to Secrets (1976)

From V.S.O.P. (1976) to Future Shock (1983)

1990s to 2000

2000 to 2009

2010 to present

Discography

Studio albums

Concert films

Books

Awards

Academy Awards

Grammy Awards

Other awards

External links

THE DOZENS: TWELVE ESSENTIAL HERBIE HANCOCK PERFORMANCES

by Ted Gioia

Miles Davis: Seven Steps to Heaven

Track

Artist

CD

Rating: 99/100 (learn more)

Herbie Hancock: Cantaloupe Island

Track

Artist

CD

Rating: 95/100 (learn more)

Herbie Hancock: Maiden Voyage

Track

Artist

CD

Rating: 100/100 (learn more)

Herbie Hancock: Dolphin Dance

Track

Artist

CD

Rating: 95/100 (learn more)

Herbie Hancock: Speak Like a Child

Track

Artist

CD

Rating: 94/100 (learn more)

Herbie Hancock: Tell Me a Bedtime Story

Track

Group

CD

Rating: 90/100 (learn more)

Herbie Hancock: Watermelon Man (from Head Hunters, 1973)

Track

Group

CD

Rating: 90/100 (learn more)

V.S.O.P.: One of a Kind