Herbie Hancock
Versatility and variety have characterized pianist, bandleader and composer Herbie Hancock’s extraordinary career since the early ’60s, when he joined what later became known as Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet. During that decade, Hancock also recorded a string of superb albums while contributing to an array of seminal sessions by numerous other musicians. Hancock, who plays Sunday at the Ryman, has delighted in constantly confounding expectations and refusing to stay in one mode or style over the five decades since.
“I’ve never wanted to stand still or play the same thing,” Hancock tells the Scene in a phone interview. “Miles was always telling us: ‘I pay you to try new things out on the bandstand. I want you to take chances.’ He always wanted to hear something fresh, the next thing. I’ve never worried about categories or doing what anyone says or thinks you’re supposed to do. The things that interest me and the musicians who interest me are those who take chances, who don’t try to do what everyone else is doing, but also understand the importance of tradition and history, and know how to take those influences and bring something new to them.”
Hancock has made magnificent albums with large orchestras and small combos, as well as acclaimed solo and duet projects. He quickly became an in-demand star and session player on the strength of such compositions as “Watermelon Man” (popularized by Afro-Latin jazz legend Mongo Santamaría), “Maiden Voyage,” “Cantaloupe Island” (often sampled by rappers and acid-jazz artists) and “Speak Like a Child,” among others. He’s led acoustic and electric units and won multiple Grammys in jazz, pop and R&B, in addition to an Oscar for his score to the 1986 film Round Midnight and a lifetime achievement award from the Jazz Foundation of America. He’s an international spokesperson for jazz as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador, and was responsible for introducing the idea of International Jazz Day, which has become a worldwide celebration of the music. Hancock, who’s featured in the new documentary Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes (which is showing Aug. 12 at the Belcourt), credits his time on the label in the 1960s with giving him credibility and stature within the jazz world.
“I loved Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff,” says Hancock, referring to the famed producer and Blue Note’s co-founder (and revered photographer), respectively. “Alfred would always come up and say, ‘So what do you want to do on this one?’ He’d never say, ‘Here’s what I want you to do,’ or, ‘Here’s what we’d like you to do.’ He was always conscious and careful about the music and making sure you were comfortable. Francis would be lugging that camera around and always taking shots here and there. A lot of those shots ended up being those incredible album covers. It was just an amazing experience and time to be on that label.”
But Hancock has also received criticism from some jazz critics for such commercially successful LPs as 1969’s Fat Albert Rotunda, 1973’s Head Hunters and 1983’s Future Shock. All of those albums maintained an improvisational base, but incorporated R&B, soul, funk, rock and pop elements and instrumentation. He had hit singles with “Chameleon” from Head Hunters and “Rock It” from Future Shock. Things came full circle in 2008, when some rock and pop types were upset because Hancock’s Joni Mitchell tribute album River: The Joni Letters not only won a jazz Grammy, but took Album of the Year honors — only the second time in the history of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (now called The Recording Academy) that a jazz release took both of those awards.
Still, anyone who’s carefully followed Hancock’s music isn’t surprised by the continual creative shifts and turns. When others were debating whether electric keyboards and synthesizers had a place in jazz, Hancock was playing six different types. He’s collaborated with African musicians since the ’80s, and his current band includes Benin guitarist-vocalist Lionel Loueke. At 79 years old, Hancock hasn’t released an album of any kind in nearly a decade, and it’s been even longer since he recorded one featuring original pieces. But he’s now cutting tracks for a new project he feels will spotlight a lot of good things currently happening musically.
“This new record is in a lot of different areas,” he says. “There’s a hip-hop element, there’s some vocalists, we’ve got a lot of different people on it. Kamasi [Washington] is going to be on it, Snoop Dogg’s on it. There’s a lot of young guys out of Chicago [who] people haven’t heard who are bringing fresh ideas to jazz that are going to be on it. We’ve got Kendrick Lamar. Terrace [Martin] is in my band now, and he’s alerting me to a lot of what’s going on with younger musicians and bringing their ideas to this project.”
“I’m at a point where I’m really not that interested in writing songs,” Hancock continues. “I want to hear from young people. I want to hear what they have to say. I’m very optimistic about the future. You’ve got people out here like Kamasi, Terrace, Robert Glasper and several others, who are bringing their perspective to jazz. They know and respect the tradition, but they’ve got their own ideas. And that’s what’s exciting to me: hearing those ideas and getting them out there where people can hear them and see that this music is still fresh and inventive.”
