Herbie Hancock

pretty sure if you look around ilx, there has been about a fuck-ton of sextant love

tenuous connections are the basis for artmaking
(xpost)

Death Wish SNDTRK rules, no doubt
(xxxpost)

Yeah, there's plenty of Sextant love on other threads. It won the Herbie album poll we had:

Best Herbie Hancock (As Leader) Album Poll of 1960s/70s/80s era.

And it was the only Herbie album to place in the ILM alternate 1970s poll:

TURN THIS MUTHA OUT! It's the Alternate 1970s Albums Poll on ILX — Results Thread

For me, it's pretty much favourite album of all time.

"my favourite album of all time"

blecch, this sounds awful (and I liked the river)
The Imagine Project
An all-star effort from Herbie Hancock -- like his previous record, a set that's filled with guest appearances from really dynamic range of talents! This collaborative change in Herbie's later years is a real surprise, and it's definitely helped him explore music with the sort of freedom to genre-step that he had back in the 70s -- maybe not as cutting edge as in those days, but still surprisingly strong at the core. India Arie sings on a version of "Imagine", which also features Konono and Jeff Beck; John Legend and Pink sing on "Don't Give Up"; Ceu is on "Tempo De Amor"; The Chieftains play on "The Times They Are A Changing"; Los Lobos and Tinariwen are on "Tamatant Tilay/Exodus", Dave Matthews sings and plays on "Tomorrow Never Knows"; James Morrison guests on "A Change Is Gonna Come", and Chaka Khan, Wayne Shorter, and Anoushka Shankar all appear on "The Song Goes On"

That sounds made up.

Yeah, sounds pretty terrible. I'm not sure why Herbie has been so keen on making these kind of "eclectic" all-star albums during the last years - is it just for the cash, or does he genuinely believe they're musically worthy? The tune he made with Chaka Khan on Future 2 Future was dope though, maybe their new collab is worth listening too...

yeah, you wonder how these things are put together? does his manager just say, oh yeah, Pink, she's like the new janis joplin and herbie's like "whatever"?

Btw, why hasn't anyone written a proper biography of Herbie? Or at least I've never come across one. You'd think such an important and controversial figure in jazz would deserve his own book? The only Herbie book I know of is the one that's about Head Hunters only; it's okay, but kinda overtly theoretic.

is his life not very interesting, at least aside from music? (not that that would stop a bio from being written ...)

Maybe so. Its just that I realized he's one of my favourite musicians ever, but I know hardly anything about him as a person, except that he's is/was a Buddhist... and apparently he's quite nice in real life? I dunno, even if he hasn't lived a rock star life, it'd be nice to read about his thoughts and experiences.

Another musician I really love who has apparently never had a biography written about him is Curtis Mayfield... Who, from what I've gathered, was also a nice and gentle person. Is it so that nice musicians are not good book material?

i dunno, i'm sure there's a good book about both of those dudes somewhere in there, even if they weren't crazy/drunk/high, etc. I mean, I'd love a good analysis of herbie's various stages/phases, along with maybe how each phase fit into the music of the time/pop culture of the time. might not be a straight bio, but his career overall is a pretty fascinating one.

Yeah, I'd definitely read a book like that. The Head Hunters book was trying to do something like what you're describing, but it was only about that one album.

Another musician I really love who has apparently never had a biography written about him is Curtis Mayfield...

i read a pretty dreadful curtis biog a few years back - the extent to which the author dwelled on differences between labels on specific pressings of curtis LPs was intolerable. would love to read a great one too.

That sounds made up.

― _Rudipherous_, Monday, June 21, 2010 3:58 PM Bookmark

We should have an invent-the-next-Herbie-Collabo-album thread.

Apparently Sony is putting together a 35-disc box of Herbie's entire Columbia output. I don't think I need that, but maybe someone here does.

hey looks like there *is* a book coming out about the mwandishi years: http://www.electricsongs.com/mwandishimusic/

That sounds interesting! I's still like someone to write an overall look of Herbie's career and life though, not just one phase of it.

There was a great article about the Mwandishi group in the Wire many years ago, all I can remember of it is that they were constantly broke and they played some epic live jams. Must dig it out again if I can find it.

I always thought Herbie was kind of under-lionized, probably just because his life story doesn't have the drama or weirdness of a Trane/Miles/Mingus/Monk/Bird type figure.

This youtube of Herbie Hancock showing Quincy Jones the Fairlight CMI has been making me unreasonably happy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6QsusDS_8A

(there's a clip in the "related videos" sidebar of him showing it to some kids on Sesame Street too, which is also making me happy, but is less srs business for srs thread)

so awesome, both those videos

"metal beat" offa "sound system" is one of the most deliriously deranged mutant funk jams ever - scarred for life by this when i boughht "sound system" on cassette as a teenager looking for breakdancing jams like "rockit"

Yeah, I was just listening Sound-System yesterday, and realized for the first time that "Metal Beat" doesn't even have a proper melody - just some simple basslines and relentless beats. Even though electro was always heavy on the beat, most electro singles (including "Rockit") did have hummable melodies, whereas "Metal Beat" only has the spine of a rhythm.

"Hardrock", on the other hand, sounds like a pretty shameless attempt to produce a new "Rockit".

i love the way the scratching is relentlessly crappy throughout. chuffachuffachuffachuffa - i'm guessing the majority of it is a scratch sample in a fairlight or summat. love those art of noise metal gong orchestral stabs, tho.

just watched the elvis costello spectacle show w/ herbie. fun stuff! on netflix instant now. for a guy who's over 70, herbie is aging really well--looked younger than elvis anyway. he also seems like a genuinely nice guy -- if anyone in the music world could get away with having a cooler-than-thou attitude, it'd be him. but he comes across as a chill guy who enjoys music, trying different stuff, reaching new audiences, etc.

have loved head hunters forever. just bought maiden voyage at salzer's on the strength of ilm rec's. pretty amazing. it is a weird progression to go head hunters -> maiden voyage, though

every album should prbly have a blue note-esqe commentary on the back btw

I live near the pacific ocean, and the last 2 vinyl purchases are "Fred Neil" and "Maiden Voyage." The sea's influence no doubt

man, is this good. I need to check that ~best jazz albums poll~ thread and see if this made it. was distracted over crimbus break by all that back and forth over 'spiritual hat'

Anyone pick up the book by Bob Gluck about the Mwandishi era? Bout a third of the way through and it's pretty great so far...

(crickets)

anyway it's really good

I liked that book. I was surprised how fast the Mwandishi thing happened and how quickly it was over. Gluck is good on the music and also on the (somewhat depressing) business side.

must give endless thanks to tylerw for pointing me in the direction of inventions and dimensions some time ago, have been really quite obsessed with it ever since

Oh weird, Gluck teaches at the school literally one block away from me. I've seen him play a few times, really good stuff. I'll have to check out that book.

hmm, it'd have to be damn well-written for me to want to read an entire book on mwandishi

izzat warner brothers (incl fat albert), as on the album-threefer for that era, or just mwandishi?

Hurting - it covers quite a bit of ground, including Herbie's involvement with Donald Byrd and Miles, and touches on stuff that led up to the Mwandishi era like Maiden Voyage (which I actually prefer to anything he did with the Mwandishi band). Some deep analysis of a lot of (pre-Mwandishi) tunes and Herbie's general style, very thorough, if a tad academic in places. Sorta like a less intimidating version of the Robin Kelly book on Monk in that its very short on anything resembling gossip, but long on analysis (and hyperbole, natch). I'm a little over halfway through and I've been sorta savoring it at this point.

Inventions and Dimensions is such a neat record.

otm
just saw this is coming out
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81-oyN38flL._SL1500_.jpg
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Columbia-Collection-Herbie-Hancock/dp/B003M3UJIK/?tag=smarturl-20

it is expensive

It's definitely not as cheap as some of the complete album collections coming out, but this does look like a great collection of music.

I've got most of the earlier funky Hancock records on Colombia. The thing that catches my eye is the eight Japanese releases, some of which are some more traditional jazz group setups. The trio record with Ron Carter and Tony Williams is one I would definitely like to hear.

The Japan only-album with the Kimiko Kasai is very cool, nice to see that it's included. It has some nice & soulful vocal arrangements of Herbie's 70s jazz-funk tunes, and Kasai is a surprisingly good in interpreting those. The price for the comp is awfully steep though, especially considering that nowadays you can buy most of Herbie's Columbia albums like 5 bucks a piece (i.e. for less than their price-per-disc is on the compilation).

read herbie's autobio a couple weekends back -- pretty good stuff, though there were definitely parts i wish were longer (and other parts I wish were shorter).
*spoiler*
the period where he's addicted to crack in the 90s is bizarre! and a bummer! just really at odds w/ pretty much everything else in the book... but i'm glad he seems to have made it out of all that intact.

wtf Herbie was on crack?! has every awesome black musician of a certain age been on crack at some point?

yeah he doesn't really give the exact timeline, but it seems like a good portion of the 90s he was addicted. i had always thought of him as a generally clean living kind of dude.

That's nuts. I had no idea. Didn't seem to affect his profile or sales much, though.

doesn't seem like anyone knew about it at the time (not even his family) and the autobio is the first time he's gone public about it.
but yeah, he was fairly productive even w/ the addiction it seems.

I just feel like I've read a bunch of bios over the years where it turns out some hugely influential black musician had some down-n-out crack problem period (usually well after their commercial heyday) - Fred Wesley, George Clinton (ok here I was just more surprised at the *length* of the period tbf), etc.

and then there was The One chronicling JB's ultra-depressing final decades on the sherm