Herbie Hancock

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

how's Al Green, did he manage to stay off the crack?

Maybe Herbie made it up.

"Man, this is a boring book...I come off like the Ned Flanders of jazz. Wait, I know! I'll just sprinkle a little crack addiction here...yeah, the 90s...that'll work...this is gold!"

haha i mean it almost comes across like that -- otherwise the last third of the book would be like "hey i made a record w/ christina aguilera singing on it i guess that was ok. won a grammy! cool."

He's definitely not high on the list of jazz musicians I would have expected to have a crack addiction.

I usually think of him as a guy that disproves the theory that a musician has to be crazy and/or drug-addled and/or unhappy to be interesting.

I have a hard time imagining Hancock drinking a glass of red wine much less a drug problem.

might've been tough to be anywhere in the LA music bizzzz in the late 70s/80s w/o getting pretty into cocaine

True, I just think of him as being such a dork

Matt Shipp reviewed Hancock's book for The Talkhouse; what he has to say is actually really interesting.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fFTt8VZ5V1I/T8V1YL0ugVI/AAAAAAAACEw/Tpqqfwv2jbA/s1600/Hancock_Herbie-_MrBonzai.jpg
he does pretty much cop to being a super geek in the book.

Thanks for posting that Shipp piece! and looking good Herbie!

yes, good write-up!

^^^

Well, looky here:

http://www.vulture.com/2014/10/herbie-hancock-my-battle-with-crack.html

interesting that they promoted headhunters as "improvised rock"
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CX4x020WwAA2dIh.png:large
(this may have been an ad that showed up in Creem or Rolling Stone, I don't know)

And that they find it spacey? always sounded p grounded, physical, urban, sweaty to me. I dunno, maybe it is psychish...

yeah compared to sextant, it's definitely more grounded... maybe they thought prog-funk wouldn't get the rockers interested

The "improvised rock" bit funny considering Head Hunters is notable among crossover fusion albums for having no guitars on it. But I would assume the synths on it would've sounded pretty spacey... I think "Chameleon" is among the first notable pop tunes to have a synth bass play the main hook. Obviously it isn't as spacey as the Mwandishi albums that preceded it, but I doubt many of the people who saw this ad had heard them. AFAIK they sold pretty poorly, they've only become regarded as classics posthumously.

"would've sounded pretty spacey to Rolling Stone readers "

hey Tuomas, would you recommend a good book on Herbie Hancock/jazz in general? I get the impression you're well-read

Herbie's autobiography that came out a couple of years ago ("Possibilities") is quite good, there's some talk about it upthread. There's also a book-length analysis of Head Hunters (the album) called "Head Hunters: the Making of Jazz's First Platinum Album", which is okay, but it has a lot of music theory, so you might want to skip those bits if that's not your thing. And then there's the book by Bob Gluck focusing on the Mwandishi era ("You'll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi Band") which I haven't read yet (I should!), but some comments about it upthread too.

Cool, thanks!

Anyway, speaking of Herbie's futurism, I think it's a crucial fact that he was always a gear-head and tech nerd, as the autobioraphy makes abundantly clear... He was actually a studying engineering as well as music at the university, and the book has bits like him geeking out for several paragraphs for having seen an experimental prototype of one of the first laptops back in the 1970s. He also talks a lot about instruments like the Fairlight CMI and how they changed the musical landscape.

Anyway, my point is that while a some piano players (like Chick Corea or Stanley Cowell) turned to electronic keyboards and synths when it was hip to do so in the early 70s, only to abandon them when the became unfashionable again by the 80s (when the Young Lions started disparaging fusion in gerenal), Herbie just got deeper into them. The Mwandishi band was arguably the first band to successfully integrate synth textures into jazz music in way that wasn't merely ornamental of novelty-ish, and by 1980 Herbie was confident enough to have a track on Mr. Hands where every instrument (including the drums and guitar) is played by him on synths. The track itself may sound cheesy today, but at that point few musicians who had first found their fame in traditional acoustic music had gone that far in electronics.

So while Herbie himself admits in autobio that "Rockit" and Future Shock were mostly Laswell/Material projects he was attached to, I'd say he was pretty much the only major jazz musician open enough to the possibilities of sampling/DJing opened up by electro and rap music to pull it through. And it's not like he forgot all that when the Laswell collab ended, since he returned to rap and electronic music with Dis is da Drum and Future 2 Future.

It's only in the 00s that Herbie eased into an elder statesman position, playing mostly older music (though not jazz standards rather than famous tunes from other genres) and mostly on trad keyboards. But since he is already in his 70s, I can accept it, even though his post- Future 2 Future albums have not interested me that much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogKDBbi2thA

god i love Mr. Hands

one of the coolest album covers ever btw

So this is what's next for Herbie

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/6913509/terrace-martin-producing-yg-herbie-hancock-albums

I've been playing with him every day -- which is very weird, that I play keyboard next to Herbie every day, a very weird thing. I try to be cool, since I'm "the producer" and everything, but then he throws these things at you harmonically, and you have to catch 'em! He is 75, and his ideas -- they're like he's 12 years old. They keep coming every second of the day.

I work with him five days a week. We usually start about 12 or 1 p.m. and I'm done about 5. That's a five-hour session. When I work with a rapper, I can do 15, 20 hours and not be tired. When I leave Herbie's, I'm exhausted. My brain is exhausted -- he stretches my brain so much that I have to leave his house, take a three-hour nap, and then go to work with YG.

...The album I'm doing with him, it's not what you think: Kendrick is on the album, Snoop is on the album. It's not like it's just Herbie Hancock over a hip-hop beat. It's like, I'm really digging into his world, and he's digging into the hip-hop, and we're just trying to figure out a thing. In the process of us trying to figure it out, something is happening magically through the music. Something that I've never heard and he's never heard. Kendrick came over the other day and he was like, "Yo, I hear so many ideas." We're just going in all different directions.

That sounds great!

Yes

https://youtu.be/Bwpn4DlOxac

this Herbie inspired album by Lionel Loueke is nice

The Terrace Martin produced album he was working on never came out

Inventions and Dimensions is such a neat record.

― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Saturday, September 14, 2013 9:18 PM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I just heard this for the first time yesterday and it is extremely neat. Unlike anything else he's done--latin percussion, piano, bass, no horns. One of the best Blue Note LP covers too

Somehow that's the one I always forget about too, even though I said it was neat. I've never really spent enough time with it.

happy birthday herbie!

Happy birthday to Herbie Hancock, born on this day in 1940 in Chicago. Here he is demonstrating his Fairlight keyboard and computer recording setup to Quincy Jones in 1984. pic.twitter.com/NoR5R5bdqE

— dusttoodigital (@dusttoodigital) April 12, 2022

Listening on Youtube to a bunch of Herbie this weekend, algorithm brought up a PBS video of him doing a version of "Maiden Voyage" at Madelyn Albright's funeral. Lovely take. It made me curious if there was a connection of either Secretary Albright being a jazz fan or a personal connection.

https://hancockinstitute.org/2022/03/remembering-madeleine-albright/

Albright was active with the Institute for over 25 years, beginning with her tenure as United States Secretary of State, when she was instrumental in bringing Institute artists to serve a key role at the 1998 Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile, and hosted receptions for the Institute’s annual Competition in Washington, D.C. She subsequently became a close friend and generous supporter of the Institute.

Albright believed fervently in the power of the arts, most especially jazz, to forge bonds that transcend political, national, linguistic, religious or ethnic barriers, and to bolster the foundations of democracy. This conviction led her to share her talents frequently with the Institute, from serving as a mentor and advisor on cultural diplomacy, to lending her talents on the drums for Institute events from time to time. She was instrumental in helping the Institute expand its global impact through initiatives including U.S. State Department Tours and International Jazz Day.

Madame Secretary, you will be greatly missed.

RIP

bummer

please no using RIP on yhe Herbie Hancock thread in any context

Yes, got scared too.

when she was instrumental in bringing Institute artists to serve a key role at the 1998 Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile

Been listening to FLOOD nonstop - man so much killer shit on here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At1wCLEVdWI

Wow that's one of those songs I've heard a million times but never out of context, always after Watermelon Man. What a complete jam it is.

Takes so little to decontextualize a tune and make it sound fresh. Thanks!

i've been really into dis is da drum and future 2 future lately, i am speaking out of my depth here but i feel like jazzy dnb can't get much better than the second half of future 2 future? dis is da drum is prob thought of as the corniest possible engagement with hip-hop and dance music by a jazz dude but it actually rules and is smooth and gorgeous

only discourse about either record in this thread is by tuomas which makes some kind of sense

the 2cd edition of F2F has an excellent joe claussell suite of the essence track.
listed as seperate remixes, but i seem to recall that it all flows as one long track.

https://www.discogs.com/release/386161-Herbie-Hancock-Future-2-Future-The-Essence-Mixes

Goddammit, now I have to pull that down.