Herbie Hancock

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msI-_PGCOiQ

I heard it's quite the cocktail when you mix it up with Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter's. Those three have amazing chemistry.

beet! wise! ya gat ta realise
that i don't apologise
for ma lifestyle

https://www.vinylmeplease.com/collections/anthology/products/the-story-of-herbie-hancock?variant=32913584980058

kind of priecy

No Mwandishi = incomplete story

The Song remains the same

There's already a Mwandishi book, I think!

speaking of, not sure if this has been posted before or talked about here. a bootleg i return to again and again. mwandishi band in detroit, 10.8.72

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PZrr2Wuxcw

the vinyl me please people belong in the shady scams thread imo

agree. with a little patience, $349 should be plenty for clean original copies of the first six (last two never released on vinyl iirc)

granted, > 80% of that $349 is going to go into the first two of those six

There's already a Mwandishi book, I think!

There is; You'll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi Band, by Bob Gluck. It's supposed to be excellent.

what a bizarre hodgepodge of albums/eras in that VMP set

100%

Aren’t some of those available in pretty nice recent blue note editions? Tone poet or the classic series?

Paying for the unboxing experience

i mean i guess if you want a brand new mint copy for playing (on a rega with bamboo needle connected to headphone tube amp connected to beyerdynamic headphones etc etc) with absolute minimum surface noise this makes sense

on a broader level that mindset doesn't make any sense to me at all, but to each their own

That Gluck book contains lots of insights from the Mwandishi band members into the formation and dissolution of the group. Keeping the band on the road improved the music but was economically disastrous.

I've been listening to Bennie Maupin's second solo album, Slow Traffic to the Right from 1977. It's much closer to fusion than his debut on ECM, but still tasteful, without pandering to an audience who probably weren't going to buy anyway. He does slightly more funky versions of the two pieces he contributed to Hancock's Crossings.

"Nice box overall, a variety of authenticity issues with the reproduction jackets but overall an excellent set. Very happy with the pressings, *except* for Side A of the Piano, which on my copy has visible and audible pressing defects causing loud distortion making Side A unlistenable. Have contacted VMP for a hopeful replacement disc."

uh oh!

https://www.discogs.com/release/18471535-Herbie-Hancock-The-Story-of-Herbie-Hancock

I wonder what they would charge to just download it all as FLAC

haha hopeless

I very much doubt a repress will ever surpass an original sonically, also originals obv a better investment

I've never heard this soundtrack before today. It sort of bridges the gap between the Mwandishi stuff and the Headhunters stuff, mixed with his other soundtrack work to my ears
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xG8-7mY2Zs

That movie’s at the top of my to-watch list rn

I saw that movie about 3 months ago and I loved it. Truly radical stuff. It's the kind of movie you read about and think "great premise but surely it doesn't do it justice," but for once IT DOES DO IT JUSTICE!

Watching Hancock's episode of Elvis Costello's Spectacle after watching Smokey Robinson's, and it's wonderful to hear how both men had someone that was kind of looking out for them.

Robinson has two great stories about that: 1) First, Berry Gordy approached him after witnessing the Miracles' failed audition because he noticed they were playing unfamiliar songs (everyone else auditioned with well-known hits). Turns out Robinson wrote them - Gordy wanted to hear what else he had, and after critiquing his songs, he offered to mentor Robinson and show him how to write, which he did. 2) A disastrous rehearsal at the Apollo was saved by headliner Ray Charles because the Miracles didn't bring any arrangements, much to the venue's displeasure, and when Charles heard them getting chewed out, he stepped in and learned AND arranged their songs right on the spot.

With Hancock, he talks a bit about Donald Byrd, who hired him and later told him "you're ready to make your own album" and got him a deal with Blue Note while guiding him on what that would be like. Then one day he tells a skeptical Hancock that Miles Davis is looking for him and says "if Miles asks, tell him you're NOT working with anybody." Hancock doesn't think it'll happen, but he adds he can't imagine leaving Byrd because he's already done so much for him - he basically owes everything he has to Byrd. Byrd's response - "I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I knew I stood in the way of a great opportunity to your career." (Personal note, it may not be show business, but I've had friends who were screwed over by vindictive employers when they tried to pursue other opportunities - not out of greed but simply to work a salary that'll actually pull them out of debt instead of sinking further into it - so Byrd's explanation is all the more touching for that reason.) 30 minutes later, Miles himself does indeed call and ask "are you working with anyone now?" and Hancock says "No." Hancock then calls his friend Tony Williams (Hancock is 23, Williams is 17), and Williams says he got the call too. They're both elated and it's great how Hancock gets that across - you really get what it must've felt like for them when they were still so young and relative unknowns albeit gainfully employed.