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Jazzing it up

JAZZ, HIS FORTE Herbie Hancock

Keyboardist Herbie Hancock came to prominence as the pianist in Miles Davis’ landmark mid-’60s quintet, a unit that went from refined post-bop chamber jazz to pioneering electric fusion. The latter spurred Hancock on to a funk-fusion direction of his own. Once established, Hancock divided his time between funk and his harmonically adventurous, impressionistic acoustic jazz.

Although he had studied music, Hancock was working toward a B.A. in engineering at Grinnell College. In 1963, he came to New York and worked with jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd, at whose instigation Hancock recorded his first solo LP. His Watermelon Man was a pop-jazz crossover hit for Mongo Santamaria. From 1963 to 1968, Hancock worked with Miles Davis; he also recorded solo albums and played on many sessions for Blue Note Records. After scoring Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow-Up, he left Davis, and began pursuing fusion with the 1970 album Mwandishi.

Hancock’s breakthrough came with Headhunters, for which he formed the band of the same name, later explaining: “Rather than work with jazz musicians who could play funk, I worked with funk musicians who could play jazz.” That album yielded the crossover hit Chameleon. Thrust Man-child and the Death Wish film soundtrack also sold well, as did Fat Albert Rotunda, his soundtrack to a Bill Cosby cartoon TV special. In 1976, Hancock briefly diverged from his electric-funk course to form V.S.O.R (Very Special Onetime Performance), an acoustic jazz group with Tony Williams, Weather Report’s Wayne Shorter, bassist Ron Carter, adducted a successful tour and recorded an album, and have since reconvened.

In 1979, Feets Don’t Fail Me Now was another commercial success, as was Monster in 1980. In 1981, V.S.O.P. toured and recorded as a quartet, minus Shorter and with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis replacing Hubbard.

The unexpected success of Future Shock and its single, Rockit gave Hancock even greater visibility. As produced by Bill Laswell, Rockit incorporated funk rhythms and hip-hop ‘scratching’. Hancock also established a career scoring films, including A Soldier’s Story (1984), Round Midnight (1986), Richard Pryor’s Jo Jo Dancer Your Life Is Calling (1986), and Colors (1988). Hancock won an Oscar for the Round Midnight soundtrack.

Though he ventures outside the genre, Hancock never leaves jazz far behind. In 1992, Hancock organised a Tribute to Miles (Davis) tour, which included Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Wallace Roney. Later in the ’90s Hancock founded Rhythm of Life, a foundation that offers arts and music classes to disenfranchised youth in San Francisco. In 1997, he was appointed artistic director of a $ 1.2-million jazz performance and education programme. In 1998, Gershwin’s World, featuring Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell, won Hancock a Grammy Award. The next year, he began hosting Future Wave, a television program about music technology for BET on Jazz.

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