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Jazz Articles about Herbie Hancock
The Feelin's Good
by Greg Simmons
The mists of time have a way of obscuring the motives behind people's decisions. “What were they thinking?" and “It must have seemed like a good idea at the time" must be among the most universal human sentiments. In the music business, a session gets recorded, and often it gets released, but occasionally it doesn't. Sometimes a tape sits on a shelf collecting dust for fifty years, leaving later-day musical archeologists to ponder why. Maybe that session gets cut up, ...
Continue ReadingHerbie Hancock: Inventions and Dimensions
by Greg Simmons
Recorded in August of 1963, pianist Herbie Hancock's Inventions and Dimensions puts pulsing, grooving rhythms at the center of the music, with Latin percussive elements and--in the best jazz tradition of the times--lots of blues. This isn't Hancock's most well-known date from his tenure at Blue Note, but it's an important recording for both its structural sophistication and the notably high quality of the piano improvisations, no small feat for so superlative an artist. The title of the ...
Continue ReadingHerbie Hancock: Empyrean Isles
by Greg Simmons
As a member of Miles Davis' second quintet during the 1960s, pianist Herbie Hancock rarely performed live under his own leadership, but he did take the time to record. Hancock's 1964 effort, Empyrean Isles, remains one of the most diverse and often challenging records of the pianist's tenure with Blue Note Records. It's a rare jazz record that offers both a hugely popular hit, as well as an outré masterwork of rhythmic repetition and angular melodies. A masterpiece ...
Continue ReadingHerbie Hancock: The Chameleon Shows His Colors
by Bob Kenselaar
[Herbie Hancock has a long history of mixing it up--from jazz to funk, pop, and everything in between. At the time I did this interview with him in the summer of 1979, he'd been making ventures away from straight-ahead jazz for some time, but they were still fresh enough to have some fans up in arms. From today's perspective, though, it's clear that his eclecticism is a big part of what makes him the grand man of music that he ...
Continue ReadingKenny Dorham: Una Mas
by Greg Simmons
Trumpeter Kenny Dorham's Una Mas was one of 1963's best records. The thought of hearing it reissued on ultra-high quality vinyl by the good folks at Music Matters should make jazz heads swoon. With its melding of hard-bop, bossa nova, and the blues, Una Mas is a prime example of the memorable vamps that Blue Note favored at the time, finding ultimate success later that year with Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder. Dorham was a prolific recording artist for ...
Continue ReadingHerbie Hancock: Bangkok, Thailand, May 8, 2011
by Ian Patterson
Herbie HancockRoyal Paragon HallBangkok, ThailandMay 8, 2011Herbie Hancock is--like the title of one of his most celebrated tunes--a chameleon, and the audience at a near-packed Royal Paragon Hall was reminded of just how many changes Hancock has stylishly wrung over the last fifty years. There were touches of his more impressionistic Blue Note recordings of the '60s, and the modal jazz purveyed by trumpeter Miles Davis's second great quintet, of which Hancock was a pivotal ...
Continue ReadingHerbie Hancock: Maiden Voyage
by Greg Simmons
There are few worse examples of a masterpiece performance being savaged by poor recording quality than Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage. This very expensive recent re-release on 45RPM vinyl by Analogue Productions only serves to highlight its engineering travesty.Rudy Van Gelder had the great fortune to record the best of the best in jazz for Prestige, Blue Note and other notable labels of the 1950s and '60s. The signature RVG stamped in the dead wax of these albums marks ...
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