Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancockis an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer and actor. Starting his career with Donald Byrd, he shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet where Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace synthesizers and funk music. Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had many songs "cross over" and achieved success...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPianist
Date of Birth12 April 1940
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
I've got to learn how to do this. That's my instrument, and he can do it. Why can't I?
I've had a lot of music in my own head.
I wanted to work with artists who were strong enough personalities that they'd all have something of their own to bring. My foundation is jazz, which is all about interaction. Jazz gives you a lot of tools to play with.
At the same time, I'm still enjoying working with young people.
The fact that young hip-hop artists are searching for the jazz roots of their music acknowledges the greatness of roots, helps a person get a sense of being grounded, of being attached, of coming from somewhere.
They brought what they do to the table, and I brought what I do to the table,
We were listening to a lot of different people, but we were listening to a lot of real innovators, and we were full of ideas.
This was put together not just as a series of notes and chords. If I depended on what anyone else thinks, I never would have stretched and discovered the various dimensions of myself.
And you allow yourself to play off that plane. You're in this dark room of unknowns, you allow yourself to go there.
Another convention is that the drummer and bass player are timekeepers, but there's no reason they have to be bound to that.
Even during the major avant-garde period of jazz in the late '60s and early '70s, the songs usually had melodies, some harmonic starting-off point, or something to unify a particular piece in the beginning.
First of all I should explain that synthesizers themselves, I don't consider them instruments, they are instrument makers, because you can program them to be whatever sound you want.
The result is a music that allows us to all go outside the pigeonholes the music business forces us to stay in. We're breaking down expectations, walking the tightrope, while not scaring our fan bases away.
We've been looking at machines for so long, I really wish the technology community would look at human beings first for a change, let's balance the thing out.