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
Even the things that are on the Plugged Nickel set. I don't know how we did some of that.
Because I have certain things I feel very passionate about, and I don't want to just make albums with tunes anymore.
Sometimes you can practice something but what you wind up playing when you're out doing a gig is not what you practiced. What you learn is not necessarily what you practice.
So my parents, particularly my mother, she noticed that I seemed to be interested, so on my seventh birthday my parents got me a piano.
Technology has made so much information available but what the technological community has not done is to make any attempt for us to figure out how we're going to assimilate all this information.
Sometimes it was good and sometimes it wasn't, but I had to stand up for all of it or else I couldn't play any of it. I learned how to be courageous from that experience.
As the 1960s began, jazz music was still at an apex, with hard bop groups led by the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane remaining a force on the musical landscape.
Aside from that, what was more in our heads when we made the new album is the concept of forging through and exploring new territory and encouraging other musicians to not be afraid to explore new territory.
We're dealing with jazz, so we don't have pop/mainstream budgets.
Well, I was becoming more of a jazz snob, in thinking that jazz was a higher kind of music, and that R&B was, yes, for the body and more commercial.
I was on tour with Miles Davis, and we had a gig to play at a theater in Los Angeles in 1965. And the opening act was the Aretha Franklin Jazz Trio. She was this young artist and she played sort of funky jazz piano with an upright bassist and a drummer. Then she sang, and she blew the roof off the place. The rest is history. I'd rate her up there with Zeus.
I was blown away when Donald asked me to stay in the band. He said that both he and the band really liked my playing.
I wasn't really aware that the blues was making the transition from acoustic to electric then, but that doesn't mean it didn't have any effect on what I was doing at the time.
I wasn't concerned about jazz - that's just one of the tools.