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 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.
Both men and women have masculine and feminine elements. We've just been concentrating on the masculine elements in jazz coming out for too long. It's time for feminine elements to emerge.
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.
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 wasn't concerned about jazz - that's just one of the tools.
I brought my 40 years of jazz experience to the table, ... but I wanted to make something more ambitious than a little box.
I am still a jazz musician and not a pop star in terms of money and so I have to take care of my family first, then my extended family and my country.
Most people think that classical music is a higher form than jazz only because it is from Europe, and we were taught in schools only about Western European history.
We wanted to share creativity and didn't want to be bound by traditional jazz conventions.
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.
One of the most important functions of jazz has been to encourage a hope for freedom, for people living in situations of intolerance or struggle.
It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.
Although my parents were playing jazz for me when I was a kid, I didn't pay much attention until I saw someone my age improvising, playing jazz..