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
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.
I would be all over the piano, but Miles would play a few notes that would just wipe out all that fancy stuff I was playing.
So, he taught me how to play a simple riff and I somehow found a couple of other notes to play, then I learned how to watch his left hand and I learned where the notes were.
But in jazz, the song may be written by somebody else, but how you treat it is entirely with your notes and your expression.
It's not just a collection of overdubs, ... Every artist on the record gave me their heart - and each track is a surprise. This album was about interaction, freedom and looseness. It may not have the notes of jazz, but it was created in the spirit of jazz.
All you have to do is play one note. But it needs to be the right note.
When I sense a more conservative and limiting attitude coming from musicians, than my impression is that they're really moving away from the true spirit of jazz.
Everything has focused on what the technology is capable of doing and making tools and then taking human beings and saying, what can you do with that.
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.
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'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.
Tradition can be negative though, if the importance of having roots outweighs the importance of searching for what's valuable in new things being presented.