Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock
(born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist and composer. He is regarded as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century. His music embraces elements of rock and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. In his jazz improvisation, he possesses a unique creative blend of jazz, blues, and modern classical music, with a harmonic concept much like the styles of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet", Hancock helped redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section, and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound. Later, he was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace synthesizers and funk. Yet for all his restless experimentalism, Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had many songs "cross over" and achieved success among pop audiences.
Herbie's best-known solo works include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man" (later performed by dozens of musicians, including bandleader Mongo Santamaria), "Maiden Voyage", "Chameleon", and the singles "I Thought It Was You" and "Rockit". His 2007 tribute album, "River: The Joni Letters"
won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album to win the award, the first being 1965's Getz/Gilberto.
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Early life and career
Like many jazz pianists, Hancock started with a
classical music education; Hancock studied from age seven. His talent was recognized early, and he played the first movement of
Mozart's
Piano Concerto No. 5 at a young people's concert with the
Chicago Symphony at age eleven.
[1]
Through his teens, Hancock never had a jazz teacher. Instead, around high school age, Hancock grew to like jazz after hearing some
Oscar Peterson and
George Shearing recordings, which he transcribed in his own time, and which developed his ear and sense of harmony. He was also influenced by records of the vocal group
the Hi-Lo's
:
..by the time I actually heard the Hi-Lo's
, I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings -like the harmonies I used on 'Speak Like a Child' -just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept... He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were. [2]
Hancock also listened to other pianists, including Don Goldberg (also a prodigy and a
Hyde Park High School classmate),
McCoy Tyner, and
Wynton Kelly, and studied recordings by
Miles Davis,
John Coltrane and
Lee Morgan.
Hancock began his studies as a physics major at
Grinnell College, but switched to music after two years. In
1960, he heard
Chris Anderson play just once, and begged him to accept him as a student . Hancock often mentions Anderson as his harmonic guru. Hancock left Grinnell one course short of graduation in 1961, moved to Chicago and began working with
Donald Byrd and
Coleman Hawkins, during which period he also took courses at
Roosevelt University. (Grinnell awarded Hancock an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1972).
[3] Donald Byrd was attending Manhattan School of Music in New York at the time and suggested that Hancock study composition with Vittorio Giannini, which he did for a short time in 1960. The pianist quickly earned a reputation, and played subsequent sessions with
Oliver Nelson and
Phil Woods. He recorded his first solo album
Takin' Off
for
Blue Note Records in 1962. "
Watermelon Man" (from
Takin' Off
) was to provide
Mongo Santamaria with a hit single, but crucially
Takin' Off
was to catch the attention of Miles Davis, who was at that time assembling a new band. Hancock was introduced to Davis by the young drummer
Tony Williams, a member of the new band.
Miles Davis quintet and Blue Note
Hancock received considerable attention when, in May 1963,
he joined Miles Davis' "second great quintet." This new band was essentially Miles Davis surrounded by fresh, new talent. Davis personally sought out Hancock, whom he saw as one of the most promising talents in jazz. The
rhythm section Davis organized was young but effective, comprising bassist
Ron Carter, seventeen year old drummer
Tony Williams, and Hancock on piano. After
George Coleman and
Sam Rivers each taking turns at the saxophone spot, the quintet would gel with
Wayne Shorter on
tenor saxophone. This quintet is often regarded as one of the finest jazz ensembles, and the
rhythm section has been especially praised for its innovation and flexibility.
The second great quintet was where Hancock found his own voice as a pianist. Not only did he find new ways to use common
chords, he also popularized chords then rarely used in jazz. Hancock also developed a unique taste for "orchestral" accompaniment - using
fourths and
Debussy-like harmonies, with stark contrasts then unheard of in jazz.
With Williams and Carter he would weave a labyrinth of rhythmic intricacy on, around and over existing melodic and chordal schemes. In the later half of the sixties their approach would be so sophisticated and unorthodox that conventional
chord changes would hardly be discernible, hence their improvisational concept would become known as "Time, No Changes."
While in the Davis band, Hancock also found time to record dozens of sessions for the Blue Note label, both under his own name and as a sideman with other musicians such as
Wayne Shorter,
Tony Williams,
Grant Green,
Bobby Hutcherson,
Sam Rivers,
Donald Byrd,
Kenny Dorham,
Hank Mobley,
Lee Morgan and
Freddie Hubbard.
His albums
Empyrean Isles
(1964) and
Maiden Voyage
(1965) were to be two of the most famous and influential jazz
LPs of the
sixties, winning praise for both their innovation and accessibility (the latter demonstrated by the subsequent enormous popularity of the
Maiden Voyage
title track as a jazz standard, and by the
jazz rap group
US3 having a hit single with "
Cantaloop" (derived from "Cantaloupe Island" on
Empyrean Isles
) some twenty five years later).
Empyrean Isles
featured the Davis rhythm section of Hancock, Carter and Williams with the addition of Freddie Hubbard on cornet, while
Maiden Voyage
also added former Davis saxophonist
George Coleman (and had
Freddie Hubbard on trumpet). Both albums are regarded as among the principal foundations of the
post-bop style.
Hancock also recorded several less-well-known but still critically acclaimed albums with larger ensembles —
My Point of View
(1963),
Speak Like a Child
(1968) and
The Prisoner
(1969) featured
flugelhorn,
alto flute and
bass trombone. 1963's
Inventions and Dimensions
was an album of almost entirely improvised music, teaming Hancock with bassist
Paul Chambers and two Latin percussionists,
Willie Bobo and
Osvaldo Martinez.
During this period, Hancock also composed the score to
Michelangelo Antonioni's film
Blowup
which was to be the first of many soundtracks he would record in his career.
Davis had begun incorporating elements of rock and popular music into his recordings by the end of Hancock's tenure with the band. Despite some initial reluctance, Hancock began doubling on electric keyboards including the
Fender Rhodes electric piano at Davis's insistence. Hancock adapted quickly to the new instruments, which proved to be instrumental in his future artistic endeavors.
Under the pretext that Hancock returned late from a honeymoon in
Brazil, he was kicked out of Davis' band. So in the summer of 1968 Hancock formed his own sextet. (Davis would soon disband his quintet to search for a new sound.) Hancock though, despite his departure from the working band, continued to appear on Miles Davis records for the next few years. Noteworthy appearances include
In a Silent Way
,
A Tribute to Jack Johnson
and
On the Corner
.
Fat Albert
and Mwandishi
Hancock left
Blue Note in 1969, signing up with
Warner Bros. Records. In 1969, Hancock composed the soundtrack for the
Bill Cosby TV show
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
. Titled
Fat Albert Rotunda
, the album was mainly an
R&B-influenced album with strong jazz overtones. One of the jazzier songs on the record, "Tell Me A Bedtime Story", was later re-worked as a more electronic sounding song for the
Quincy Jones album,
Sounds...and Stuff Like That
.
Hancock was fascinated with accumulating musical gadgets and toys. Together with the profound influence of Davis's
Bitches Brew,
this fascination would culminate in a series of albums in which electronic instruments are coupled with acoustic instruments.
Hancock's first ventures into
electronic music started with a
sextet comprising Hancock, bassist
Buster Williams and drummer
Billy Hart, and a trio of adventurous horn players:
Eddie Henderson (
trumpet),
Julian Priester (
trombone), and
multireedist Bennie Maupin.
Dr. Patrick Gleeson was eventually added to the mix to play and program the synthesizers. In fact, Hancock was one of the first jazz pianists to completely embrace electronic keyboards.
The sextet, later a septet with the addition of Gleeson, made three experimental albums under Hancock's name:
Mwandishi
(1971),
Crossings
(1972) (both on Warner Bros. Records), and
Sextant
(1973) (released on Columbia Records); two more,
Realization
and
Inside Out,
were recorded under Henderson's name with essentially the same personnel. The music often had very free improvisations and showed influence from the
electronic music of some
contemporary classical composers.
Synthesizer player Patrick Gleeson, one of the first musicians to play synthesizer on any jazz recording, introduced the instrument on
Crossings,
released in 1972, one of a handful of influential electronic jazz/fusion recordings to feature synthesizer that same year. On
Crossings
(as well as on
I Sing the Body Electric
), the synthesizer is used more as an improvisatory global orchestration device than as a strictly melodic instrument. This reflected Gleeson's (and Powell's) interest in contemporary European electronic music techniques and in the West Coast synthesis techniques of
Morton Subotnick and other contemporaries, several of whom were resident at one time or another, as was Gleeson, at The Mills College Tape Music Center. An early review of
Crossings
in Downbeat magazine complained about the synthesizer, but a few years later the magazine noted in a cover story on Gleeson that he was "a pioneer" in the field of electronics in jazz. Gleeson used a modular
Moog III for the recording of the album, but used an
ARP 2600 synthesizer, and occasionally an
Arp Soloist for the group's live performances. On
Sextant
Gleeson used the more compact
ARP synthesizers instead of the larger Moog III for both studio and live performances. In the albums following
The Crossings
, Hancock started to play synth himself and unlike Gleeson, he plays it as a melodical and rhythm instrument just like electric pianos.
Hancock's three records released in 1971-1973 became later known as the "Mwandishi" albums, so-called after a
Swahili name Hancock sometimes used during this era (
Mwandishi
is Swahili for
writer
). The first two, including
Fat Albert Rotunda
were made available on the 2-CD set
Mwandishi: the Complete Warner Bros. Recordings
, released in 1994, but are now sold as individual CD editions. Of the three electronic albums,
Sextant
is probably the most experimental since the Arp synthesizers are used extensively, and some advanced improvisation ("post-modal free impressionism") is found on the tracks "Hornets" and "Hidden Shadows" (which is in the
meter 19/4). "Hornets" was later revised on the 2001 album
Future2Future
as "Virtual Hornets."
Among the instruments Hancock and Gleeson used were
Fender Rhodes piano,
ARP Odyssey,
ARP 2600,
ARP Pro Soloist Synthesizer, a
Mellotron and the
Moog III.
All three Warner Bros. albums
Fat Albert Rotunda,
Mwandishi,
and
Crossings,
were remastered in 2001 and released in Europe but were not released in the U.S.A. as of June 2005. In the Winter of 2006-2007 a remastered edition of Crossings was announced and scheduled for release in the Spring.
Head Hunters and Death Wish
See also: The Headhunters
After the sometimes "airy" and decidedly experimental "Mwandishi" albums, Hancock was eager to perform more "earthy" and "
funky" music. The
Mwandishi
albums — though these days seen as respected early fusion recordings — had seen mixed reviews and poor sales, so it is probable that Hancock was motivated by financial concerns as well as artistic restlessness. Hancock was also bothered by the fact that many people did not understand avant-garde music. He explained that he loved
funk music, especially
Sly Stone's music, so he wanted to try to make funk himself.
He gathered a new band, which he called
The Headhunters, keeping only Maupin from the sextet and adding bassist
Paul Jackson, percussionist
Bill Summers, and drummer
Harvey Mason. The album
Head Hunters
, released in 1973, was a major hit and crossed over to
pop audiences, though it prompted criticism from some jazz fans. Head Hunters was recorded at
Different Fur studios.
Despite charges of "
selling out", later ears have regarded the album well: "
Head Hunters
still sounds fresh and vital three decades after its initial release, and its
genre-bending proved vastly influential on not only
jazz, but
funk,
soul, and
hip-hop."
Mason was replaced by
Mike Clark, and the band released a second album,
Thrust,
the following year. (A live album from a Japan performance, consisting of compositions from those first two
Head Hunters
releases was released in 1975 as
Flood
. The record has since been released on CD in Japan.) This was almost as well-received as its predecessor, if not attaining the same level of commercial success. The Headhunters made another successful album (called
Survival of the Fittest
) without Hancock, while Hancock himself started to make even more commercial albums, often featuring members of the band, but no longer billed as The Headhunters. The Headhunters reunited with Hancock in 1998 for
Return of the Headhunters,
and a version of the band (featuring Jackson and Clark) continues to play live and record.
In 1973, Hancock composed his second masterful soundtrack to the controversial film
The Spook Who Sat By The Door
. Then in 1974, Hancock also composed the soundtrack to the first
Death Wish
film. One of his memorable songs, "Joanna's Theme", would later be re-recorded in 1997 on his duet album with
Wayne Shorter 1 + 1
.
Hancock's next jazz-funk albums of the 1970s were
Man-Child
(1975), and
Secrets
(1976), which point toward the more commercial direction Hancock would take over the next decade. These albums feature the members of the 'Headhunters' band, but also a variety of other musicians in important roles.
Back to the Basics: VSOP and the Future Shock
During late 1970s and early 1980s, Hancock toured with his "V.S.O.P." quintet, which featured all the members of the 1960s Miles Davis quintet except Davis, who was replaced by trumpet giant
Freddie Hubbard. There was constant speculation that one day Davis would reunite with his classic band, but he never did so. VSOP recorded several live albums in the late 1970s, including
VSOP
(1976), and
VSOP: The Quintet
(1977). One of his songs, "Clutch", which was recorded in studio in 1980, was featured on the 2001 anime movie
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
and its soundtrack
Future Blues.
In 1978, Hancock recorded a duet with
Chick Corea, who had replaced him in the Miles Davis band a decade earlier. He also released a solo acoustic piano album titled
The Piano
(1978), which, like so many Hancock albums at the time, was initially released only in Japan. (It was finally released in the US in 2004.) Several other Japan-only releases have yet to surface in the US, such as
Dedication
(1974),
VSOP: Tempest in the Colosseum
(1977), and
Direct Step
(1978).
Live Under the Sky
was a VSOP album remastered for the US in 2004, and included an entire second concert from the July 1979 tour.
From 1978-1982, Hancock recorded many albums consisting of jazz-inflected
disco and
pop music, beginning with
Sunlight
(featuring guest musicians like
Tony Williams and
Jaco Pastorius on the last track) (1978). Singing through a
vocoder, he earned a British hit, "I Thought It Was You", although critics were unimpressed. . This led to more vocoder on the 1979 follow-up,
Feets, Don't Fail Me Now,
which gave him another UK hit in "You Bet Your Love." Albums such as
Monster
(1980),
Magic Windows
(1981), and
Lite Me Up
(1982) were some of Hancock's most criticized and unwelcomed albums, the market at the time being somewhat saturated with similar pop-jazz hybrids from the likes of former bandmate Freddie Hubbard. Hancock himself had quite a limited role in some of those albums, leaving singing, composing and even producing to others.
Mr. Hands
(1980) is perhaps the one album during this period that was critically acclaimed. To the delight of many fans, there were no vocals on the album, and one track featured
Jaco Pastorius on bass. The album contains a wide variety of different styles, including a disco instrumental song, a Latin-jazz number and an electronic piece in which Hancock plays alone with the help of computers.
Hancock also found time to record more traditional jazz whilst creating more commercially-oriented music. He toured with
Tony Williams and
Ron Carter in 1981, recording
Herbie Hancock Trio
, a five-track live album released only in Japan. A month later, he recorded
Quartet
with
Wynton Marsalis, released in the US the following year.
In 1983, Hancock had a
mainstream hit with the
Grammy-award winning instrumental single "
Rockit" from the album
Future Shock
. It was perhaps the first mainstream single to feature
scratching, and also featured an innovative animated
music video which was directed by
Godley and Creme and showed several robot-like artworks by
Jim Whiting. The video was a hit on
MTV. The video won 5 different categories at the inaugural
MTV Video Music Awards, including the category for
Video of the Year. This single ushered in a collaboration with noted bassist and producer
Bill Laswell. Hancock experimented with electronic music on a string of three LPs produced by Laswell:
Future Shock
(1983),
Sound-System
(1984) and
Perfect Machine
(1988). Despite the success of "Rockit", Hancock's trio of Laswell-produced albums (particularly the latter two) are among the most critically derided of his entire career, perhaps even more so than his erstwhile pop-jazz experiments. Hancock's level of actual contribution to these albums was also questioned, with some critics contending that the Laswell albums should have been labelled "Bill Laswell featuring Herbie Hancock."
During this period, he appeared onstage at the
Grammy awards with
Stevie Wonder,
Howard Jones, and
Thomas Dolby, in a famous synthesizer
jam . Lesser known works from the 80s are the live album
Jazz Africa
and the studio album
Village Life
(1984) which were recorded with
Gambian
kora player
Foday Musa Suso. Also, in 1985 he performed as a guest on the album
So Red The Rose by the
Duran Duran shoot off group
Arcadia. He also provided introductory and closing comments for the
PBS rebroadcast in the United States of the
BBC educational series from the mid-1980s,
Rock School
(not to be confused with the most recent
Gene Simmons' Rock School
series).
In 1986, Hancock performed and acted in the film
'Round Midnight
. He also wrote the score/soundtrack, for which he won an
Academy Award for Original Music Score. Often he would write music for TV commercials. "Maiden Voyage", in fact, started out as a cologne advertisement. At the end of the
Perfect Machine
tour, Hancock decided to leave Columbia Records after a 15-plus-year relationship.
As of June 2005, almost half of his Columbia recordings have been remastered. The first three US releases,
Sextant
,
Head Hunters
and
Thrust
as well as the last four releases
Future Shock
,
Sound-System
, the soundtrack to
Round Midnight
and
Perfect Machine
. Everything released in America from
Man-Child
to
Quartet
has yet to be remastered. Some albums, made and initially released in the US, were remastered between 1999 and 2001 in other countries such as
Magic Windows
and
Monster
. Hancock also re-released some of his Japan-only releases in the West, such as
The Piano.
1990s and later
After leaving Columbia, Hancock took a break. In 1991, three years after
Perfect Machine
was released, his mentor
Miles Davis, died. Along with friends
Ron Carter,
Tony Williams,
Wayne Shorter, and Davis admirer
Wallace Roney, they recorded
A Tribute to Miles
which was released in 1994. The album contained two live recordings and studio recording classics with Roney playing Davis's part as trumpet player. The album won a Grammy for best group album. He also toured with
Jack DeJohnette,
Dave Holland and
Pat Metheny in 1990 on their Parallel Realities tour, which included a memorable performance at the
Montreux Jazz Festival in July 1990.
Hancock's next album,
Dis Is Da Drum
released in 1994 saw him return to
Acid Jazz. 1995's
The New Standard
found him and an all-star band including
John Scofield,
Jack DeJohnette and
Michael Brecker interpreting
pop songs by
Nirvana,
Stevie Wonder,
The Beatles,
Prince,
Peter Gabriel and others. A 1997 duet album with Wayne Shorter titled
1 + 1
was successful, the song "
Aung San Suu Kyi" winning the
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition, and Hancock also achieved great success in 1998 with his album
Gershwin's World
which featured inventive readings of
George &
Ira Gershwin standards by Hancock and a plethora of guest stars including
Stevie Wonder,
Joni Mitchell and Shorter.
In 2001, Hancock recorded
Future2Future
, which reunited Hancock with Bill Laswell and featured doses of
electronica as well as
turntablist Rob Swift of
The X-Ecutioners. Hancock later toured with the band, and released a live concert DVD with a different lineup which also included the "Rockit" music video. Also in 2001, Hancock partnered with
Michael Brecker and
Roy Hargrove to record a live concert album saluting Davis and
John Coltrane called
Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall
recorded live in Toronto. The threesome then toured together, and have toured on and off through 2005.
2005 saw the release of a duet album called
Possibilities
. It features duets with
Carlos Santana,
Paul Simon,
Annie Lennox,
John Mayer,
Christina Aguilera,
Sting and others. In 2006,
Possibilities
was nominated for
Grammy awards in two categories: "A Song For You", featuring
Christina Aguilera was nominated in the Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals category, and "Gelo No Montanha", featuring
Trey Anastasio on guitar was nominated in the Best Pop Instrumental Performance category. Neither nomination resulted in an award.
Also in 2005, Hancock toured Europe with a new quartet that included
Beninese
guitarist Lionel Loueke, and explored textures ranging from
ambient to straight jazz to
African music. Plus, during the Summer of 2005, Hancock re-staffed the famous Head Hunters and went on tour with them, including a performance at The
Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.
However, this lineup did not consist of any of the original Headhunters musicians. The group included
Marcus Miller,
Terri Lyne Carrington,
Lionel Loueke and
John Mayer. Hancock also served as the first artist in residence for
Bonnaroo that summer.
Also in 2006,
Sony BMG Music Entertainment (which bought out Hancock's old label, Columbia Records) released the two-disc retrospective
The Essential Herbie Hancock
. This two-disc set is the first compilation of Herbie's work at Warner Bros. Records, Blue Note Records, Columbia and at Verve/Polygram. This became Hancock's second major compilation of work since the 2002 Columbia-only "The Herbie Hancock Box" which was released at first in a plastic 4x4 cube then re-released in 2004 in a long box set. Hancock also in 2006, recorded a new song with
Josh Groban and Eric Mouquet (co-founder of
Deep Forest) titled "Machine". It is featured on Josh Groban's
CD "Awake." Hancock also recorded and improvised with guitarist
Lionel Loueke on Loueke's debut album on the ObliqSound label in 2006, resulting in two improvisational tracks "Le Réveil des Agneaux (The Awakening of the Lambs)" and "La Poursuite du lion (The Lion's Pursuit)".
Hancock, a longtime associate and friend of
Joni Mitchell released a 2007 album,
River: The Joni Letters,
that paid tribute to her work.
Norah Jones and
Tina Turner recorded vocals,
[4] as did
Corinne Bailey Rae, and
Leonard Cohen contributed a spoken piece set to Hancock's piano. Mitchell herself also made an appearance. The album was released on September 25, simultaneously with the release of Mitchell's album
Shine
.
[5] "River" was nominated for and won the 2008 Album of the Year Grammy Award, only the second jazz album ever to receive either honor. The album also won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, and the song "
Both Sides Now" was nominated for Best Instrumental Jazz Solo.
Recently Hancock performed at the Shriner's Children's Hospital Charity Fundraiser with Sheila E, Jim Brickman, Kirk Whalum and Wendy Alane Wright.
His latest work includes assisting the production of the
Kanye West track "RoboCop", found on
808s & Heartbreak.
On June 14, 2008, Hancock performed at
Rhythm on the Vine at the South Coast Winery in Temecula, California for
Shriners Hospital for Children. Other performers at the event, that raised $515,000 for
Shriners Hospital, were contemporary music artist
Jim Brickman, and
Sheila E. & the E. Family Band.
[6]
On January 18, 2009, Hancock performed at the
We Are One concert, marking the start of
inaugural celebrations for
American President Barack Obama.
[7] Hancock also performed the
Rhapsody in Blue at the 2009
Classical BRIT Awards with classical pianist
Lang Lang. Hancock was named as the
Los Angeles Philharmonic’s creative chair for jazz for 2010-12
[8]
Discography
Title
|
| Year
|
| Label
|
Takin' Off
|
| 1962
|
| Blue Note
|
My Point of View
|
| 1963
|
| Blue Note
|
Inventions and Dimensions
|
| 1963
|
| Blue Note
|
Empyrean Isles
|
| 1964
|
| Blue Note
|
Maiden Voyage
|
| 1965
|
| Blue Note
|
Blow-Up
(Soundtrack)
|
| 1966
|
| MGM
|
Speak Like a Child
|
| 1968
|
| Blue Note
|
The Prisoner
|
| 1969
|
| Blue Note
|
Fat Albert Rotunda
|
| 1969
|
| Warner Bros.
|
Mwandishi
|
| 1970
|
| Warner Bros.
|
He Who Lives In Many Places
(with bassist Terry Plumeri)
|
| 1971
|
| Airborne.
|
Crossings
|
| 1972
|
| Warner Bros.
|
Sextant
|
| 1973
|
| Columbia
|
Head Hunters
|
| 1973
|
| Columbia
|
Thrust
|
| 1974
|
| Columbia
|
Death Wish
(Soundtrack)
|
| 1974
|
| Columbia
|
Dedication
|
| 1974
|
| Columbia
|
Man-Child
|
| 1975
|
| Columbia
|
Flood
(Live album)
|
| 1975
|
| Columbia
|
Secrets
|
| 1976
|
| Columbia
|
VSOP
(Live album)
|
| 1976
|
| Columbia
|
Herbie Hancock Trio
|
| 1977
|
| Columbia
|
VSOP: The Quintet
(Live album)
|
| 1977
|
| Columbia
|
VSOP: Tempest in the Colosseum
(Live album)
|
| 1977
|
| Columbia
|
Sunlight
|
| 1977
|
| Columbia
|
Directstep
|
| 1978
|
| Columbia
|
An Evening with Herbie Hancock & Chick Corea: In Concert
(Live album with Chick Corea)
|
| 1978
|
| Columbia
|
The Piano
|
| 1979
|
| Columbia
|
Feets, Don't Fail Me Now
|
| 1979
|
| Columbia
|
VSOP: Live Under the Sky
(Live album)
|
| 1979
|
| Columbia
|
CoreaHancock
(Live album with Chick Corea)
|
| 1979
|
| Polydor
|
Monster
|
| 1980
|
| Columbia
|
Mr. Hands
|
| 1980
|
| Columbia
|
Herbie Hancock Trio
|
| 1981
|
| Columbia
|
Magic Windows
|
| 1981
|
| Columbia
|
Quartet
(Live album)
|
| 1982
|
| Columbia
|
Future Shock
|
| 1983
|
| Columbia
|
Sound-System
|
| 1984
|
| Columbia
|
Village Life
(with Foday Musa Suso)
|
| 1985
|
| Columbia
|
Round Midnight
(Soundtrack)
|
| 1986
|
| Columbia
|
Jazz Africa
(Live album with Foday Musa Suso)
|
| 1987
|
| Polygram
|
Perfect Machine
|
| 1988
|
| Columbia
|
A Tribute to Miles
|
| 1994
|
| Qwest/Warner Bros.
|
Dis Is Da Drum
|
| 1994
|
| Verve/Mercury
|
The New Standard
|
| 1995
|
| Verve
|
1 + 1
(with Wayne Shorter)
|
| 1997
|
| Verve
|
Gershwin's World
|
| 1998
|
| Verve
|
Future2Future
|
| 2001
|
| Transparent
|
Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall
(Live album)
|
| 2002
|
| Verve
|
Possibilities
|
| 2005
|
| Concord/Hear Music
|
River: The Joni Letters
|
| 2007
|
| Verve
|
Filmography
As a Leader
- 2000: Dejohnette, Hancock, Holland and Metheny - Live in Concert
- 2002: Herbie Hancock Trio: Hurricane!
with Ron Carter and Art Farmer [9]
- 2002: The Jazz Channel Presents Herbie Hancock (BET on Jazz)
- 2004: Herbie Hancock - Future2Future Live
- 2006: Herbie Hancock - Possibilities
with John Meyer, Christina Aguilera, Joss Stone, and more
Awards
Academy Awards
- 1986, Original Soundtrack, for Round Midnight
Grammy Awards
# 1983,
Best R&B Instrumental Performance, for
Rockit
# 1984, Best R&B Instrumental Performance, for
Sound-System
# 1987,
Best Instrumental Composition, for
Call Sheet Blues
# 1994,
Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual Or Group, for
A Tribute to Miles
# 1996, Best Instrumental Composition, for
Manhattan (Island Of Lights And Love)
# 1998, Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s), for
St. Louis Blues
# 1998, Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual Or Group, for
Gershwin's World
# 2002, Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group, for
Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall
# 2002, Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, for
My Ship
# 2004, Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, for
Speak Like a Child
# 2008,
Best Contemporary Jazz Album, for
River: The Joni Letters
# 2008,
Album of the Year, for
River: The Joni Letters
Playboy Music Poll
- Best Jazz Group, 1985
- Best Jazz Keyboards, 1985
- Best Jazz Album - Rockit, 1985
- Best Jazz Keyboards, 1986
- Best R&B Instrumentalist, 1987
- Best Jazz Instrumentalist, 1988
Keyboard Magazine's Readers Poll
- Best Jazz & Pop Keyboardist, 1983
- Best Jazz Pianist, 1987
- Best Jazz Keyboardist, 1987
- Best Jazz Pianist, 1988
Other notable awards
- MTV Awards (5 awards in total) - Best Concept Video - Rockit
, 1983-84
- Gold Note Jazz Awards - NY Chapter of the National Black MBA Association, 1985
- French Award Officer of the Order of Arts & Letters-Paris, 1985
- BMI Film Music Award "Round Midnight", 1986
- U.S. Radio Award "Best Original Music Scoring - Thom McAnn Shoes", 1986
- Los Angeles Film Critics Association "Best Score - Round Midnight", 1986
- BMI Film Music Award "Colors", 1989
- Soul Train Music Award "Best Jazz Album - The New Standard", 1997
- Festival International Jazz de Montreal Prix Miles Davis, 1997
- VH1's 100 Greatest Videos "Rockit" is "10th Greatest Video", 2001
- NEA Jazz Masters Award, 2004
- Downbeat Magazine Readers Poll Hall of Fame, 2005
- Album of the Year, 2007
- Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year, 2008 [10]
References
- {{GroveOnline|Herbie Hancock|Dobbins, Bill and Kernfeld, Barry|19 February|2007}}
- Julie Coryell & Laura Friedman "Jazz-Rock Fusion. The People, The Music", A Delta Special 1978, ISBN 0-440-04187-2, page 161-162".
- The tune '''Dr Honoris Causa''' written by Joe Zawinul and performed by Cannonball Adderley's quintet is an ironic celebration of the honorary degree.
- Key figure: An interview with jazz legend Herbie Hancock
- JoniMitchell.com
- Shriners Hospitals for Children, "About Rhythm on the Vine," Rhythm on the Vine, 2008.
- Obama: People Who Love This Country Can Change It
- Haga, E. Herbie Hancock Named L.A. Philharmonic's Next Creative Chair for Jazz, ''Jazz Times'', August 5, 2009.
- VIEW DVD Listing
- Hancock named Harvard Foundation Artist of the Year — The Harvard University Gazette