Herbie Hancock

Pianist • Bandleader • Composer
Birth Name: Herbert Jeffrey Hancock
Birth Date: April 12, 1940
Age: 85 years old
Birth Place: Chicago, Illinois
One of modern jazz music's true game-changers, pianist, composer and bandleader Herbie Hancock continually helped to redefine the genre by embracing a broad variety of styles and new technology, while still retaining his traditional roots.
A former child prodigy, Hancock evolved into a first-rate adult musician when he became both an integral member of Miles Davis' Second Great Quintet and a key signing of the Blue Note label, where he recorded dozens of sessions as a sideman and a string of influential solo LPs which pioneered the post-bop style. Hancock went on to form several of his own forward-thinking backing bands, release a ground-breaking trilogy which introduced the jazz world to synths, and cross over to the MTV generation with a number of pop-oriented hits and attention-grabbing videos.
Hancock maintained his impossible-to-pigeonhole reputation throughout the 80s and 90s by tackling everything from Oscar-winning film scores to the standards of Ira and George Gershwin. But it was in the 21st Century where he achieved his commercial peak thanks to various high-profile collaborative records and an Album of the Year Grammy-winning tribute to Joni Mitchell.
Born in Chicago, IL, in 1940, Hancock studied classical music from the age of seven, and had soloed in the first movement of a Mozart piano concerto with his hometown's Symphony Orchestra by the time he reached eleven. After graduating from Iowa's Grinnell College, where he majored in Electrical Engineering and Music, Hancock was taken under the wing of legendary blues trumpeter Donald Byrd, who offered him a place in his New York group, and encouraged him to work with neo-romantic composer Vittorio Giannini.
In 1962, Hancock signed to Blue Note Records and released his debut album, Takin' Off, which not only spawned a future hit for Cuban percussionist Mongo Santamaria ("Watermelon Man"), but also attracted the attention of Miles Davis, who then invited him to join what would retroactively be known as his Second Great Quintet. Hancock spent five years in the group where he influenced Davis almost as much as Davis influenced him, popularizing chords previously unheard of in jazz, absorbing modern classical influences and developing an improvisational concept known as "time, no changes."
Hancock also continued to enjoy a fruitful solo career during this period, in addition to recording dozens of sessions as a sideman with the likes of Creed Taylor, Bobby Hutcherson and Lee Morgan. 1964's Empyrean Isles and 1965's Maiden Voyage, a concept album intended to create an oceanic atmosphere, were hailed as two of the finest jazz albums of the decade.
1966's Blowup, the official soundtrack to Michelangelo Antonioni's murder mystery, proved to be the first of many successful ventures into the world of film. After parting company with Davis in 1968,
Hancock signed with Warner Bros. Records, formed his very own highly-influential jazz-rock sextet, and veered into funk territory on the score for Bill Cosby's animated television show, "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" (CBS, 1972-1985). Having doubled up on the electric keyboard during his final year in Davis' band, Hancock continued to incorporate various new instruments into his work, most notably the synthesiser on an avant-garde album trilogy titled in honor of his Swahili name, Mwandishi.
A conversion to Buddhism inspired a more positive, and ultimately more commercial, change in direction, and after founding a new Sly Stone-esque funk outfit called The Headhunters, he released one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time with an LP of the same name. Hancock recorded a further two albums (Thrust and Man-Child) with the group, composed soundtracks for politically-charged drama "The Spook Who Sat By The Door" (1973) and vigilante thriller "Death Wish" (1974) and flirted with the sounds of the Caribbean on 1976's Secrets, before joining forces with former Second Great Quintet bandmates Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter and Freddie Hubbard for several reunion tours and live albums under the name of V.S.O.P.
Undeterred at the sell-out accusations levelled at him, Hancock continued to target the mainstream with a string of disco-themed LPs in which he also relied heavily on the vocoder, but still kept one foot in traditional jazz territory with collaborative efforts with Wynton Marsalis and the formation of the Herbie Hancock Trio.
A much younger audience were introduced to his talents in 1983 when Future Shock spawned only his second US Hot 100 entry, "Rockit." One of the first hit singles to feature the art of scratching, the futuristic piece of synth-funk also gave Hancock his first ever Grammy and became an unlikely staple of MTV thanks to a striking Godley and Creme-directed video in which various robot-like sculptures moved in time to the track.
Hancock then added to his awards tally in 1987 when his soundtrack to "'Round Midnight" (1986), the Parisian-based musical drama he also appeared in, won the Oscar for Best Original Score. Following a brief foray into techno-pop on 1988's Perfect Machine, Hancock took a six-year break from the studio before returning with the double whammy of A Tribute To Miles and Dis is da Drum, while in 1995, he tackled hit songs from artists as diverse as Nirvana, Stevie Wonder and The Beatles on The New Standard.
Hancock returned to more traditional fare in 1998 when he put his own spin on various Great American Songbook standards composed by Ira and George Gershwin, and three years later, recruited Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove for a tour and Grammy-winning live LP (Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall) celebrating the works of his former mentor Miles Davis, and John Coltrane.
But 2001's Future2Future, an electronic-based affair which utilized the talents of The X-Ecutioners' turntablist Rob Swift and techno producer Carl Craig proved Hancock still had his finger on the pulse. Likewise 2005 duets album Possibilities, which saw him join forces with pop artists both established (Annie Lennox, Sting) and emerging (Joss Stone, Lisa Hannigan).
But it was his next venture, 45 years into his career, that proved to be his crowning glory. A tribute album to his long-time friend Joni Mitchell, 2007's River: The Joni Letters featured guest appearances from Leonard Cohen, Corinne Bailey Rae and the Canadian folk singer herself, reached a career high of number five on the Billboard 200, and famously beat the likes of Kanye West's Graduation and Amy Winehouse's Back in Black to the Album of the Year Grammy Award in 2008. The record's surprise success sparked a huge interest in Hancock's back catalogue, resulting in a number of reissues and compilations.
But 2010's The Imagine Project, a star-studded and cross-cultural affair featuring the likes of Mali collective Tinariwen, Chicano rockers Los Lobos and Somali-Canadian poet K'Naan, proved that instead of looking back, Hancock was still far more interested in pushing jazz music forward.
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Polar Music Prize - banketten

International Jazz Day From Morocco

Grammy AwardsStream

Umbria Jazz 50: Time After Time

International Jazz Day From the United Nations

Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song

Hargrove

Homeward Bound: A Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon

Jazz à Vienne

Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes

International Jazz Day Celebration

The 44th Annual Kennedy Center Honors

The Herbie Hancock Trio

Live at Mister Kelly'sStream

In Concert at the Hollywood Bowl

United We Sing: A Grammy Tribute to the Unsung Heroes

International Jazz Day From St. Petersburg

Quincy Jones - 75th Birthday Anniversary: Montreux

The 41st Annual Kennedy Center Honors

International Jazz Day From Cuba

Poetry in America

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes

The Breakfast Couch

Charlie Pickering: My Guest Tonight

Taking the Stage: African American Music and Stories That Changed America

Valerian and the City of a Thousand PlanetsStream

'Tribute to Miles Davis' by Hancock / Miller / Shorter

Jazz at the White House

River of Gold

The Weekly with Charlie Pickering

International Jazz Day

The 57th Annual Grammy Awards

Marcus

Jaco

The 37th Annual Kennedy Center Honors

Girl Meets WorldStream

Glastonbury

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonStream

Umbria Jazz: Miles Davis Tribute

Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra: Opening Gala Season 2011/2012

Lang Lang Featuring Herbie Hancock in Berlin

CBS This Morning

Charles Lloyd: Arrows Into Infinity

Amazon Gold

The 34th Annual Kennedy Center Honors

BET Honors

An Evening of Stars: Tribute to Chaka Khan

Paul McCartney: In Performance at the White House

The First Time With

The Music Videos That Shaped the 80s

On the Shoulders of Giants

The 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

Miles Davis: Miles Electric - A Different Kind of Blue

An Evening With Quincy Jones

Santana: Hymns for Peace Live at Montreux 2004

Herbie Hancock: Possibilities

Herbie Hancock: Possibilities

Tavis Smiley

Herbie Hancock: Hardrock

Herbie Hancock: Rockit

Herbie Hancock: Vibe Alive

Jazz Record Requests

Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz

Late Show With David Letterman

The Tonight Show With Jay Leno

Livin' Large!

Harlem NightsStream

Action JacksonStream

ColorsStream

The George McKenna Story

Round MidnightStream

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is CallingStream

Mike Hammer

A Soldier's StoryStream

Herbie Hancock: Autodrive

BR-Klassik im TV

CBS News Sunday MorningStream

Rock Goes to College

Austin City Limits

Saturday Night LiveStream

Death WishStream

Great PerformancesStream

Blow-UpStream
