Possibilities
by Herbie Hancock with Lisa Dickey (Music 781.65 Han)
Herbie Hancock is easily one of the
most important piano and keyboard instrument players in the history of jazz. He
was doing solo albums of original music for Blue Note in the early 60s,
launching his first album with “Watermelon Man,” which quickly become a jazz
standard. In the early portion of his career, he played with Miles Davis’ 2nd
great quintet lineup, and after leaving the live band he continued to play on
some of the amazing records that defined the transition toward electric Miles,
like my favorite Miles albums “Jack Johnson” and “On the Corner.”
Post-Miles, there are multiple
waves of incredible bands that Herbie founded. The Mwandishi band was a
powerhouse that continues to influence contemporary jazz to this day. Although
they only did three albums under the Hancock name, this group also recorded
albums mostly intact under the guidance of different band members, too, so if
you’re a fan of “Mwandishi,” “Crossings,” or “Sextant,” be sure you check out
trumpeter Eddie Henderson’s “Realization” and “Inside Out” albums and
saxophonist Bennie Maupin’s “The Jewel in the Lotus.” Taken as a whole, these
records did so much to lay the foundations for fusion, and incorporated
electronic instruments into acoustic ensembles, taking things even further than
Miles.
Herbie followed this legendary band
with his Headhunters lineup for the rest of the 1970s, really inventing
jazz-funk along the way. There are a few songs in the Hancock catalog that even
folks who listen to no jazz would probably recognize, and one of those is
“Chameleon” from the first Headhunters album, a long-time staple riff that even
gets played at sporting events.
Continuing to incorporate the
latest technology, Herbie got downright retrofuturistic in the 80s, highlighted
best by his trio of albums with producer Bill Laswell, “Future Shock,”
“Sound-System,” and “Perfect Machine.” His biggest hit, “Rockit,” from 1983, is
considered the first jazz-rap tune, and was the first time record scratching
was featured in a hit single. The tune was a huge hit with both jazz and
hip-hop fans. And in between all of these eras, Herbie has also done lots of
more acoustic, piano-driven playing on solo and duet albums, and has appeared
on other artists’ albums in a variety of contexts, from jazz to folk to rock to
R&B. He’s one of the most-recorded jazz artists of all time, appearing on
over 1000 records.
Back in 2014, Herbie reflected on
his incredible career in his first book, Possibilities, which you can borrow from the
Polley Music Library. Hancock’s voice and vibe come through clearly in the
pages of this book: he is humble, thoughtful, always paying attention to the
moment, and grateful to everyone who helped along his illustrious career. He
starts the book with an anecdote about playing a flubbed chord at the peak of
“So What” in performance with the Miles Davis Quintet in Sweden, noting that
Miles immediately adjusted and made his bad chord work perfectly. His takeaway,
always being ready to make everything work so well, is certainly reflected in
his life’s work. At the beginning of the book, he details some basics of his
family life, and his start as a 7-year old piano player who quickly became fond
of the instrument while taking classical lessons. By the age of 11, he won a
competition and performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Soon thereafter,
he became aware of his peers starting to play jazz, and devoted his attention
to unraveling the mysteries of that music.
The remarkable early experiences in
Herbie’s career pack the first several chapters. After attending Grinnell
College in Iowa, he quickly found his way into some pickup gigs that led to
steady work as a musician. Donald Byrd took him to New York City and helped to
get him established, and before long he was working almost every night, taking
recording sessions, and working on his own first solo album. Byrd even got him
prepared for the next huge move in his career: joining Miles Davis.
The next few chapters are all about
playing with Miles, an inspirational time for everyone in the band. For Herbie,
it’s a time for both tremendous musical and personal growth, as he meets his
future spouse Gigi. During their honeymoon, Miles decides to replace him with
Chick Corea, which quickly leads to the bulk of the book’s coverage, focusing
on Herbie’s many projects as a bandleader.
The Herbie Hancock Sextet was an
incredible band. Herbie details the first gig with the final lineup in place,
which was the first time the six had all played together. It was magic from the
start, and just like you can hear on the albums released by what came to be
called the Mwandishi band, the group continued to absorb the sounds and times
all around them, creating a new kind of music that transcended jazz into its
own powerful free fusion. But such unique music can be difficult to satisfy
record label executives with. Herbie includes a fantastic story to this effect
about taking the album “Crossings” to the Warner Bros executives: producer
David Rubinson started to play music for the execs, who expressed concerns
about how to market it, and Rubinson then proclaimed that they had been
listening to the B-side of Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew,” which was then number 9
on the charts. Things kept progressing positively from there, with Herbie even
adding modular synth player Pat Gleeson to the lineup.
But all good things come to an end,
and the free nature of the Mwandishi lineup ultimately started to become stale.
Herbie felt drawn to more structured music, and ultimately started the
Headhunters, playing extremely tight jazz-funk in their own revolutionary new
way. And the Head Hunters was a big hit—for a few years, it stood as the
best-selling jazz album of all time, and appealed to listeners outside of jazz.
This album and the ones that followed really cemented Hancock as a top tier
artist in his own right, as evidenced by his 3-band career retrospective at the
1976 Newport Jazz Festival.
That takes us to about the halfway
point in the book, from which much is covered in the decades since Herbie has
been a firmly established artist. He continued to incorporate all kinds of
evolving technology into his music and his own playing. He suffered the tragic
loss of his sister Jean in a 1985 plane crash. And he enjoyed the pinnacle of
his commercial success with the 1983 album “Future Shock” and its massive hit
single “Rockit,” which was incredibly almost rejected by his record label at
the time. And he struggled with some personal substance abuse issues which he
ultimately overcame.
One of my favorite things about Possibilities is how much credit Hancock gives to
his many collaborators along the way. His tone is gracious and open, and he
evolves as both a musician and as a person along with his many collaborators.
Music is an inherently social art form, and Herbie’s career and attitude as
displayed in this book provide a multitude of lessons for how to get the best
out of your music and yourself by really working with those around you. A great
book for jazz fans and musicians of all disciplines.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try Experiencing Herbie Hancock: A Listener’s Companion by Eric
Wendell or The Great Jazz Pianists: Speaking of Their Lives and Music
by Leonard Lyons.)
( publisher’s official Possibilities web site ) | ( official Herbie Hancock
web site )
Recommended
by Scott S.
Polley Music Library
Have you read or listened to
this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page
of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or
watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the
course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see
more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the
Polley Music Library,
located on the 2nd floor of the Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th
& "N" St. in downtown Lincoln. You'll find biographies of musicians,
books about music history, instructional books, sheet music, CDs,
music-related magazines, and much more. Also check out
Polley Music Library Picks, the Polley Music Library's e-mail newsletter, and
follow them on Facebook!
Posts
