Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (innate April 12, 1940) is a jazz pianist and composer from Chicago, Illinois, USA. Hancock is one of jazz music's first & influential piano player & composers. He embraced elements of rock, funk, and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from either jazz.

When a portion of Miles Davis's "second great quintet" Hancock helped redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section, and was late one of a number one jazzman to embrace synthesizers and hip hop. However for completely his restless experimentalism, Hancock's music is typically melodic & accessible; he has experienced several songs "crossover" & achieve profits among pop audiences.

Hancock's right-known solo works include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man" (first in 1962's ''Budorcas taxicolor' Dispatch'', so in 1973's Head Hunters and later perfomed by 12 of musicians, including bandleader Mongo Santamaria), George Gershwin's "Summertime", & a only "Rockit."

Early life and career

Rather several jazz pianists, Hancock started by owning the classical music education; Hancock studied from either age septenary. His talent was recognized early, & he played a 1st movement of Mozart's PiaThere is no Concerto No. Little phoebe aroun500 D Major at the immature population’s concert by owning a Chicago Symphony at age eleven.

Across his teens, Hancock never got the jazz teacher. Instead, in college age, Hancock grew to rather jazz fallowing hearing a few Oscar Peterson and George Shearing recordings, which he transcribed on his have instance, & which developed his ear & feel of harmony. Hancock as well listened to more piano player, including McCoy Tyner, Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans, and deliberate recordings by Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Lee Morgan.

When Hancock achieved degrees within electrical engineering and musical composition at Grinnell College, Donald Byrd hired Hancock in 1961, & the piano player quickly earned a reputation, and played subsequent sessions using Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods. He recorded his 1st solo album ''Takin' Off for Blue Note Records in 1962, it was the number one of xii of albums Hancock would lead in the coming decades. "Watermelon Man" was to provide Mongo Santamarithe by using a hit individual, however crucially Budorcas taxicolor' Bump off'' was to catch the attention of Miles Davis, world health organization was at that period assembling a recently band.

When you took the Sixties, Hancock was a popular sideman & appeared as a piano player in xii of Blue Note sessions.

Miles Davis quintet

Hancock received considerable attention once, around 1963, he joined Miles Davis's "second great quintet". This freshly band was fundamentally Miles Davis surrounded by freshly, fresh talent. Davis personally sought out Hancock, world health organization he saw when one of a virtually all promising talents within jazz. A rhythm section Davis organized was young however effectual, comprising bassist Ron Carter, seventeen year old drummer Tony Williams, and Hancock in piano. Fallowing George Coleman and Sam Rivers each taking turns at a sax spot, a quintet would gel by owning Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone. This quintet is typically take to be one of a finest jazz ensembles, & a rhythm section has been especially praised for their innovation and flexibility.

A 2nd smashing quintet is the place in which Hancock uncovered his have unique voice as a master of jazz piano. Non simply did he locate freshly ways to utilize most common chords, he also popularized chords so-rarely utilized around jazz. Hancock besides developed the unique taste for "orchestral" accompaniment sustaining stark contrasts so unheard of inside jazz (listen to one of a celebrated survive versions of "My Funny Valentine" recorded per quintet).

By having Williams & Carter he would weave the labyrinth of rhythmical elaboratiin on, about & above existent melodic & chordal schemes. In the later on half of the sixties their approach would exist as & so sophisticated and maverick that conventional chord changes would hardly exist as discernible, hence their improvisational construct would somewhat inaccurately be known as "Time, No Changes".

When in the Davis b&, Hancock incurred instance to record several sessions for the Blue Note label, two under his have title & by owning more musicians like Wayne Shorter and Freddie Hubbard. His albums Empyrean Isles and Maiden Voyage were to be ii of the best known & influential jazz LPs of the sixties, winning praise for both their innovation & accessibility (a latter demonstrated per subsequent tremendous popularity of the Maiden Voyage title track as a jazz standard, & per jazz rap group US3 having a hit individual by having "Cantaloupe Island" from either Empyrean Isles a few twenty 5 years late). Hancock also recorded a does'nt as well known however however critically acclaimed albums Speak Like A Child and The Prisoner which featured flugelhorn, alto flute and bass trombone, and composed a score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up which was to be a number 1 of numerous soundtracks he would record within his career.

Per prevent of his tenure by owning Davis, a trumpeter began incorporating elements of rock & popular music into his recordings. Despite a few initial reluctance, at Davis's insistence Hancock began doubling in electrical keyboards including a Fender Rhodes electric piano. Hancock adapted quickly to the newly instruments & it would become instrumental inside his artistic tries.

In the summertime of 1968, Hancock left Davis's band to form his own sextet, although he was formally kicked retired under the pretext that he was late coming back from either a honeymoon within Brazil. Davis would shortly disband his quartet to research for the fresh healthy himself. Despite his departure from either a working band, Hancock would prove my point to pop up in Miles Davis records for the next pack years; noteworthy appearances include In a Silent Way, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and On the Corner.

Fat Albert & Mwandishi

Hancock left Blue Note in 1969, signing up by using Warner Brothers. Inside 1969, Hancock composed a soundtrack for the Bill Cosby TV show known as Fat Albert. Titled Fat Albert Rotunda, the album was in the main the R&B-influenced album with strong jazz overtones. One of a jazzier songs on the record, "Tell Me A Bedtime Story", was late re-worked as the supplementary electronically sounding song for a Quincy Jones album.

Hancock was fascinated using accumulating musical widget & toys. Together by having a profound influence of Davis's ''Bitches' Brew'', this fascination would culminate in the series of albums where electronic instruments come coupled sustaining acoustical instruments.

Hancock's foremost ventures into electronic music started with the sextet comprised of Hancock, drummer Billy Hart and bassist Buster Williams, and the trio of adventuresome 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.

A sextet mass produced trinity experimental albums under Hancock's title : Mwandishi (1970), Crossings (1971) (two in Warner Brothers) & Sextant (1973) (freed in Columbia Records); deuce thomas more, Realization & Within Out were recorded under Henderson's title by using au fond a equivalent personnel. A music typically experienced super free streaming improvisations & showed influence from either a electronic music of some contemporary classical composers.

These triad records became late called a "Mwandishi" albums, thus-alleged when the Swahili name Hancock sometimes utilized in the period of this era (Mwandishi is Swahili for writer). A foremost 2, including Fat Albert Rotunda were made available on the Deuce-Video placed Mwandishi: a Complete Warner Bros. Recordings, freed around 1994, but come these times sold when single Video editions. Of the trinity electronically sounded albums, Sextant is probably a virtually all experimental (especially a song "Rain Dance", which is one of Hancock's early Columbia classics.) since a Moog & Arp synthesizers come utilized around radical ways that however healthy freshly in todays world; occasionally highly advanced improvisation is encountered on the tracks "Hornets" & "Hidden Shadows" (which is in the meter 19/4). "Hornets" was afterwards revised on the 2001 album Future2Future as "Virtual Hornets".

Among a instruments Hancock listed were Fender Rhodes piano, ARP Odyssey, ARP Pro-Soloist Synthesizer and the Minimoog. He was one of a number one mainstream musicians to utilize an Apple computer in creating music in the early 1980s.

Completely 3 Warner Brothers albums Fat Albert Rotunda, Mwandishi and Crossings were remastered in 2001 but were not freed in the U.S.The. when of June 2005.

Headhunters

Fallowing a for instance "airy" & decidely experimental "Mwandishi" albums, Hancock was avid to perform other "earthy" & "funky" music. A Mwandishi records experienced seen mixed reviews & unfortunate sales, and then these are likely that Hancock wwhen motivated by fiscal concerns also as artistic restlessness.

He gathered the recently band, which he known as The Headhunters, keeping only Maupin from either a sextet & adding bassist Paul Jackson, percussionist Bill Summers, and drummer Harvey Mason. A album Head Hunters, released within 1973, was the major hit & crossed complete to pop audiences, though it prompted criticism from a select few jazz fans.

Despite charges of "selling out", later ears own regarded a album swell: "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." [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:3y61mped9f5o~T1 Allmusic.com entry]

Mason was replaced by Mike Clark, and a band freed another album,Thrust, the charted month. This wwhen most too-received as its predecessor, whenever does'nt attaining a equivalent level of commercial profits. A Headhunters mass produced an additional successful album (known as "Survival of the Fittest") without Hancock, when Hancock himself began to produce possibly extra commercial albums (typically featuring members of A band, however there is no yearn billed when The Headhunters). A Headhunters reunited by having Hancock around 1998 for Return of the Headhunters, & the version of the b& (featuring Jackson and Clark) continues to play survive and record.

Back to the Basics and The Future Shock

In the period of late 1970s & early Eighties, Hancock toured using his "V.S.O.P." quintet that featured the rotating lineup that ordinarily featured all the members of the Lx's Miles Davis quintet except Miles (there was constant speculation that a single day, Miles would join a class action & reunite a classic band, however he in the end never did). He recorded the duet acoustical soft album by using Chick Corea in 1979 (who got replaced him in the Miles Davis b& the decade sooner) and the solo acoustic soft album titled A Piano which was such as sol numerous Hancock albums at a instance exclusively freed inside Japan (though it was finally freed inside the America in 2004). Many Japan-simply releases use however however non been freed inside Usa, like Dedication and Sunlight.

Hancock recorded several albums consisting of disco and pop music. It were non especially successful though Hancock's experiments commonly provided interest for a hearer (e.g. the ''Feets, Don't Fail Me Now album, released in 1978, features extended use of vocoder vocals by Hancock, plus disco grooves combined with funk-riffs). Albums such as Mr. Hands, Magic Windows, and Lite Me Up'' were some of Hancock's most criticized and unwelcome albums, as many fans did not want disco-esque jazz albums (partly due to the market at the time being somewhat saturated with such pop-jazz hybrids from the likes of Freddie Hubbard). A fans wanted something different, which led Hancock towards his large hit up to now.

Within 1983, Hancock had the mainstream hit with a Grammy-award winning instrumental only "Rockit" from the album Future Shock–perhaps the 1st mainstream individual to feature scratching–which also featured an innovative alive music video with a breakdancing robot. the streaming was a hit in MTV, but became somewhat ill-famed once it was revealed that Hancock's minimum presence in the streaming videos was due to MTV's involuntariness at a period to show nigrify musicians. This individual inaugurate the collaboration by using noted bassist & producer Bill Laswell where Hancock experimented with electronic music in the string of trey LPs by Laswell, New Shock (1983), Sound-System (1984) and Perfect Machine (1988). In a period of time of this period, he appeared onstage at the Grammy awards with Stevie Wonder, Howard Jones, and Thomas Dolby, in the famed synthesizer jam. An additional lesser known function from either a eighties is the survive album Jazz Africa which was recorded with Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso.

Within 1986 Hancock played and acted in the film '''Round Midnight. He besides wrote a score/soundtrack, for which he won an Academy Award for Original Music Score. Typically he would write music for TV commercial message. "Maiden Voyage", in point of fact, began retired as a cologne advertising. However, at the prevent of the Right Machine tour, Hancock decided to leave Columbia Records when a Fifteen + season relationship.

When of June 2005, almost half of his recordings by having Columbia use been remastered. A number 1 3 U.S. releases, Sextant, Head Hunters and Thrust as well as a previous foursome releases Future Shock, Sound-System, the soundtrack to 'Round Midnight and Perfect Machine. Periodically, Hancock did release a few his Japan-only releases. However all about freed inside Us from either Man-Child to Quartet has yet to become remastered. A bit of albums, manufactured & at first freed inside United states, were remastered between 1999 and 2001 were sold in more countries like Magic Windows and Monster.

1990s and later

When allowing Columbithe, Hancock took somewhat of a break. 3 years when Perfect Machine was released, his wise man Miles Davis, died in 1991. Along sustaining friends Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter and also Davis admirer Wallace Roney they recorded A Tribute To Miles'' which was released around 1994. A album contained ii survive recordings & studio recording classics by having Roney swimming Davis' a share when trump streaming video player. the album did win a Grammy for better class action album.

Hancock's next album, Dis Is Da Drum released in 1993 saw him return to hip hop. 1995's The New Standard found him and an completely-star band including John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette and Michael Brecker interpreting pop songs by Nirvana, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Prince, Peter Gabriel and others. The 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.

Within 2001, Hancock recorded Future2Future, which reunited Hancock with Bill Laswell & featured drugs of electronica as well as turntablist Rob Swift of The X-Ecutioners. Hancock afterwards toured using a b&, and freed a survive concert DVD which involved the "Rockit" music streaming. Around 2002, Hancock partnered with Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove to record a survive concert album saluting Davis & John Coltrane called Directions In Music: Live At Massey Hall'' recorded live in Toronto. A threesome so toured together.

It was announced inside early 2005, that Hancock would partner with Starbucks' Hear Music to release a duet album known as Possibilities, slated for release on August 30. It features duets by owning legendary creative person Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, Annie Lennox, Christina Aguilera, and likewise Sting.

Besides inside 2005, Hancock toured Europe with the freshly quartet that involved Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke, and explored textures ranging from either ambient to straight jazz to African music. +, in a period of the Summer of 2005, Hancock re-staffed the notable Head Hunters & went on the road by owning the babies.

Trivia

Hancock occurs as Nichiren Buddhist, & writes just about a influence Buddhism has wear his life and his music in the introduction he wrote to the nonfictional prose best seller The Buddha In Your Mirror. He occurs as member of the California-based Soka Gakkai International sect, which also numbers Tina Turner among its members.

Hancock filmed an infomercial where he served as spokesman for the Bose Corporation.

Hancock is the musical director of the Tokyo Jazz Festival also as a patron member of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

Hancock likewise began an organization known as ROLO -- the Rhythm of Life Organization dedicated to utilizing technology inside the responsible way to produce the world a better place. Through the vision of ROLO, he helped detected BAYCAT (Bayview-Hunters Point Center for Arts & Technology), an educational facility in the Bay Area which provides free classes to youth in digital arts.

Solo Discography

''Takin' Off (1962) – Blue Note Inventions and Dimensions (1963) – Blue Note My Point of View (1963) – Blue Note Empyrean Isles (1964) – Blue Note Maiden Voyage (1965) – Blue Note Blow Up (1966) – MGM Speak Like A Child (1968) – Blue Note The Prisoner (1969) – Blue Note Fat Albert Rotunda (1969) – Warner Brothers Mwandishi (1970) – Warner Brothers Crossings (1971) – Warner Brothers Sextant (1972) – Columbia Head Hunters (1973) – Columbia Thrust (1974) – Columbia Death Wish (Soundtrack) (1974) – Columbia Dedication (1974) – Columbia Man-Child (1975) – Columbia Flood (1975) – Columbia Secrets (1976) – Columbia V.S.O.P. (1976) – Columbia V.S.O.P.: The Quintet (1977) – Columbia Sunlight (1978) – Columbia Feets, Don't Fail Me Now (1978) – Columbia The Piano (1979) – Columbia V.S.O.P.: Live Under the Sky (1979) – Columbia An Evening With Herbie Hancock & Chick Corea: In Concert (1979) – Columbia Monster (1980) – Columbia Mr. Hands (1980) – Columbia The Herbie Hancock Trio (1981) – Columbia Magic Windows (1981) – Columbia Lite Me Up (1982) – Columbia Quartet (1982) – Columbia Future Shock (1983) – Columbia Sound System (1984) – Columbia Perfect Machine (1988) – Columbia A Tribute to Miles Davis (1992) – Qwest/Warner Brothers Dis Is Da Drum (1993) – 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 (2002) – Verve Possibilities'' (2005) – Concord/Hear Music

Awards
MTV Awards (5 awards inside amount) - Right Conception Streaming videos - Rockit 1983-84 Grammy - Best R&B Instrumental Performance - Rockit" 1983 Keyboard Magazine Readers Poll - Best Jazz & Pop Keyboardist 1983 Grammy - Best R&B instrumental Performance - Sound system 1984 Gold Note Jazz Awards - NY chapter National Black MBA association 1985 Playboy Music Poll Jazz Group 1985 Playboy Music Poll Playboy Music Poll 1985 Playboy Music Poll "Right Jazz Album - Rockit" 1985 French Award Officer of the Order of Arts & Letters-Paris 1985 Oscar "Best Original Score - Round Midnight" 1986 BMI Film Music Award "Around Midnight" 1986 Playboy Music Poll Jazz Keyboards 1986 U.S. Radio award "Right Original Music Scoring - Thom McAnn Shoes" 1986 Los Angeles Film Critics Association "Right Score - Around Midnight" 1986 Grammy "Right Original Composition - Call for Sheet Blues" 1987 Playboy Music Poll R&B Instrumentalist 1987 Keyboard Magazine Readers Poll Jazz Pianist 1987 Keyboard Magazine Readers Poll Jazz Keyboardist 1987 Keyboard Magazine Readers Poll Best Jazz Pianist 1988 BMI TV/Film award 25 Years of Affiliation 1988 Playboy Music Poll Jazz Instrumentalist 1988 BMI Film Music Award "Colors" 1989 Grammy "Right Jazz Implemental by the Class action - Tribute To Miles" 1994 Grammy "A Freshly Standard" 1996 Soul train Music Award "Right jazz album - A Future Standard" 1997 Festival International Jazz de Montreal Prix Miles Davis 1997 VH1's 100 Greatest Videos "Rockit" is "10th Greatest Streaming" 2001 NEA Jazz Masters Award 2004

Samples
Download sample of "Herbie's Blues"