Jazz musician Herbert “Herbie” J. Hancock explored the topic of innovation and new technologies by blending his passion for music and science in a lecture at Sanders Theatre Monday afternoon.

The lecture was the fourth installment of a six-part series entitled “The Ethics of Jazz,” which Hancock has delivered as the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry and as part of a larger program presented by the Mahindra Humanities Center.

Hancock spent the afternoon discussing how he has pushed for the advancement of technology in order to create revolutionary jazz music.

“I love working with fearless people, the rule breakers [and] developing a cutting edge way of making art,” he said.

In the 1970s, Hancock said that he worked with the music industry to use the keyboard to channel multiple instruments.

“We didn’t stop there,” he said.

Hancock also was one of the first jazz musicians to use a vocoder, an instrument that creates a synthesized vocal sound very similar to today’s auto-tuned voices, as a complete replacement for the human voice. In addition, Hancock said that “scratching records and turntable techniques” fueled the creation of his album, “Future Shock,” which included the Grammy Award-winning song “Rockit.”

This experimentation and the incorporation of new musical techniques brought further success to his musical career. Hancock won an Academy Award for best original score for the film “Round Midnight” in 1986. Still, Hancock warned of the risks of technology in music.

“There’s always a danger that technology will take the spotlight at the expense of musical expression,” Hancock said. He added that while he had initially agreed with critics of the use of the synthesizer as a replacement for traditional instruments, he developed a fascination for the instrument that opened up interesting musical possibilities.

Terri L. Carrington, a Grammy-winning jazz musician who attended the event, praised Hancock’s ability to integrate innovative new techniques into his art.

“I worked for Herbie for so long,” she said after the event. “Mixing technology with music in a very organic way is something very few people can do.”

Sitting in front of a complex arrangement of synthesizers, vocorders, and keyboards, Hancock ended his talk by playing a work in progress entitled “Sonrisa.” As he stroked the keys, he improvised an orchestra.

“We were watching on stage not a finished product but a creative process,” said Ingrid T. Monson, a professor of African American music. “[That kind of performance] takes a person with confidence in their musical creativity and willingness to explore.”

Other audience members included cellist Yo-Yo Ma ’76, and New York City Ballet retirees Damian Woetzel and Heather Watts.

Click here to read the original source article via The Harvard Crimson

Although Herbert “Herbie” J. Hancock is a world-renowned Jazz pianist and composer, he once struggled with his future as a student at Grinnell College. Stuck between his passion for music and the practical skills of a degree in electrical engineering, Hancock ultimately chose music and has not looked back since.

Hancock delved into these personal experiences, as well as the core values of jazz music during a lecture in Sanders Theatre on Monday.

Hancock, the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, the first African-American to hold the prestigious position, gave the first in a series of six lectures entitled “The Ethics of Jazz,” presented by the Mahindra Humanities Center.

The first lecture, entitled, “The Wisdom of Miles Davis” tied Hancock’s personal memories of the legendary trumpet player and bandleader to broader lessons about racism, ethics, and Buddhism.

During the lecture, which included some piano playing, Hancock touched on both the serious and lighter aspects of Davis’s life.

“He loved fast cars, boxing, fast women, and, oh yeah, music,” Hancock said of Davis. “He was a man of few words, but he knew how to listen.”

During one memorable concert while Hancock was playing with the legendary Miles Davis Quintet, the group was on a roll, Hancock remembered. However, right in the middle of Davis’s solo, Hancock played a wrong chord.

The chord sounded off, but Davis’s next notes made the mistake sound like part of the flow of the song, Hancock recalled.

“This experience became groundbreaking for me and opened the door to the future of my performances,” Hancock said.

Not only did Hancock draw values of courage and trust from the moment, but he also took away the Buddhist lesson that notes are neither right nor wrong.

Hancock enumerated other similarities he has found between Buddhism and jazz throughout the event.

“In jazz we don’t hide our discoveries from others,” Hancock said.

In one instance, Hancock was called to a practice session at Davis’ New York home, when Davis left the practice room and went upstairs for a while.

“Miles actually listened to us through the intercom in the bedroom…he wanted to hear us play unencumbered,” Hancock recounted.

However, the night was also filled with lighter stories, as Hancock mixed life lessons with anecdotes.

From the time that Hancock beat Miles Davis in a car race on the streets of New York at 4 a.m., to when a manager yelled, “You’re gonna regret this,” after Hancock quit his job at a post office so that he could play a local jazz gig.

“One thing I’ve learned is to always be a student,” Hancock said. “Don’t be too quick to say no.”

Ingrid T. Monson, a music professor currently teaching a class entitled “Herbie Hancock’s Musical Worlds,” invited her students to attend the lecture.

“It’s absolutely historic that Herbie Hancock is doing these lectures,” Monson said. “I couldn’t be happier, I think it’s really nice to be able to do a course and do it in conjunction with the many wonderful guests we have on campus.”

Bjorn Kuhnicke, a student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences who attended the lecture, said he enjoyed Hancock’s style.

“It was an interesting way of preaching, I liked it.”

Click here to read the original source article via The Harvard Crimson

Always at the forefront of world culture, technology, business and music, legendary pianist and composer Herbie Hancock has been named the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry. Hosted by the Mahindra Humanities Center, Hancock will give six Norton Lectures in a series titled “The Ethics Of Jazz” in February and March. The series follows Hancock’s receipt of a Kennedy Center Honor in December 2013.

“The Ethics Of Jazz” will examine topics including “The Wisdom Of Miles Davis,” “Breaking The Rules,” “Cultural Diplomacy And The Voice Of Freedom,” and “Innovation And New Technologies.” Hancock will draw upon his five decades of experiences as a musician, composer, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, tireless innovator, and father.

“It is a great privilege to welcome Herbie Hancock as the Norton Professor,” said Homi Bhabha, director of the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard. “His unsurpassed contribution to the history of music has revolutionized our understanding of the ways in which the arts transform our civic consciousness and our spiritual aspirations. It would be no exaggeration to say that he has defined cultural innovation in each decade of the last half century.”

Herbie Hancock has been an integral part of every popular music movement since the 1960s. As a member of the Miles Davis Quintet that pioneered a groundbreaking sound in jazz, he also developed new approaches on his own recordings, followed by his work in the ’70s – with record-breaking albums such as “Headhunters” – that combined electric jazz with funk and rock in an innovative style that continues to influence contemporary music.

Hancock received an Academy Award for his Round Midnight film score and 14 Grammy Awards. He currently serves as Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and as Institute Chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

Established in 1925, the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry has been awarded to important figures from across the arts. Past Norton Professors have included T.S. Eliot, Igor Stravinsky, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Eames, Leonard Bernstein, John Cage, Nadine Gordimer, Orhan Pamuk, and William Kentridge.

The 2014 Norton Lectures will take place at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University on Feb. 3, Feb. 12, Feb. 27, March 10, March 24, and March 31. Lectures begin at 4 p.m. and are open to the public, but will be ticketed. Tickets will be available at the Sanders Theatre box office starting at noon the day of each lecture, or through the Harvard Box Office site.

Click here to read the original source article via The Harvard Gazette

Click here to watch a video of the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors

And click here to watch Snoop Dogg introduce Herbie and thank him “for creating hip-hop”.

Herbie Hancock joins Renee Fleming, Bill Fontana and the American Ballet Theatre in late March at the Abu Dhabi Festival.

The annual event runs from March 21 through March 31, with Herbie performing at the start of the festival.

Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel will host a pre-event performance by the Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in advance of the festival on January 27th.

Mrs Hoda I. Al Khamis-Kanoo, Founder and Artistic Director of the Abu Dhabi Festival says of the lineup, ““Culture is the key that unlocks a nation’s creativity, and sparking innovation in the hearts and minds of young people is crucial for the future wellbeing of society. Through participation with, and presentation of some of the most exceptional artists today, the people of Abu Dhabi and the wider UAE will have the opportunity to savour world-class experiences that will inspire, inform and ignite the imagination for many years to come.”

This spectacle had to have the white-hot spotlight, front page, bold type (whoa-oh!) — to quote one of the evening’s celebrated songwriters — because this Kennedy Center Honors gala was a talker. The night might have begun as the latest parade of cultural icons seated in an opera box with their president, but when a rapper and a Supreme Court justice take the same stage, it isn’t your standard lifetime achievement fete.

This year, the Kennedy Center honored actress Shirley MacLaine, opera singer Martina Arroyo, musician Carlos Santana — who beamed while sitting next to first lady Michelle Obama — and two piano men: Herbie Hancock and Billy Joel. If the honorees had performed together, it would have been a dream collaboration — but as is the 36-year custom, they sat, smiled and watched others pay tribute to lives lived on stages and screens.

The show — hosted by actress Glenn Close — began with a resounding rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” played by Cuban jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval. Should anyone still doubt the Kennedy Center’s eagerness to include Hispanics in its annual hall-of-fame tribute, Harry Belafonte (1989 honoree) arrived onstage to deliver what might have been the sharpest pinch of the night:

“Well, I’ll tell you folks, there’s no two ways about it. [Pause] We’ve got to do something about Mexican immigration,” the entertainer-activist said to uproarious laughter. “Every day you have people like Carlos Santana coming into this country and taking jobs that should be going to Americans.”

Quick, cameras! Cut to the senators, stat!

Those who were hoping for more feisty rhetoric were stuck with feel-good vibes — oh, that transcendental sound — played by Juanes and Tom Morello, with Fher Olvera of the Mexican rock band Mana. They gave a spirited rendition of Santana’s “Oye Como Va,” providing the best direction (after “turn off mobile phones”) for an Honors tribute at which all five legends are musical: Listen to how this rhythm goes, they beckoned.

Buddy Guy joined to play and sing “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” — a special moment for Santana, who considers Guy one of his idols; Santana went full-on fanboy, leading the standing ovation for Guy. The English rocker Steve Winwood joined the gang with percussionist Sheila E., performing the 1971 hit “Everybody’s Everything.”

Then, for the evening’s first surprise: a glittering Supreme Court justice took the stage to honor . . . well, let’s allow Sonia Sotomayor to explain why she was here.

“I’m here for the diva,” she said, before noting that Arroyo is no diva in the modern sense — just one of the few operatic sopranos who can truly sing the Italian spinto repertoire.

The musical tribute to Arroyo celebrated the 200th anniversary of Verdi’s birth — and the opera that made her a star, “Aida.” Tenor Joseph Calleja sang “Celeste Aida” and soprano Sondra Radvanovsky serenaded the audience with “O Patria Mia.”

Sotomayor was the first Supreme Court justice to toast an Honors groundbreaker — but why her? Well, Arroyo and Sotomayor are friends, Honors producer George Stevens Jr. said before the show, and this element of surprise is part of what makes the Honors special. Indeed, Stevens, working with son Michael, looks for unexpected pairings that will surprise a television audience — and the honoree.

Oh, but this next surprise. Are you sure, Mr. Stevens?

Ladies and gentlemen, Bill O’Reilly!

For the jazz pianist and zen master Herbie Hancock?

“I know — I’m surprised, too,” O’Reilly quipped to the shocked audience. Well, you can’t say the Kennedy Center Honors aren’t fair and balanced in their presenter choices.

Noted O’Reilly: “I don’t hang with [Hancock]. . . . I don’t want to ruin his reputation.” But O’Reilly is a fan — the two met while appearing on “The Tonight Show” together — and they have a strong rapport, we were told. He was followed by more obvious appearances by Wayne Shorter and Chick Corea, who played “Walkin’ ” and “Watermelon Man.”

Then came a man who needs no introduction, mainly because we’re still unsure of what to call him: Snoop Dogg . . . Lion?

The center opted for calling the rapper Snoop Dogg, knowing that some donors in the audience would be confused enough already. But Mrs. Obama wasn’t, bobbing her head seconds into his appearance. Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined in when Snoop told “the party people in the house” to put their hands up.

Hancock’s influence on hip-hop is profound, with “Cantaloupe Island” serving as the sample of Us3’s 1993 hit “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia).” Snoop began that song — “Groovy, groovy jazzy funky pounce bounce” — and then slipped into an updated version of his “Gin and Juice.”

Rolling down the street playing Her-bie.

After a brief intermission came Mac­Laine’s tribute, which presented a daunting task: How do you find the right person to toast a woman who has been friends with everyone in Hollywood? The Honors chose Kathy Bates, whom MacLaine directed in the little-seen film “Bruno” and worked with on three other films. A visibly nervous Bates was the only presenter who took to roasting an honoree, playfully calling Mac­Laine the “inquisitive” sort of person who will talk to anyone.

“You’ll talk to beings no one else but you can see,” said Bates, referring to MacLaine’s fascination with extraterrestrials.

MacLaine made the tribute performance easier than usual, since it’s notoriously difficult to fete film actors onstage. Mac­Laine is also a skilled theater actress and dancer, and the tribute began with a montage of “The Pajama Game,” which kicked off MacLaine’s Broadway career in the 1950s; “Steam Heat” and Anna Kendrick’s “It’s Not Where You Start” from the Broadway show “Seesaw” also charmed.

Next, several generations of singers — including Tony Bennett — saluted Joel. Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco sang Joel’s 1978 hit “Big Shot” (whoa-oh!) to a crowd that might not have picked up on the irony. And Don Henley sang “She’s Got a Way,” turning the wedding standard into a folksy ballad.

Then, the best-selling living American solo artist — Garth Brooks — paid tribute to Joel, who places second in that sales race. Brooks sang twangy versions of “Only the Good Die Young” and “Allentown” (treating the audience to Joel’s “The Last Play at Shea” flashback). Brooks’s appearance also spotlighted how Joel’s lyrics can vacillate between musical theater and country anthems.

What performance the Honors will save for last can be a talked-about question in this political town. But the producers chose wisely: A good portion of the 2,500-person audience would need the powder room to dry their eyes after a tear-inducing rendition of Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon.” When a parade of Vietnam veterans joined the haunting chorus of “And we will all go down together,” the night became less celebratory but infinitely more memorable.

It could have ended there, but really, it couldn’t have. Someone had to come out and transform the Opera House into a sort of dingy dive bar. Rufus Wainwright performed — and Brooks, Bennett and Henley took us back to the ’70s with “Piano Man.”

As usual, it sounded like a carnival.

The Honors ceremony will be broadcast Dec. 29 on CBS.

Click here to read the original source article via The Washington Post

“Herbie Hancock played his first concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when he was 11 years old.  Two years later, he heard a classmate play jazz piano at a variety show and thought, “That’s my instrument, and he can do that?  Why can’t I?”  It turned out he could.  (Laughter.) 
 
By 23, Herbie was playing with Miles Davis in New York and on his way to becoming a jazz legend.  And he didn’t stop there.  In the seventies, he put his electrical engineering studies to work and helped create electronic music.  In the eighties, his hit “Rockit” became an anthem for a fledging new genre called hip-hop.  At one recent show, he played alongside an iMac and five iPads.  (Laughter.)  And a few years ago, he became the first jazz artist in 43 years to win a Grammy for best album.
 
But what makes Herbie so special isn’t just how he approaches music; it’s how he approaches life.  He tours the world as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.  He’s done so many benefit concerts that Joni Mitchell once gave him a watch inscribed with the words:  “He played real good for free.”  (Laughter.)  And we know this because he’s played here for free a lot.  (Laughter and applause.)  We work Herbie, I’m telling you.  (Laughter.)
 
But we just love the man.  Michelle and I love this man, not just because he’s from Chicago.  Not just because he and I had the same hairdo in the 1970s.  (Laughter.)  Not just because he’s got that spooky Dorian Gray doesn’t-get-older thing going on.  (Laughter.)  It is his spirit, it is his energy — which is relentless and challenging, and he’s always pushing boundaries.  Herbie once said of his outlook, “We’re going to see some unbelievable changes.  And I would rather be on the side of pushing for that than waiting for somebody else to do it.”
 
Well, Herbie, we are glad that you didn’t wait for somebody else to do what you’ve done, because nobody else could.  For always pushing us forward, we honor Herbie Hancock.”  (Applause.)

Click here to watch a video of President Obama speaking at the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors Reception, honoring Herbie Hancock, Billy Joel, Shirley MacLaine, and Carlos Santana

We’re very excited to announce “The Complete Columbia Albums Collection 1972-1988,” a deluxe 34-CD box set of Herbie’s complete catalog on Columbia Records and CBS/Sony Japan, which includes 8 albums never issued before outside of Japan. Click here to learn more.

Click here to watch a video of Herbie and Joni performing ‘River’ on March 20, 2008