“As a pop-cultured child of the 1980s, until recently the extent of my Herbie Hancock awareness was sadly limited to his cross-over hit “Rockit.” I stand humbled. When I queried one musician friend on what he’d ask Herbie Hancock, he burst out, “What’s it like to be a keyboard god?” Another was equally enthusiastic, detailing the ways in which the Grammy-winner’s 40-or-so-year career have hugely influenced jazz, pop, soul, hip-hop, and funk–from reinventing jazz as an avante garde, improvisational art with Miles Davis to being one of the first to use turntable “scratching” as an instrument, for starters. He’s also worked with virtually every musician you can name—most recently he’s released a Joni Mitchell tribute album, River: The Joni Letters, with guests that include Norah Jones, Tina Turner, and Leonard Cohen.

Through much of his diverse career, Hancock, 67, has practiced Nichiren Buddhism (pronounce nee-chee-ren), a form of the philosophy that focuses on chanting the mantra Nam-myoho-renge-kyo as a path to enlightenement. It’s no surprise that the Christian-raised artist would connect with a melody-based religion. Hancock recently talked to Beliefnet about how the Buddhist seed was planted in a smoky nightclub, why Buddhism is like jazz, and how the practice has taught him who he really is.

What was it like recording Joni Mitchell’s songs?

Before, I almost never paid attention to lyrics. I’m so bad that when I hear a song that’s sung, English is gibberish. I don’t hear it. I mean, I would have to translate it from whatever the thing is that I hear to intelligible English. Because I hear it as a sound.

You’ve been practicing Nichiren Buddhism for a long time, right?

Yeah, 35 years.

How did that begin?

Well, back in 1972, my band was playing music that required a very intuitive sense. It was an avant-garde approach to playing jazz. So it was very much in the moment and spontaneous. We had structure, but it was a very loose structure. So we went though a period when we were vegetarians because we would keep trying to find things that would help the flow of the music. I was very open at that time.

One night on a certain tour in mid-1972 we played a club in Seattle, Washington. It was a Friday night and the club was packed. We were all exhausted because we had only gotten a couple hours of sleep because we had been hanging out all night before. But we could feel the energy in the air—these people were really into this far out kind of music. They were ready for it. I asked the band to play “Toys,” a song that I’d never called to play, which starts with a bass solo—acoustic bass, which is the softest instrument in the band by its very nature. Un-amplified bass.

So the bassist Buster Williams starts playing this introduction. And what came out of him was something I’d never heard before. And not only had I not heard it from him, I’d never heard it from anybody. It was just pure beauty and ideas and—it was magical. Magical. And people were freaking out, it was so incredible what he was playing.

I let him play for a long time, maybe 10, 15 minutes. He just came up with idea after idea, so full of inspiration. And then I could feel myself waking up just before we really came in with the melody for the song. And I could tell that the whole band woke up, and there was some energy that was generating from Buster. We played the set and it was like magic. When we finished, many people ran up to the front of the stage and reached up their hands to shake ours. Some of them were crying they were so moved by the music. The music was very spiritual, too.

I knew that Buster was the catalyst for all of this, so I took him into the musicians’ room, and I said, “Hey, Buster, I heard you were into some new philosophy or something and if it can make you play bass like that, I want to know what it is.”

And then all his eyes lit up and he said, “I’ve been chanting for a way to tell you about this.” And I said, “What? Chanting what? What is this?” And now I know that it was the only way he could have reached me. That would be the only way I would have listened to what he had to say. If he had just come up and told me about it beforehand, I would have probably put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Hey, man, that’s great. You know, whatever works for you keep doing it,” which is a way of putting up a shield. But it came through the music, which was the only way to kind of reach my heart at the time, because that’s what my focus was then.

So, that was when he first told me about Buddhism and about chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo , which is the primary thing we do. It’s the sound of the essence of everything. So, that was the beginning.

Then what happened?

I asked him some questions. I’d ask him one question, but his answers answered five or six questions that I already had in my head. Even though I had read some books on Sufism and Eastern thought, many of those things that I had read just brought up more questions than they did answers. This was the first time I was hearing something that was giving me simple answers to questions that answered more than one thing that I had in my mind. It all seemed to kind of tie together and work in such a beautiful way.

I mean, having been brought up in the Christian tradition, I had my own spin on Christianity. And most people that I knew that were Christians had their own spin on it. But what he was telling me sounded like my own personal take on religion and the way to look at things. And I said, “This sounds like what I always believed in anyway. I thought I was the only one.” He said, “No, there are, you know, close to 20 million people that believe the same thing.”

I was kind of startled when he talked about Nam-myoho-renge-kyo being the law of the universe. The idea of cause and effect, which is what Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is about, made sense to me. I’m a guy that’s always been attracted to science—and cause and effect is what science is about. But I said, “I can’t just believe that chanting the sound is going to do something, so I don’t see how it could work for me.”

He said, “Oh, you don’t have to believe it. It’s a law. So, if you just do it, it’ll–you’ll see the effect in your life. It doesn’t depend on you having to believe it first.”

That’s handy.

That was totally new to me. Because, to me, the idea of religion was always that you had to believe in it for it to work. But then I thought, Wait a minute. Gravity works whether you believe in it or not. And then, Should religion be weaker than natural science? And he said, “This religion is really based on cause and effect and actual proof.” So I said, “Well, I have nothing to lose. Sure, I’ll check it out.”

It was funny, too, because there were people hanging around Buster each night who seemed like they knew something. I don’t know how to describe it, but I saw them smiling a lot. And there was something that seemed to be deep inside them. Then I said, “Those people that have been hanging around, are they Buddhists?” He said, “Yeah.” So, I was even more intrigued.

How did Buddhism change your music over time?

This practice of Buddhism has given me several realizations. One of the most important ones is to realize finally that this thing that I’ve been kind of placing up on a pedestal, sort of as my object of worship—music and being a musician—I wasn’t looking at it the true way. I realized that being a musician is not what I am, it’s what I do. I’m also a father, I’m a son, I’m a neighbor, I’m a citizen, I’m an African-American. I’m a bunch of things. But, at the center of all of that is I’m a human being. Now I view music from the standpoint of being a human being rather than being a musician. So, that’s a much deeper overview.

Consequently, I’m able to come up with concepts for musical expression that are different every time. And that’s a request from myself—to make each record different than what I’ve done before, to have a particular function which would be my reason for doing the record. And even the idea of having function is something I never thought about before. I never thought in those terms—”What is the purpose, or what is the function of doing this? ”

I imagine you’re also more present on stage.

Yeah. I mean, the cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best we’re non-judgmental. If we let judgment get in the way of improvising, it always screws us up. So we take whatever happens and try to make it work. We try to make it fit. We try to enhance it.

I also realize now that there’s an infinite way of looking at things. Sometimes you have to create a vision, a path for a vision. It may not be apparent and you may have to forge it yourself. And that will be the way to move your life forward.

I wonder if you could chant for us for a second?

Oh, yeah! Oh, by the way, I chant every day. Primarily in the morning and the evening. Even before going on stage I say Nam-myoho-renge-kyo three times—the idea is to get in sync with the moment. But anyway–

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. That’s how we chant.

Thank you. That’s great.

You’re welcome.

What does that chant mean to you?

It is the name of life. It’s like the sound of life. When you invoke that by saying Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, that sound, that energy, touches everything in the universe. At the same time—and just think about this—within the life of a human being is the universe. So, we all have the universe inside at our core. That’s the microcosm. And then the physical universe that we see is a macrocosm. It takes the work of chanting and living your life, and listening to the signs that are a result of chanting, for the best pathway toward the development of your life, and the uncovering of your highest condition of life, which is your Buddha nature.

Cool.

Yeah. It really is cool. And it’s very open. That’s the other thing about this Buddhism, it’s not exclusive; it’s inclusive. It doesn’t say that any other religions are wrong and it’s my way or the highway. Nothing like that. I don’t feel like I have rejected Christianity or Judaism or Islam. I feel like I’ve embraced the truth that’s in everything. Because there is truth in all of those pursuits. And others, too. It’s a great way to feel.

It sounds very enlivening.

It’s really cool. I can’t even begin to scratch the surface to tell you how great this practice really is. It’s life-changing in that, in doing this, you actually get closer to who you really are.

What have you discovered about who you really are?

That I’m a human being at the core. And that there’s a great beauty to each human being. Each human being exists because there’s something they have to offer for the evolution of the universe that only they can fulfill.

It might be something as simple as saying the right word to the right person at the right time—and that could change the course of history. You never really know. But the whole thing is to work at the process of being in sync with the universe, so that everything will align at the proper time so that you can deliver that which is your life mission. And that’s why we’re here as individuals. And then there’s our contribution to the collective. It makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

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“Joe Zawinul is one of my oldest friends in the music business. He was a force as a composer and an amazing conceptualizer. He opened up a doorway between jazz and rock n’ roll and was a major influence on Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter and me. The world has never been the same since he made his contribution to our society.” Herbie Hancock

Featured Guest Vocalists – Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Tina Turner, Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae and Luciana Souza Joni Mitchell and Herbie Hancock, along with Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Pablo Picasso, and other great artists of our time, share an incessant and profound creative restlessness. They each have always had the desire and need to break fresh ground with each note played or stroke of the brush.

It was exactly this kind of curiosity which motivated Davis to hire Hancock in 1963 to be a part of, along with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams, arguably one of the most important groups of musicians of the twentieth century. It was in fact Miles who told Hancock to “never finish anything.” Hancock, like Joni Mitchell, has gone on to explore many different genres and mediums to express his incessant curiosity, working in the context of jazz, electronic music, funk, orchestral, and film music.

Hancock first worked with Joni Mitchell on the iconic singer/songwriter’s Mingus record, an album comprised of collaborations between Mitchell and the great bassist and composer Charles Mingus. Together with Wayne Shorter, Hancock was part of a small group with which Mitchell tried to craft a new “conversational” approach to coupling lyrics with instrumental jazz.

“At this point in my career,” Hancock says, “I want to do something that reaches into the lives and hearts of people.” For “River”, Hancock enlisted producer/ arranger/ bassist Larry Klein (Mitchell’s long-time producer and creative partner, who has also produced albums by Madeleine Peyroux and Shawn Colvin among many others), to help him go deeply into Mitchell’s body of work to select songs that Hancock and Klein could adapt to a genre-less and conversational musical approach, while trying to portray the breadth of Mitchell’s gift as a musician and writer.

To add another dimension to their picture of Mitchell’s musical world, they also included two compositions that were important to her musical development, Wayne Shorter’s asymmetrical masterpiece “Nefertiti”, first recorded by Hancock and Shorter on Miles Davis’ classic album of the same name, and Duke Ellington’s prescient standard “Solitude”.

Hancock and Klein worked for months, carefully reading through Joni’s lyrics and music, eventually paring their list down to thirteen songs that they hoped comprised a panoramic view of the poet’s work. They then assembled a group of the top musicians in the world, including the incomparable Wayne Shorter on soprano and tenor sax, the brilliant bassist and composer Dave Holland, (a musical cohort of Hancock and Shorter’s who shares their adventurousness, as well as the Miles Davis imprimatur), drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (a recent member of Hancock’s band as well as having played extensively with Mitchell and Sting), and Benin-born guitarist Lionel Loueke, also a member of Hancock’s band.

They went on to craft arrangements for songs like the often recorded “Both Sides Now”, and “Sweet Bird” (from Mitchell’s overlooked classic The Hissing of Summer Lawns) that transformed the songs into lyrical and elegant instrumental tone poems, devoid of the trappings of conventional jazz records.

“We wanted to create a new vocabulary, a new way of speaking in a musical sense,” Hancock says. Klein adds, “we used the words to guide us. All of the music emanated from the poetry.”

They were also fortunate to be able to cast the vocal songs with some of the greatest singers in the music world. Joni herself sings the autobiographical musing on childhood “The Tea Leaf Prophecy”, Tina Turner turns the beautiful prose of “Edith And The Kingpin” into a timeless piece of song-noir, Norah Jones delivers the wistful classic “Court and Spark”, Corinne Bailey Rae turns the mournful Christmas classic “River” into an innocent and optimistic poem of bittersweet romance, Brazilian-born Luciana Souza becomes a dark third voice to Hancock and Shorter on “Amelia”, and in a stark and cinematic closer, Leonard Cohen recites the brilliant and surreal lyric to “The Jungle Line” as Hancock provides film score-like improvised accompaniment. River: The Joni Letters represents a journey into a new world in Hancock’s search for fresh ground. A world of words.

Blue Note Records proudly announces the signing of guitarist Lionel Loueke, one of the brightest and most original young stars in Jazz today. Loueke will enter the studio in September to record his major label debut, which will be released in early 2008.

On June 14, Loueke will be the opening performer at Blue Note Records’ Somethin’ Else jazz club at the 2007 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. The Jazz Journalist Association has also just nominated Loueke for Up & Coming Musician of the Year in their 2007 Jazz Awards. The winner will be announced later this month in New York City.

Born in Benin, Africa, Loueke has already forged a remarkable career path. His musical studies brought him from West Africa to Paris, France, and later to the United States where he studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in Los Angeles.

It was at the Monk Institute that Loueke first met and gained the admiration of Terence Blanchard, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter. Before even graduating from the Institute, Loueke had already started performing in Blanchard’s sextet, becoming an integral member of that progressive band both as a performer and a composer, and appearing on Blanchard’s first two albums for Blue Note Records, Bounce and the Grammy-nominated Flow.

Loueke has released several independent recordings, including In A Trance (Space Time), Gilfema (Obliqsound) and Virgin Forest (Obliqsound). He is also currently a member of Hancock’s touring band.

‘Pilgrimage’, Michael’s final recording session is released to great critical acclaim. Featuring Herbie Hancock, Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheny, John Patitucci and Jack DeJohnette, Pilgrimage consists entirely of Brecker originals and over 78-minutes of music.

On this day, April 12th, legendary jazz pianist, Herbie Hancock entered the world. The world is a brighter, more musical place because of you. On behalf of your management, your web-team and your fans, we wish you a year filled with much successes and joy! Happy Birthday Herbie!

(AP) One of the jazz world’s foremost learning institutions will move to New Orleans, amid hope that it will ensure the genre has a future in its birthplace.

To celebrate the move, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Wayne Shorter and trumpeter Terence Blanchard joined the program’s incoming class and drummer Thelonious Monk Jr., the son of the pianist and composer for whom the institute is named, for a performance Monday at Loyola.

“Jazz can help the re-emergence of New Orleans after the worst natural disaster,” Hancock said. Having the program in New Orleans will help “foster the next generation of jazz greats,” he said. The program, which will be based at Loyola for the next four years, is dedicated to developing musicians who are teachers as well as performers. “We have finally, finally found our home here in New Orleans,” Monk said.

Only a handful of students who audition are chosen for the graduate-level college program, which previously was based at the University of Southern California. The selection process lasts several months.

Presented by Jamie Cullum and featuring George Benson, Joni Mitchell, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, guitarist John McLaughlin, jazz pianist Julian Joseph, record producer Michael Cuscuna, film director Michael Winner, music producer Bill Laswell, Grand Mixer DXT, musician and director Kevin Godley, DJ Carl Craig, journalist Kevin Le Gendre and critic Gary Giddins.

Everyone at Herbie Hancock’s management and web teams extends their condolences to Michael Brecker’s family. Mr. Brecker passed away today (Saturday, 1/13) in New York.

He was a great musician and friend to many in the worldwide jazz community, and he brought wonderful music and unforgettable moments into many lives.

The following is excerpted from an Associated Press report on Mr. Brecker’s passing:

Brecker died in a hospital in New York City of leukemia, said his longtime friend and manager, Darryl Pitt. In recent years, the saxophonist had struggled with myelodysplastic syndrome, a cancer in which the bone marrow stops producing enough healthy blood cells. The disease, known as MDS, often progresses to leukemia.

Throughout his career, Brecker recorded and performed with numerous jazz and pop music leaders, including Herbie Hancock, James Taylor, Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell, his website said.

His most recently released recording, Wide Angles, appeared on many top jazz lists and won two Grammys in 2004. His technique on the saxophone was widely emulated and his style was much-studied in music schools throughout the world.

Jazziz magazine recently called him “inarguably the most influential tenor stylist of the last 25 years,” said a news release from his family.

Though very sick, Brecker managed to record a final album, as yet untitled, that was completed just two weeks ago. Pitt said the musician was very enthusiastic about the final work. “In addition to the love of his family and friends, his work on this project helped keep him alive and will be another jewel in his legacy,” Pitt said.

Herbie Hancock mourns the loss of friend and fellow jazz lover Ed Bradley, who died November 9th of leukemia in New York. From his tour in England, Herbie issued the following statement:

“Ed was a great friend and fan of jazz. I saw and spoke to him several times at jazz festivals which he eagerly supported. He also wanted to do more on “60 Minutes” to bring jazz to the attention of a broader American and international audience. I’m going to miss his warm and relaxed way, his kind humility and respect for all others.” – Herbie Hancock