Billboard Dance ranks Herbie’s “Chameleon” as one of the best funk songs ever. Click here to read the original source article.

In the iconic portrait of John Coltrane for the cover of his seminal 1957 album “Blue Train,” Coltrane stands silhouetted in deep cerulean blue against a dark background and appears to be sucking on a reed for his saxophone. But flipping through the original, unfiltered photograph it’s revealed that Coltrane was actually sucking on a lollipop. That iconic image — along with the more than 30,000 he would take in the 1950s and 60s — was photographed by the legendary Blue Note records photographer Francis Wolff.

This year Blue Note Records celebrates its 75th anniversary, and along with it the celebrated career of  jazz photographer Francis Wolff who almost single-handedly defined the aesthetic and cool of a record label and its generation of jazz greats in their heyday. Musicians like John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, Hank Mobley, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis and dozens of others, all illuminated in Wolff’s signature style of one source of light that fell across their profiles so sharply that everything else — save for their instruments and the sweat on their cheeks — fell into shadow.

Born in Berlin in 1907, Wolff’s teenage years were spent honing his two great loves: jazz and photography. He would later escape Nazi-occupied Germany, set sail for New York and reunite with his longtime friend and Blue Note Records co-founder Alfred Lion. Though the early years of the business were not without struggle, the two formed a creative collaboration that would steward jazz and the record label through several decades of ups and downs. In his 1995 biography, “Blue Note Jazz Photography Of Francis Wolff,” bibliographer Michael Cuscuna, along with authors Charlie Lourie and Oscar Schnider, noted that Wolff’s intense desire to capture a specific shot often got in the way of musicians during the recording sessions. His intense love for jazz music was matched only by his consistent input over the presentation of the music itself: from the photographs to the packaging of the album.

In 2009, the publisher Jazzprezzo published “A History of Blue Note Records In Photographs” to celebrate the then 70th anniversary of Blue Note, and documented the journey of the label through the photographs of Wolff and fellow jazz photographer Jimmy Katz.

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

HerbieHancock.com is pleased to provide fans, musicians, and students around the world with an excellent resource: the complete Electronic Instrument Glossary which appeared in the liner notes of the Complete Columbia Albums Box Set (2013). In this extensively resourced feature, you can discover the exact models of the instruments which Herbie played on many of his iconic, classic albums.

Keywords

Synthesizers are electronic instruments used to both replicate and affect acoustic sounds, and create an audio landscape which does not exist outside the realm of electronics. Generally in the shape of a keyboard, the synthesizer is the easiest electronic instrument to transition to from a piano; it became the cornerstone of Herbie’s electronic experimentation and expansion.

Synthesis – A combination of two or more entities that together form something new.

Analog Synthesizer – A synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog computer techniques to generate sound electronically. Analog technology translates audio information into electronic pulses and sends the pulses to another device which translates them back into the original sound. The only drawback to this technology is that an analog signal has a limit to how much data it can transfer at one time.

Digital Synthesizer – A synthesizer that uses digital signal processing techniques to make musical sounds. Digital technology translates audio information into binary code, a series of “1”s and “0”s, and sends this information to the other end where a device translates that code back into the original sound. Digital technology allows for the ability to send much more information in the same space when compared to analog.

Monophonic – One note or single musical line occurring at a time. On a monophonic synthesizer only one key on the instrument may be played at a time.

Polyphonic – Musical texture is formed by the interweaving of several musical lines at once. On a polyphonic synthesizer several keys may be played at the same time.

Sampler – A sampler is an electronic musical instrument which is similar to a synthesizer but instead of generating sounds it uses sounds that are loaded or recorded by the user. Once a sample is stored, the user can play back that sound using a keyboard, sequencer, or some other form of trigger. Being able to combine a sampled sound with the features offered by a synthesizer offers the musician full creative control.

Sequencer – An application or a device designed to play back musical notation. Early sequencers were known as “step sequencers” and would play back a pattern of notes in a rigid way without capturing the rhythms and expressiveness of the player. The modern sequencer is able to play back music exactly the way the musician plays it and capture the actual performance as is. A modern sequencer could also be used as a controller for multiple synthesizers so the musician does not need a separate keyboard controller for each one. Another term for a modern sequencer is “digital audio workstation.”

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) – A protocol that enables electronic musical instruments to communicate, control, and synchronize with each other. MIDI does not transmit audio signals but rather the event messages such as pitch, intensity, volume, and tempo. This system allows instruments such as synthesizers, drum machines, computers, and samplers to exchange system data.

ROM (Read Only Memory) – A type of storage media used in computers and other electronic devices. The data in ROM cannot be modified easily and is used to hold information that does not need to be changed or updated. Some synthesizers did not have great memory capabilities built into them early on, and a ROM cartridge was a great way to include more sounds and could be inserted into the synthesizer just like a game cartridge would be inserted into the early video game systems.

alphaSyntauri – A digital, polyphonic synthesizer released in 1980. It was the first electronic instrument to be based off a home computer and also resembled one. Herbie used this instrument on the 1983 album Future Shock for the tune “Rough.”

ARP 2600 – This analog, monophonic, patch-cable synthesizer was first released in the early 1970s and had the look of an old telephone patch board. This instrument was used on the 1973 album Sextant for the tune “Rain Dance.”

ARP Keyboard Model 3604 – Just as you would use your keyboard to operate your home computer, the ARP keyboard serves as the controller for the ARP 2600.

ARP Odyssey – ARP released this analog, duo-phonic, compact studio version of the 2600 which featured the synthesizer and keyboard together as one piece of equipment. Herbie played this instrument on his album Head Hunters in 1973.

ARP PE-IV String Ensemble – A polyphonic synthesizer designed as a multi-orchestral machine to reproduce the experience of listening to a full string orchestra. Hancock played this on his album Dedication in 1974.

ARP Soloist – ARP’s monophonic analog synthesizer featuring 30 preset sounds and designed to sit on top and accompany an organ. This instrument can be heard on several of Herbie’s albums including Head Hunters and Thrust.

E-MU 4060 Digital Keyboard – Released in 1976, this polyphonic keyboard controller included the ability to sample sounds and also featured a built-in sequencer. It could serve as a controller because of its ability to act as a trigger for other synthesizers if connected to them. Herbie used this instrument on his 1984 album Sound-System.

E-MU Polyphonic Keyboard – A digital polyphonic synthesizer with built-in sequencer and sampling capabilities first developed by E-MU Systems in the early 1970s. This instrument was used by Herbie on his 1978 album Sunlight, among many others.

Fairlight CMI – This digital sampling synthesizer, released in 1979, was the first digital sampler of its kind and offered complete synthesis and editing of sampled sounds. Herbie used this on the tune “Rockit” for the album Future Shock in 1983.

Fairlight Series II – Fairlight’s second version of the CMI included MIDI and other new technology as it was developed in the early 1980s.

Fairlight Series III – Fairlight’s third and final version of the CMI featured increased memory and double the polyphony of its earlier versions.

Kurzweil K-250 – First released in 1984, this sampler synthesizer was able to produce sound derived from sampled sounds without the need of a disk drive. It featured both acoustic and ROM sounds built in with twelve-voice polyphony. Herbie used this instrument on his album Perfect Machine in 1988.

Maestro Universal Synthesizer System – This analog synthesizer was made for use with the guitar. It serves the instrument as an effects pedal would. It also works with the Maestro Sample and Hold Unit which then can sustain the desired effect until the next sound is triggered. Wah Wah Watson used these instruments on the 1975 album Man-Child.

Memorymoog – This polyphonic synthesizer was first made in 1982 and offered greater preset storage capacity and better sound than its competitors. This instrument was used by Herbie on the tune “Future Shock” for the album of the same name.

Micromoog – A monophonic analog synthesizer first made in the mid-1970s offered musicians a smaller more affordable synthesizer than what was otherwise available. It can be heard on the 1978 album Directstep.

Minimoog – First released in 1970, this monophonic analog synthesizer offered musicians a synthesizer they could easily take on tour for live performance because of its size and durability. This instrument was also known for its ability to produce rich bass sounds and was often used as the ‘Minimoog Bass.’ You can hear it in the famous bass line that opens “Chameleon” (Head Hunters).

Moog Source – A monophonic analog synthesizer that was the first synthesizer to offer patch memory storage. Herbie used this instrument on his 1982 album Lite Me Up.

Multimoog – A monophonic analog synthesizer first made in 1978 and designed to be an updated version of the Micromoog and cheaper than the Minimoog. This instrument was used by Webster Lewis on the album Directstep.

Oberheim Eight Voice – This analog polyphonic synthesizer was first released in the late 1970s and featured eight monophonic synthesizers wired together into one unit. Herbie used this instrument on his 1980 album Monster.

Oberheim Matrix 12 – Released in 1984, this polyphonic analog synthesizer is known for producing one of the best sounds available. It has an ability to produce an almost limitless variety of sounds. This was used on Herbie’s 1988 album Perfect Machine.

Polymoog – This fully polyphonic analog synthesizer was released in 1975 and featured eight preset sounds, and had the ability to edit those sounds in a variety of ways. Herbie used this instrument on his 1978 album Sunlight.

Prophet 5 – First made in 1978, this was one of the first fully programmable polyphonic analog synthesizers. It featured patch memory storage, which allowed it to save every knob setting for storing and recalling preferred sounds. Herbie used this on his 1981 album Magic Windows, among many others.

Prophet Pro-One – Produced in the early 1980s, this monophonic analog synthesizer was a more compact and cheaper version of the Prohpet 5. Michael Beinhorn used this instrument on the album Future Shock in 1983.

Rhodes Chroma – A rare polyphonic analog synthesizer released in 1982 which featured the ability to connect to a personal computer before MIDI had been invented. This was first used by Herbie on the album Future Shock in 1983 and several more albums after it.

Roland Jupiter 8 – Roland’s first professional analog polyphonic synthesizer made in the early 1980s. It featured eight-voice polyphony and easy programming. Herbie used this on his 1982 album Lite Me Up.

Roland MKS-80 Super Jupiter – Made in 1984, this synthesizer is a refined Jupiter 8 in a standalone module. It had no keyboard connected to it, and any instrument run through this synthesizer was done so using external cables. It was used by Herbie on his 1988 album Perfect Machine.

Sennheiser Vocoder VSM201 – This synthesizer was designed specifically to be used with the voice via a microphone. It has the look of a standard PA unit with the ability to use controls normally found on a keyboard synthesizer with the human voice to alter the sound. Herbie first used the Vocoder for his vocals on his 1978 Sunlight album.

Synclavier Digital – First made in 1979, this digital polyphonic sampling synthesizer was known as the top of the line and could cost as much as $200,000. It featured a full-size weighted keyboard with sixty-four note polyphony. Herbie first used this instrument on his 1982 album Lite Me Up.

Yamaha CE-20 – A digital synthesizer released in 1982 that featured fourteen preset monophonic sounds and six preset polyphonic sounds. This was used by Herbie on the tune “Earth Beat” for his 1983 album Future Shock.

Yamaha CP-30 – This electronic piano/synthesizer offers a 76-key keyboard and offers over 250 preset sounds to work with. You can hear this instrument being used on Hancock’s 1978 album Sunlight.

Yamaha CS-40 – Released in the late 1970s, this analog synthesizer could be played as a two-note duo-phonic instrument or be used in ‘unison’ mode which allowed for monophonic use. Webster Lewis used this instrument on the 1979 album Kimiko Kasai With Herbie Hancock: Butterfly.

Yamaha CS-80 – A polyphonic analog synthesizer released in 1977 that featured eight-voice polyphony and a basic memory system to remember the musician’s settings for each sound. Herbie used this instrument on his 1978 album Directstep.

Yamaha DX-7 – First made in 1983, this was the first commercially successful polyphonic digital synthesizer and was known for having greater clarity and quality of sound than the analog versions that came before it. This instrument was first used by Herbie on his 1984 album Sound-System.

Yamaha DZ7llFD – This updated version of the DX-7 held 64 voices in internal memory and another 64 voices in a RAM/ROM cartridge that could be accessed. In dual mode, one could layer these voices in different combinations and create a variety of sounds not available on the standard DX-7. This was used by Herbie on his 1988 album Perfect Machine.

Yamaha DX-1 Digital – This polyphonic digital synthesizer was the equivalent of two DX-7s put together and was the biggest and most expensive synthesizer in the DX line. Herbie used this on his 1984 album Herbie Hancock And Foday Musa Suso: Village Life.

Yamaha GS-1 – Yamaha’s first digital polyphonic synthesizer, released in 1981, included features such as velocity sensitivity and three band equalizer. This was used by Herbie on the tune “Earth Beat” for his 1983 album Future Shock.

Yamaha TX-816 – A digital synthesizer that takes its form as a rack unit simulates having eight DX-7s in one. This allows a musician to store and carry as many sounds as they like without needing several instruments to create them. It also features eight audio outputs and is compatible with all other DX synthesizers. Herbie used this on his 1988 album Perfect Machine.

Electric Pianos

An electric piano produces sound mechanically, which is then turned into electronic signals using a pickup. Due to the mechanical aspect, the electric piano is an electro-mechanical instrument, unlike a synthesizer which is an electric instrument. The original sound is produced by pressing a key, which activates a hammer and then strikes a string, metal reed, or tuning fork, depending on the model. That sound is then amplified. The Wurlitzer and Rhodes electric pianos are the most popular examples. Herbie was first introduced to the instrument by Miles Davis and continued to use it on many of his own albums, often as his primary soloing instrument. He used it on some 17 albums in this boxed set during the years 1973-1981.

Yamaha Electric Grand Piano – First produced in the 1970s, the sound of these pianos is produced using hammer and strings in much the same manner as a piano with the addition of pickups under the strings (like the technology used to amplify a guitar). Herbie used this instrument on his 1976 album V.S.O.P.

Fender Rhodes Electric Piano – This electro-mechanical piano uses a hammer striking a tuning fork to create its unique sound. Fender released several models of the Rhodes piano, which ranged from having 61-73 keys. This instrument was used by Herbie on the 1973 album Sextant.

Rhodes 88 Suitcase Piano – An 88-key Fender Rhodes Electric Piano with updates, including plastic hammers to reduce its weight, built-in 100W stereo amplifier and ¼” outputs, allowing this instrument to be plugged directly into a mixing console. Herbie played the Suitcase Piano on his 1980 album Monster.

Hohner D6 Clavinet – Released in the 1970s, this amplified clavichord produced its sound using hammer striking strings. The clavichord is a stringed keyboard instrument used as early in history as the Middle Ages. Herbie used this instrument on his 1973 album Sextant.

Drum Machines/Drum Pads

An electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums and other percussion instruments. Most drum machines are sequencers that combine some features of a synthesizer to fully control the desired percussion sounds. A drum machine can look like anything from an electronic drum set used with sticks to a small square unit with pads or knobs to be controlled by hand. Herbie and his band mates used this instrument on various albums to create more rhythmic texture in the music without another drummer.

Linn LM-1 – This was the first drum machine to use digital samples of real drums and also had the ability to be programmed. This was used by Herbie on his 1980 album Monster.

Linn Drum – This drum machine released in the early 1980s featured 15 drum sounds sampled from real drums and a sequencer. It was the successor to the LM-1. Herbie used this instrument on his 1981 album Magic Windows.

Oberheim DMX – A programmable, digital drum machine released in 1981 that featured 24 individual drum sounds and eight-sound polyphony. Michael Beinhorn used this instrument on the 1983 album Future Shock.

Roland CR-78 – A drum machine released in 1978 featuring analog sounds with digital controls and 34 preset rhythms. This instrument was used by Herbie on his 1980 album Monster.

Synare Drum – The name Synare stands for synthetic snare. This drum pad allowed the user to drum rhythms onto it and then adjust the sound and tempo of those rhythms using knobs. Michael Beinhorn plays this instrument on the tune “Rockit” for the 1983 album Future Shock.

Yamaha RX11 Digital Drum Machine – Released in the early 1980s, this programmable drum machine featured 29 real drum samples and 12 audio outputs. Herbie used this instrument on his 1984 album Herbie Hancock And Foday Musa Suso: Village Life.

Miscellaneous

The following are instruments and electronic devices that do not fit into the other categories and were used by Herbie and his band mates.

Clavitar – Released in 1978, this keytar combines the keyboard and guitar into one unique instrument. The instrument is played like a keyboard but shaped like a guitar and straps around the neck allowing the keyboard player to roam freely on stage. Herbie plays the Clavitar on his 1980 album Monster.

Phase Shifter – This is an effects unit that can alter sound using certain techniques to change the sound waves. While these effects units were originally large boxes with knobs and buttons, today they are most often small pedals used by guitar players. Herbie used the Country Man Phase Shifter on his 1976 album V.S.O.P.

Lyricon – This is an electronic wind instrument resembling the look of a soprano saxophone or an alto clarinet. The instrument has sensors on the mouth piece which are able to recognize lip pressure and wind pressure, as well as buttons to transpose the instrument to a different key and control the octave range. Bennie Maupin plays the Lyricon on the 1976 album Secrets.

Maestro Echoplex – A tape delay effect first released in the early 1960s. This device allows a guitar or keyboard player to record themselves and play back that recording in real time, and then play another line on top of the recorded line. This allows one player to create layers of music and ideas. Herbie used this device on his 1973 album Sextant.

Mellotron – This electro-mechanical polyphonic keyboard, released in the 1960s, is in a class all its own. This instrument uses the technology of a sampler and a piano and looks like an organ. A key pressed causes this instrument to read a piece of magnetic audio tape and play back a preset sample lasting eight seconds. This instrument is played by Herbie on the tune “Hidden Shadows” for the 1973 album Sextant.

Shure Reverberation Mixer – This is a mixer you would see with any standard PA system. It allows for multiple instruments or microphones to be plugged into the unit, and the ability to control reverb, volume and more in the sound produced. Herbie used this mixer on his 1974 album Dedication.

Steiner EVI – An electronic valve trumpet using a similar concept to the Lyricon in that the mouth piece could measure the amount of air pressure being used, and a button near the thumb controlled the octave. This instrument was played by Herbie on his 1980 album Monster.

Voice Bag – The voice bag or talk box is a device that makes a synthesizer talk. The musician sends a note from their instrument into the voice bag. The voice bag then sends that same note through a plastic tube into the musician’s mouth. Using their mouth, throat, and larynx, the musician shapes that sound to make the sound talk. This instrument was used by Wah Wah Watson on the 1975 album Man-Child.

WLM Organ – These electric organs were first produced in the early 1970s in Finland. The sound produced by these organs is similar to a Hammond, but is cleaner. Herbie plays this organ on his 1980 album Monster.

– 2013 Sony Box Set Liner Notes

When a musical hero of towering influence dies, the urge is to go straight to the tape: recordings, footage, a captured moment that stands in for the unwieldy fullness of a life.

This commemorative twitch — wearily familiar in our year of losses, from David Bowie to Prince to, just last week, the vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson — is especially well suited to the memory of Rudy Van Gelder, whose legend was shaped within the confines of his recording studio. Mr. Van Gelder, who died on Thursday at 91, was the most revered recording engineer in jazz — the man behind the curtain on thousands of albums and the chief architect of the storied “Blue Note sound.” He shaped the way we hear the music and the way we want it to be heard.

So it’s natural, now, to look for some trace of Mr. Van Gelder in the brilliant recordings he made, either at his first home studio in Hackensack, N.J., or at his second, in nearby Englewood Cliffs. It’s natural, and it’s also maddening, because so much of what he did was intangible. You hear it, you feel it, but his signature was etched in invisible ink. What is it, exactly, that you’re listening for? Naturalism? Warmth? The sound of a room?

“Some musicians sounded more real on your recordings than they would in a club,” the pianist and writer Ben Sidran ventured in 1985 in a rare interview with Mr. Van Gelder, who seemed to agree. He replied, “A great photographer will really create his image, and not just capture a particular situation.”

In that light, here’s a small assortment of images — just a few personal favorites from Mr. Van Gelder’s oceanic body of work.

The first comes from Blue Train, the 1958 album by the saxophonist John Coltrane. Mr. Van Gelder’s more celebrated work with Coltrane came later, with A Love Supreme, on the Impulse! label. But what you hear on “Moment’s Notice,” which was taped to two-track mono, shows how he could evoke a band’s sound in physical space. Notice the transition between solos, especially from Lee Morgan’s swashbuckling trumpet to Paul Chambers’s bowed bass.

“Moment’s Notice,” by Coltrane:

It so happens that Mr. Van Gelder died on Wayne Shorter’s 83rd birthday. That coincidence sent me immediately to my vinyl reissue of Speak No Evil, which Mr. Shorter recorded in 1964. (It was released on Blue Note in 1966.) One thing I’ve always loved about the sound of this track is the way that Herbie Hancock’s piano (silvery, crisp) plays against Elvin Jones’s drums and cymbals (earthy, dark), while perfectly supporting the horns.

“Speak No Evil,” by Mr. Shorter:

“Ready, Rudy?” was something jazz musicians routinely said from Mr. Van Gelder’s studio floor, and the phrase became a kind of an in-joke, the title of a tune by Duke Pearson. Here, on the first track of Relaxin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet, we hear a less standard but more famous bit of studio chatter, as Davis rasps, “I’ll play it and tell you what it is later.” That offhandedness provides much of the charm of these sessions, for Prestige; Coltrane even begins his tenor-saxophone solo away from the microphone, as if stepping up to the plate.

“If I Were a Bell,” by the Miles Davis Quintet:

Mr. Van Gelder was also the sonic mastermind behind CTI Records, Creed Taylor’s stylish crossover label. The sound of these albums was warm and luxurious, and while there are many tracks to choose from, my instinctual pick would be the title track of Red Clay, the hit 1970 album by the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. It has a jumping-out-of-your-speakers tenor saxophone solo by Joe Henderson, along with a neon-funky rhythm section: Mr. Hancock on electric piano, Ron Carter on electric bass, Lenny White on drums.

“Red Clay,” by Mr. Hubbard:

The vastness of Mr. Van Gelder’s midcentury output can make it easy to forget how active he remained in our own time. (One of his most recent credits is Chemistry, by the tenor saxophonist Houston Person and Mr. Carter — an album released this summer.) Christian Scott was a firebrand trumpeter still in his mid-20s when he recorded his second album, Yesterday You Said Tomorrow, at Mr. Van Gelder’s studio in 2010. “Jenacide (the Inevitable Rise and Fall of the Bloodless Revolution)” is a politically charged track from the album, and its sound — that mix of electric guitar and tambourine — feels both raw and refined.

“Jenacide (the Inevitable Rise and Fall of the Bloodless Revolution),” by Mr. Scott:

Finally, another sentimental offering. Many of Mr. Hutcherson’s finest recordings were made with Mr. Van Gelder behind the controls. Out to Lunch, the 1964 album by the multireedist Eric Dolphy, is full of these moments. Listen to how well the recording captures Mr. Hutcherson’s muted clangs and chiming overtones — along with the bleats, harrumphs and gargles of Mr. Dolphy’s bass clarinet, and the deep gravitas of Richard Davis’s bass. There’s a quintet on this track, but on some level you’d have to credit Mr. Van Gelder as an essential member of the band.

Click here to read the original source article via the New York Times

On Aug. 24, the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles hosted the first, and to date only, scheduled live performance by Mega Nova, a jazz-rock “supergroup” featuring pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, guitarist Carlos Santana, bassist Marcus Miller and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana, with support from percussionist Karl Perazzo. Whether this titanic gathering will appear together again remains to be seen, but if this was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime event, it’s fitting, if unsurprising given this talent, that the result was once-in-a-lifetime music.

The evening kicked off with a set from Stax Revue, an old-school R&B outfit fronted by organist Booker T. Jones. The ensemble presented a crowd-pleasing array of tunes made famous by the stalwart Memphis soul label, including the zesty, island-flavored “Soul Limbo” and Booker T.’s own hit “Green Onions”; on the latter, the organist effortlessly brought mighty groove to one of popular music’s most famous instrumentals, while his son, guitarist Ted Jones, split the sky with phrases that tumbled wildly, then rescaled the heights with thunderous passion. Vocalist Anthony Jawan gave “Try a Little Tenderness” a melisma-driven fervor, with robust support from tenor saxophonist Wes Smith, and Denosh Bennett’s sassy brashness sparked a spunky take on “Mr. Big Stuff.” Booker T. brought the band’s set to a rousing close with his own rough-and-ready vocal lead on Stax’s label-defining empowerment anthem “Respect Yourself.”

Mega Nova’s set took the form of an extended improvisation, the musicians occasionally alighting on recognizable themes before again setting course for uncharted waters. Throughout the mostly continuous performance, Hancock’s piano and keyboards were the unwavering anchor, one moment serving up dense minor-key clusters over which Shorter and Santana traded sonic splinters, the next providing a spectrally droning foundation for shimmering psychedelic explorations. He channeled his inner tavern pianist for a chugging blues interlude with Santana, then conjured mystical electronic filigrees while Shorter’s soprano melded with Miller, on bass clarinet, for a bittersweet evocation.

Santana’s focus on rhythm and groove was prodigious to behold; he spent much of the performance with his back partially to the audience, the better to zero in on the emphatic paired attack of Blackman Santana and Perazzo. In addition to serving up plenty of the gritty shredding that has made his one of rock’s most distinctive guitar sounds, Santana injected slyly witty asides, with unexpected quotes of everything from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move.” The guitarist seemed to take special delight in his offhandedly inspired exchanges with Shorter; on a freeform medley of the movements of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Santana and Shorter punctuated and completed one another’s ideas like mind-linked twins.

Shorter was in powerful voice, whether squalling his soprano through a thicket of dirty-blues lines from Miller or sighing out delicate, breathy tones on the tenor horn, an elegant seasoning to the roiling sonic mix. His heartbreaking fairy-bird soprano trills on a poignant reading of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” were a highlight of the evening, and he threw in his own unanticipated-yet-apropos references, tacking broad-shouldered tenor quotes from “Manteca” and “My Favorite Things” onto a sizzling run through Mongo Santamaría’s “Afro Blue.”

Miller’s versatility provided a rich component to the Mega Nova sound. He emphatically thumb-plucked the high tones of his bass to undergird molten slivers from Santana, laid down a poppy gutbucket bedrock over which Blackman Santana and Perazzo boomed forth, and went from trading funky licks with Hancock to backing Shorter’s tenor effusions with feather-light runs. Perazzo’s congas, shakers and timbales amplified Blackman Santana’s rock-oriented beats, and his well-placed chimes brought ethereal mysticism to the performance’s trippier passages. Blackman Santana gave a clinic in fusing elastic musicality with sheer concussive strength. She engaged Santana and Miller with intricate intuition, and took an unaccompanied solo that built from near-whispery strikes of the tom to back-breaking full-kit thrashing, drawing the evening’s wildest ovation without breaking a sweat.

After this extended foray into occasionally off-the-map soundscapes, Mega Nova uncorked a few marquee hits for an encore. A buoyant rendering of Hancock’s celebrated composition “Watermelon Man” segued, with a roar of excitement from the crowd, into Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va,” transformed by Santana into a Latin-rock classic. The guitarist hopes this band can eventually travel together as “peace ambassadors,” telling Rolling Stone, “We are the frequency to do the opposite of Donald Trump.” Bearing that in mind, it should come as no shock that Mega Nova closed its first-ever live gig with a dynamic version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” complete with guitar-and-drums freak-out climax. And even if this does turn out to be the band’s sole outing, here’s hoping their message of multicultural cooperation rings out through the Hollywood hills, and far and wide.

Click here to read the original source article via Jazz Times

When he was in his early 20s, Herbie Hancock left college in Iowa and went home to Chicago. Soon, he was playing in Donald Byrd’s band, and that led to a move to New York, where he was invited to join Miles Davis’ quintet.

Since then, Hancock’s career has spanned more than half-a-century, marked by his boundless sense of musical curiosity. He’s worked with many jazz greats, and pop artists including Sting and Joni Mitchell.

Now Hancock is working with the producer Steven Ellison, a.k.a. Flying Lotus, whose Brainfeeder label is home to some of Los Angeles’ most acclaimed young jazz, hip-hop, and electronica musicians.

The Frame’s Oscar Garza spoke with Herbie Hancock about his long career as a musician, working with Miles Davis and Flying Lotus, and how he’s constantly reinvented himself throughout his music career.

INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS

What he learned during his years in the Miles Davis Quintet:

The first thing that I learned was the importance of listening. When we were playing some engagements, I noticed that the way Miles played was very much influenced by what each of the rhythm section was playing. I could tell he was listening to the chords and the rhythms I was playing. I could tell he was listening to Tony Williams on the drums by the kinds of rhythms that Miles played.

I’m sure that wasn’t anything that he was thinking about, but the fact that he was listening and trusting helped not only shape his improvisation, but it made the band feel like one unit, like it was one mind. So when I noticed that Miles was doing that and how great it made everything sound I [thought], That’s something that I want to keep. That’s something that I want to do.

Performing with Miles Davis:

I was pretty scared of playing with Miles. I was just terrified with trying to keep up. I was 23-years-old. Now I’m 76 and I think about more things that weren’t on my radar scope at the time.

How Hancock went from engineering to jazz musician:

Both my mother and father said that whatever their children wanted to be when we grew up, they would fully support it — not that they had financial means to support it economically, but they would be in our corner.

It was a challenge specifically for my mother. When I joined Donald Byrd’s band to become a professional jazz musician, I [had been] an engineering major in college for my first two years, and my parents felt very comfortable in knowing that I could get a job as an engineer when I graduated.

It became very obvious to me at the end of my second year of college that I had no choice, that [jazz] was what I was gonna do, come hell or high water.

Working with Steven Ellison, a.k.a. Flying Lotus, on his album, “You’re Dead!”:

I really wanted to be a fly on the wall. In other words, whatever we were doing — if it was going to be for my record or for [Flying Lotus’] record — I wasn’t going to impose ideas without first getting the lay of the land. Because I’m working with a younger musician and so many things have changed since I first started recording.

I know that a lot of young artists are doing different things: the way they use social media; the way they leak parts of tracks out to the public that are unfinished. but it gets an excitement going. That was totally new to me, so I wanted to see how they do things.

Collaborating with Flying Lotus for Hancock’s new album:

I’m also working with Terrace Martin [who] was one of the primary producers for Kendrick Lamar’s album, “To Pimp a Butterfly.” That record was very instrumental in crystalizing a direction for the record that I wanted to make. One thing that happened during the different times that I went over to Flying Lotus’ house, he asked me what I had in mind and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do for my own record.

By the way, Thundercat — Stephen Bruner, the wonderful bass player — he also was over at Flying Lotus’ house almost all of the days that I went over there. He also had some material and I didn’t know if his material was for his record or for it was something that he was bringing over to possibly submit to me. I just went with the flow [laughs], so consequently some of the stuff I did with him and with Flying Lotus wound up being on Flying Lotus’ record, “You’re Dead!,” on the song called “Tesla.”

You know why he called it “Tesla”? Because that’s the car I drive, that’s my car [laughs], and I showed up at his house with a Tesla and I gave him a ride in it and he loved it.

How he keeps reinventing himself and his music:

One of the great stimulations, for me, is hanging out with young people and paying attention to what they’re doing. There’s a tendency as we get older to feel like we know more than younger people and [that] our job is to teach them what we know. But that is not something that I adhere to. We all have something to bring to the table no matter what our age, and youth today has a lot to bring to the table.

Performing with his long time creative partner Wayne Shorter:

Wayne teaches me new tricks every day. He lives about 10 minutes from my house, which is great that we live in close proximity. We are very much are in sync with the way we generally look at the world and look at jazz.

I may not agree with every aspect of all the assessments that Wayne makes, but to me, Wayne is like Yoda [laughs]. If he opens his mouth, I want everybody else to be quiet and listen. Most people that know Wayne feel the same way because he’s brilliant.

Click here to listen to the full interview via Southern California’s 89.3 KPCC FM.

No matter who you are or what skills you bring to the table, starting a new band with keyboardist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, two of the jazz world’s most iconic luminaries, is serious business. Not so serious, though, that Carlos Santana, a legend in his own right, hesitates to crack wise about the origin of Mega Nova, the jazz-rock supergroup he’s formed with Hancock, Shorter and two more heavyweight players: bassist Marcus Miller and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana, the guitarist’s wife.

“I asked them if it was OK for me to start a rumor that we were going to do something together, and they said, ‘Of course,'” Santana tells Rolling Stone, laughing. “So I started a rumor, and here we are. And I feel so excited, because with these musicians, anything and everything can be transmitted.”

The new band, Mega Nova – named in tribute to Shorter’s 1969 solo album Super Nova – will make its debut in a one-off concert at the Hollywood Bowl on August 24th. It’s not the first time these players have met onstage; most of the band members have played together on various occasions, and Santana and Shorter toured together in 1988. Shorter and Hancock collaborated with Santana in a program called “Hymns for Peace” at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2004, and Miller and Blackman Santana were among the supporting musicians that joined the core triumvirate for a Hancock-led event, “Celebrating Peace,” at the Hollywood Bowl in 2012.

“Carlos is a big jazz fan, a big supporter of the music,” Hancock tells RS. “With his heart, he honors jazz. But it’s not just words; it’s also his deeds. This is the kind of action that he’s taken to include jazz, because he has so much respect for it, and he respects Wayne and me – as we respect him: as a musician, as a storyteller in music. Nobody can deliver a melody like Carlos.”

The admiration is mutual, emphatically so. “For me, this is a real blessing,” Santana says, “to dream of something, and then to see it come to fruition.” To be in the company of Shorter and Hancock – whose work with trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis in the mid-1960s launched trailblazing careers in jazz, fusion and pop, individually and in collaboration – is a lesson in humility, as Santana describes it.

How does Santana find common ground with his illustrious comrades? “It starts with surrender,” he says without hesitation. “I immediately defer to both of them, and I wait my turn to see when they invite me to come up with something. I’m very honored and grateful that they trust me. So for me, it’s about learning to defer – I learned that word from Magic Johnson, when he said he deferred to [Kareem] Abdul-Jabbar. It means you have the courtesy to honor those who came before you.”

Respect also animates Blackman Santana’s approach to Mega Nova – specifically, her admiration for Tony Williams, the trailblazing drummer who worked in Davis’ band with Hancock and Shorter, and for Jack DeJohnette, the protean percussionist who played on Davis sessions as well as Shorter’s Super Nova.

“Tony is to me unparalleled in his sound concept, the amount of things he innovated on and with,” she tells RS. “From tuning my drums to concepts of playing inside the music, taking drum solos, composition – he’s influenced me in every way.” DeJohnette, she notes, started as a pianist, “so he approaches [drumming] in a very musical way. He’s got a lot of good energy, a lot of good fire. And he puts together really good projects.”

Blackman Santana, a noted bandleader and composer who has collaborated with such heavyweights as Lenny Kravitz, Cream’s Jack Bruce and Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, holds Hancock and Shorter in special esteem. “Not only is it a pleasure and an honor to play with them, but it’s also a challenge to step up to them,” she says. “If I can somehow make those cats feel inspired, I’ll feel like I’ve reached the mountaintop.”

But as Shorter sees it, Mega Nova has to provide optimal conditions for Blackman Santana, as well. “She needs to be free from any kind of rigid arrangements,” he tells RS. Shorter cites two performances of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that Santana and Blackman Santana played before NBA Finals games in 2015 and 2016. “They were respectful,” he says, “but Cindy had carte blanche. She was playing riffs and rises” – Shorter reels off rhythms and rolls vocally, illustrating Blackman Santana’s unbridled free playing.

That boundless exuberance is consistent with what Shorter set out to express on Super Nova, the first album he recorded after leaving Miles Davis’ band. “When you’re going fishing, you want to throw the line out as far as you can,” he says. “I was throwing the music at a distance, where it would challenge me, and also sharing the challenge – like when you’re kids playing, maybe in a vacant lot, and you play all day and you’d discover stuff. It’s like, what are you going to do after you leave Miles Davis? So, Super Nova: You’re on your own, you’re an astronaut – let’s jump out into space.”

“The whole concept of building something together: That’s what this is about.” –Herbie Hancock

Even so, every astronaut knows careful planning and a safety tether are crucial to success and survival. “The best improvisation has a solid base,” says Miller, a celebrated bassist known for his work with Luther Vandross and with Miles Davis in the 1980s. He recounts something the great arranger and producer Quincy Jones once told him: “The biggest hindrance to creativity is a blank page.” Impose a few parameters, he recalls Jones saying, and creativity flowers instantly.

“When you’re an improviser, it’s a really ethereal kind of thing, because you’re not really sure what you’re going to do when you go onstage,” Miller tells RS. “This is kind of a freaky feeling, to be standing there with 7,000 people waiting for us, and we don’t really know exactly what it is that’s going to happen out there. Imagine that feeling – it’s a huge leap of faith.”

Both Santana and Hancock view that collaborative uncertainty as an accurate reflection of Mega Nova’s design and ideals. “We have hearts that are very compatible in the way we look at the world, the way we look at humanity, and our responsibility as human beings, as musicians, as storytellers from the cultural community,” Hancock says. The inevitability and necessity of globalization, he notes, is a key concern.

“We have the capacity for creating a world that we can all believe in, one that we can look forward to for ourselves and our children,” Hancock says. “What we want to do is make a step toward bringing cultures and ethnicities and people in general together, and show the value of collaboration from the standpoint of respect. The whole concept of building something together: That’s what this is about.”

Santana is even more pointed about the objective. “I want to be able to travel with this band eventually, and be the peace ambassadors, which is what Louis Armstrong used to be, and what I would say Bob Marley or John Lennon represented,” he says. “Let me say really clearly: Wayne and Herbie and I and Cindy and Marcus, we are the frequency to do the opposite of Donald Trump. We don’t see walls – we saw the Berlin Wall come down. We’ve been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we saw what that stuff is. We play music to bring, once and for all, inclusiveness and family. This is the band.”

Click here to read the original source article via Rolling Stone

The seventh Richmond Jazz Festival wrapped up Sunday night, ending four days of food, fashion, art and more than three dozen eclectic performers, solidifying the event’s reputation as one of the genre’s best in the nation.

“To us, it’s all about a very diverse and explicit lineup and bringing together jazz and music fans. Since attendees come from all over the country, we always want to offer the best experiences,” said Jasmine Roberts with Johnson Marketing, the event’s organizer.

Total numbers were not available by Sunday afternoon, but Roberts said that thousands attended this year in spite of record temperatures that made it the hottest in the festival’s history.

The headliners Sunday were rap and neo-soul group the Roots and Funk combo Morris Day and the Time.

The Roots are no stranger to Richmond stages, but the combo around drummer and music historian Questlove has moved up a notch in national recognition after being tapped as the house band for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

The Time were founded by pop music giant Prince, who died April 21. A former high school classmate, Morris Day, has vowed to keep the Minneapolis sound alive.

But throughout the day Sunday, jazz fans were still raving about jazz icon Herbie Hancock’s performance Saturday night.

A huge get for the festival, Hancock took to the stage late in the evening, after many fans had braved blistering heat and blazing sun for hours.

Unfazed by humidity and high temperatures, Hancock even vowed to turn it up a notch.

“Is it hot enough for you? We’re gonna try to make it hotter. You don’t mind, do you?” Hancock said, flashing a boyish grin as he basked in his audience’s adoration.

Widely considered to be the last of the great progenitors of modern jazz, the 76-year-old is something of a musical chameleon — not by accident the title of one of his biggest fusion hits of the 1970s.

On Saturday, Hancock and his three-piece group ventured deep into fusion jazz, taking the audience to sometimes far out places in distant, unmapped musical territories.

Dressed in a white banded-collar Kurta tunic and comfortable black slacks, Hancock sat behind a Fazioli concert piano and a Korg Kronos music station — two instruments that represent the different musical worlds in which Hancock resides.

Much of Hancock’s performance resembled the style and sound of his 1973 jazz-funk album “Headhunters” — a dramatic departure from hard bop.

But at times, the medleys of his older hit songs appeared somewhat disorganized, even rushed, as if Hancock rather wanted to move on to new things, which he readily acknowledged.

“It’s a little smattering of a bunch of things together that I wrote many, many years ago,” he said in what sounded like a disclaimer.

The band concluded the night with “Chameleon,” one of the most widely recognized jazz standards. The funky bass line that opens the song, originally played by Hancock on an ARP Odyssey synthesizer, sent the audience into a frenzy.

“I first saw Herbie back in the day when he played in Miles Davis’ group,” said Bernard Carson, who had traveled from Fayetteville, N.C., to see the jazz giant for a second time. “What he did here was an entirely different bag. It was more his funk stuff, but he sure brought some fire,” Carson said.

For the purists, the Ramsey Lewis Quintet brought back the hard bop Sunday, and seven-time Grammy winner Al Jarreau was a soulful highlight in the late afternoon. In spite of ailing health, and walking on a cane, Jarreau assured the audience that things are gonna be all right.

“I’ll sing from a wheelchair, I’ll sing laying down, I’ll do what it takes,” Jarreau said.

A hidden gem was alto saxophonist Sonny Fortune, who drew a fairly small crowd at the smallest stage, which was tucked away behind the main stage.

Fortune, who catapulted to fame as a member of Elvin Jones’ group, the drummer for John Coltrane, is comfortable in both the bop and avant-garde and free jazz idioms.

On Sunday, he alternated between the alto sax, flute and soprano sax, veering off into Coltrane land with a powerful adaptation of Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints.” For lovers of undiluted 1960s jazz, Fortune was the way to go.

Roberts, the organizer, said that because of the heat, guests were allowed to bring their own snacks and bottled water to Maymont. Fanning out over the lawn between the three stages, Maymont looked like a giant outdoor picnic.

Some spread out their blankets and made the festival a family affair, like James McCrae and his wife Denice from Newport News, who came with their three children.

“This is our second time and we are determined to make it a family tradition,” McCrae said. “Where else do you have all this music, and you can just lay around and take it all in? I just wish we’d have a bit more of a breeze to cool it down.”

But most people stayed hydrated, Roberts said.

“We did have one or two people who were overheated, but they were taken care off by our EMTs,” she said.

The next Richmond Jazz Festival is already planned for the second weekend of August 2017.

Click here to read the original source article via Richmond.com

Herbie Hancock’s current project can be understood as both a progression and a reclamation. On Thursday night at the Prospect Park Bandshell, in a marquee concert at the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, he tucked some eagerly anticipated new music into a set list otherwise devoted to reframed hits. From behind his grand piano and a bank of synthesizers — or sometimes standing out front, with a keytar — he held magnanimous court, presiding over an evening that reaffirmed his legacy in the realm of vanguardist pop, jazz-funk and R&B.

Mr. Hancock is 76, and has long been something like the Polaris of jazz modernism at the piano: an aspirational model, a navigational point, a fixture in the firmament. His pop career, officially starting with the 1973 album “Head Hunters,” used to be widely regarded as a separate thing.

That’s changing, if it hasn’t already, because of the implicit permissions that so many artists are now taking from Mr. Hancock’s example. Choosing sides isn’t such a pressing obligation anymore. Survey the landscape, and you’ll find a robust bloc of youngish jazz musicians conversant in precisely the brand of fusion that Mr. Hancock helped establish, and secure in the knowledge that it isn’t in any way disqualifying.

A handful of musicians fitting that description are members of Mr. Hancock’s hyper-articulate band: the saxophonist and keyboardist Terrace Martin; the guitarist and vocalist Lionel Loueke; the bassist James Genus; the drummer Trevor Lawrence Jr. Still others appeared in opening sets by the Robert Glasper Experiment and Jamie Lidell and the Royal Pharaohs, two groups pursuing an ultramodern strain of soul. It was hardly a surprise that the entire program felt of a piece, or that Mr. Hancock seemed to be the force holding it together.

He has been working on a new album with collaborators like the intrepid electronic producer Flying Lotus and Mr. Martin, who’s also a producer and wingman for the rapper Kendrick Lamar. Precisely what the album will sound like is a matter of conjecture, but there were some early intimations in “Overture,” the roughly 15-minute taste of new material in the show.

It began in near-abstraction, with futuristic whooshes and otherworldly synth-glow, before a beat materialized. Then Mr. Martin pivoted from keyboards to saxophone, delivering a solo in bright, imploring bursts against a thrashing loop of funk rhythm.

The tune gradually segued into another section at a more relaxed tempo. Mr. Hancock started into a piano solo with his usual quicksilver poise, but just as he seemed ready to settle in, he swerved instead into a series of syncopated hits designed to showcase the drums. It was a clever head fake: As Mr. Lawrence smartly jackhammered at his cymbals, snare and toms, Mr. Hancock intensified his own output, answering a call. The tune ended like that, ratcheting up before dropping off, and it was just enough to meet ravenous expectations in the crowd.

Unexpectedly, the greatest-hits component of the set felt similarly charged, as if perking up with an infusion of new blood. Mr. Hancock has overworked some of these tunes to the point of exhaustion in other shows, stamping them with a showman’s rote proficiency.

But after the focused sprawl of “Overture,” he and the band seemed to accept an unspoken challenge. So “Watermelon Man” became something more than a slinky strut, segueing into a clavinet funk shuffle like the one on Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground.” he fired off a keytar solo that highlighted the unusual skill set for that instrument: a different touch and sense of phrase than at the piano; a blinkered willingness to court ridicule in the service of play.

But where the band really found peak enlightenment was on “Come Running to Me,” a track from the 1978 crossover album “Sunlight.” Featuring a melody sung by Mr. Hancock through a vocoder, it’s a not-quite-slow jam that presages the sound of a lot of recent pop music, including the work of Daft Punk. The band, with Mr. Loueke and Mr. Martin pitching in on background vocals, made it sound almost like a new proposition. It’s hard to imagine Mr. Hancock could ever have performed the song as persuasively in its original era.

The Robert Glasper Experiment has something to do with the shift in perception around this sound: Vocoders are a regular feature of its shows, usually thanks to the saxophonist Casey Benjamin. The band’s set was abbreviated here by weather-related production delays, but there was time enough to play a feel-good version of “Reminisce,” by the elastically suave R&B singer Bilal. He sang it well and was then joined by the rapper Common, who reeled off a buoyant freestyle for the occasion (“I remember Herbie when he was doing ‘Rockit’”).

Mr. Hancock’s album, which seems likely to land next year, is starting to feel less like a blank. Flying Lotus, Mr. Martin and their peers, like the bassist and singer Thundercat and the tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington, all claim Mr. Hancock as a hero, not only because of what he’s done but also because of what he’s still doing. The boundless, irrepressible quality of his performance was a potent reminder of that, but if the current musical climate is any indicator, no reminders are really needed.

Click here to read the original source article via The New York Times

Last night, legendary Jazz pianist/keyboardist/godfather Herbie Hancock brought a unique band and some incredible opening acts with him to the Celebrate Brooklyn! concert series at the Prospect Park Bandshell. The show, which was organized by This Is Our Music and LPR Presents, featured a heavy-hitting opening lineup of soul musician Jamie Lidell and the electro-r&b of the Robert Glasper Experiment, and found Hancock performing a headlining set in Brooklyn for the first time in 50 years.

After a short but intense downpour delayed the opening of doors for a few minutes, the crowd was allowed inside the venue for a mini set by Jamie Lidell. The British crooner, who was playing his only U.S. tour date for the forseeable future, is supporting a new forthcoming album called Building a Beginning, which will be released on October 14th.

The real fireworks started when the Robert Glasper Experiment took the stage. The band, made up of Glasper on piano and keys, Derrick Hodge on bass, Casey Benjamin on saxophone, keytar, and vocoder, and Mark Colenburg on drums, took the audience on a quick trip to space via their unique blend of jazz fusion, hip-hop, and r&b. This band is one of the best improv outfits on the planet, and their set weaves between original tracks, unique and unexpected covers, and a healthy dose of full-band improvisation. The band unfortunately had to cut a few minutes from their set due to the rain delay, but made up for it in kind with an epic set-closing tribute to J. Dilla, during which Glasper surprised the audience by bringing out Bilal and Common to sing and spit a few bars, respectively. The collaboration felt very “Brooklyn”, and was a perfect fit for the larger-than-usual audience the Experiment were afforded.

Finally, Herbie Hancock, the master, took the stage with his impressive band. The players in his band were a who’s who of modern jazz greats: James Genus from the Saturday Night Live house band on bass, West African legend Lionel Loueke on guitar, famed session drummer Trevor Lawrence Jr., and To Pimp A Butterfly mastermind and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin on keyboards, vocoder, and saxophone.

The band was hot right out of the gates, opening with the uptempo 1974 jazz fusion track “Actual Proof”. The crowd was entranced by the virtuosity of the band, as they whipped from one idea to the other as the band worked themselves through the tune. After Hancock took a few minutes to introduce the band members to the audience, they launched into a winding version of “Overture” that featured impressive playing from Lawrence, as he picked up the rhythm of the jam and built it up until the song’s epic climax.

Hancock followed that up with his classic “Watermelon Man”, and the funky track was met with huge applause from the enraptured audience. Loueke then led the band through a Afrobeat-tinged version of “Come Running To Me”, which featured some impressive soloing on the keytar from Hancock. Finally, things came to a close with a danceable version of “Cantaloupe Island” that saw Hancock and his band trading licks with ease.

After a short break, the band returned to the stage for a synthed-out performance of Hancock’s best known song, “Chameleon”. The crowd went absolutely crazy for the track, and Hancock picked up the keytar again for a wild solo that was the perfect exclamation mark to cap off an excellent evening in Prospect Park.

In the end, it was a truly amazing night in Brooklyn. Usually relegated to small clubs and festival appearances, it was amazing to see a show of jazz legends with thousands of other people in one of New York City’s most reliable cultural centers. The Robert Glasper Experiment and Herbie Hancock both put on incredible shows filled with improv and experimentation, and the crowd absolutely ate it up. We hope it doesn’t take another 50 years for Herbie to return to Brooklyn!

Set One: Actual Proof, Overture, Watermelon Man, Come Running To Me, Cantaloupe Island

Encore: Chameleon

Click here to read the original source article via LiveForLiveMusic.com