Herbie and his longtime friend and fellow keyboard master Chick Corea have plotted a spring 2015 outing through North America.
The storied collaboration of the two on stage together in the 1978 resulted in seminal live recordings that remain popular today.
As in 1978, this tour will set the quartets and vocalists aside and present two virtuosos on stage together with just their keyboards.
Blue Note Records has just released “Speak Like a Child” as part of their #BlueNote75 Vinyl Re-issue Series. You can pick up your copy right here
Herbie Hancock: Possibilities, the long-awaited memoir by one of the most influential and beloved musicians and composers of our time, is set to be released via Viking on October 23rd.
Co-written with critically-acclaimed author Lisa Dickey, Herbie Hancock: Possibilities reflects on a thriving career that has spanned more than seven decades as a musician, composer, professor, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, father, husband and innovator.
Now in the fifth decade of his professional life, Herbie Hancock remains where he has always been: at the forefront of world culture, technology, business and music. In addition to being recognized as a legendary pianist and composer, Herbie Hancock has been an integral part of every popular music movement since the 1960’s. An enormous influence on both acoustic and electric jazz, R&B and hip-hop, his ongoing exploration of different musical genres has garnered him fourteen Grammy Awards as well as an Academy Award.
From his beginnings as a child prodigy to his work in Miles Davis’s second great quintet; from his innovations as the leader of his own groundbreaking sextet to his collaborations with Wayne Shorter and Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder; Herbie Hancock: Possibilities reveals the method behind Hancock’s undeniable musical genius. Hancock shares his musical influences, colorful behind-the-scenes stories, his long and happy marriage, and how Buddhism inspires him creatively and personally.
Hancock received an Academy Award for his Round Midnight film score and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year for “River: The Joni Letters,” and two 2011 Grammy Awards for the recently released globally collaborative CD, “The Imagine Project.” Many of his compositions, including “Canteloupe Island,” “Maiden Voyage,” “Watermelon Man” and “Chameleon,” are modern standards.
Hancock currently serves as Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and as Institute Chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. He is a founder of The International Committee of Artists for Peace (ICAP), and in 2011 was given the “Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres” by French Prime Minister Francois Fillon. During that same year, Hancock was also named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, and in December of 2013, received a Kennedy Center Honor. In 2014 Hancock was named the 2014 Norton Professor Of Poetry at Harvard University, and recently completed his lectures series, “The Ethics Of Jazz,” as part of the Charles Eliot Norton Lecture Series in February for a period of six weeks.
Honest, enlightening, and as electrifyingly vital as the man who wrote it, Herbie Hancock: Possibilites promises to be an invaluable contribution to literature and a must-read for fans and music lovers.
HerbieHancock.com is pleased to offer fans an incredible educational resource: all 8.5 hours of his legendary Harvard lectures in one place.
“The Ethics Of Jazz” examines topics including “The Wisdom Of Miles Davis,” “Breaking The Rules,” “Cultural Diplomacy And The Voice Of Freedom,” and “Innovation And New Technologies.”
Click a title below to watch each lecture.
Click here to watch Lecture 1: ‘The Wisdom Of Miles Davis’
Click here to watch Lecture 2: ‘Breaking The Rules’
Click here to watch Lecture 3: ‘Cultural Diplomacy And The Voice Of Freedom’
Click here to watch Lecture 4: ‘Innovation and New Technologies’
Click here to watch a video from the 2014 International Jazz Day, in which Dr. J.B. Dyas, VP for Education & Curriculum Development at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, delivers an introduction to the mechanics and positive values of jazz as part of the 2014 International Jazz Day Daytime Educational Program.
Filmed at the Osaka School of Music in Osaka, Japan.
Click here to watch the video ‘Wayne Shorter – Philosophy Of Life Through Jazz’
This discussion features legendary saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter. Organized by UNESCO and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, the 2014 International Jazz Day Daytime Educational Program took place at the Osaka School of Music in Osaka, Japan.
Click here to watch a 2-hour video of the 2014 International Jazz Day All-Star Global Concert held in Osaka, Japan
Blue Note Records has just released a 75th Anniversary vinyl re-issue series that includes “Maiden Voyage.” You can pick up a copy here.
Things will kick off May 16th, with Herbie receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the SFJazz Gala, which will also feature performances by Herbie, the critically acclaimed SFJAZZ Collective, SFJazz’s award-winning SFJAZZ High School All-Stars, and surprise musical guests. Herbie and band will perform May 17th and 18th at Miner Auditorium as part of the formal SFJazz series.
Herbert “Herbie” J. Hancock, the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, discussed how his Buddhist beliefs have fueled his musical creativity in a lecture at Sanders Theatre Monday afternoon.
At the lecture, entitled “Buddhism and Creativity,” Hancock first shared his story of adopting Buddhism and then discussed the relationship between religious worldviews and artistic innovation. The lecture was the penultimate installment of the semester-long, six-part Norton lecture series entitled “The Ethics of Jazz” and presented by the Mahindra Humanities Center.
Hancock said that he was first introduced to Buddhism by Buster Williams, a member of his band, at a gig in Seattle in 1972. Since then, he has been practicing Buddhism, which he says “has affected how I look at everything.” He said he believes that practicing Buddhism has “profoundly transformed and enhanced [his] life, both as a human and as a musician.”
Hancock described the practice of Buddhist principles as a condition of being awakened, and said that the exercise of these beliefs “reveals a major shift in the relationship between yourself and your external environment.”
He added that this new way of life and the Buddhist chants that he has since embraced unleashed a great inspiration for his creativity.
Hancock outlined what he believes are the fundamental characteristics of cultural artistic creativity: inspiration, hard work, challenge, courage, originality and innovation, ability or skill, and imagination. Yet he said that the true definition of creativity transcends words, and for this reason, creativity is like magic.
Hancock then asked the question, “So, well, what motivates creativity?” He continued to list the several main motivators, including fear, pain and suffering, joy, the time clock, stress, anger, desire, humor, and observation.
He argued that everyone has the capability to be a creative artistic individual, especially since everyone is involved in “the art of living.”
He specifically discussed the power of Buddhism to influence creativity, saying that the belief system “modifies our state of being, and expands our creativity.”
Hancock wrapped up the lecture by declaring that even amid difficult circumstances, “a person that lives with imagination, hard work, innovation, along with integrity, wisdom and compassion…can be a profound contributor toward the creation of a harmonious orchestra of life,” even though the “art of living is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most difficult to master.”
Audience members, many of whom had attended Hancock’s previous lectures, said that they enjoyed learning about what has inspired the jazz musician.
Cambridge resident and painter Eve Perkins said that she appreciates that Hancock’s teachings can be translated into other disciplines.
Bradford G. Rose ’14, a drummer and manager for Harvard Jazz Bands, said he attended the lecture because he believes it is “important to learn an artist’s source of inspiration–it adds some color.”
Click here to read the original source article via The Harvard Crimson