Herbie Hancock

Photo: John Mathew Smith (1999)

Herbie Hancock playlist

Contributor: Rob Jones

For many Gen-Xers in the suburbs, it began in 1983 with that video. We gaped at robotic images of bisected and dissected mannequins jigging and gyrating across the screen seemingly on their own technomantic power; forwards, backwards, inhuman, and yet strangely, undeniably compelling. And the music! New York-style electro of a kind we’d certainly heard before but had never sounded so alien and yet so melodic at the same time. Blipping and bopping keyboards, scratching, up-front and in-your-face beats, and a human voice through something called a vocoder seemed to have been beamed from some alternate reality.

The video was a subject of schoolground chatter. But no one talked about Blue Note, or Miles Davis, or jazz piano. To a generation of music fans, the depth of Herbie Hancock’s talent and pedigree as a legendary and boundary-pushing musician became evident only later as our tastes matured and expanded. In the meantime, he would continue exploring a wide musical spectrum while always focusing on the fundamentals of what makes any kind of music resonate for listeners. With that in mind, here are ten great cuts from Herbie Hancock to prove the point.

A jazz standard by now, Hancock found inspiration for Watermelon Man from his own youth growing up in Chicago. The watermelon man was a neighbourhood figure who symbolised reward and comfort to the young musician. The affection is evident in this bright and (very importantly) hook-laden melody. Even in the post-bop jazz milieu that thrived on complexity, this tune is very easy to whistle to oneself as much as it still inspires jazz players to stretch out on intricate solos.

Cantaloupe Island bears that same emphasis on melody and on a bright and affectionate vibe. By the early 1990s, this cut was the central sample on US3’s acid-jazz cut Cantaloop, sounding as life-affirming as ever in that new musical light. Meanwhile the 1964 original featuring Freddie Hubbard on cornet has its roots in soul-jazz and in a space that blurred the lines between ‘serious’ jazz and playful R&B, proving that these seemingly disparate streams flow from the same vital source.

As deft a soloist as he is, some of Hancock’s most compelling piano figures emphasise rhythm and groove instead of complex improvisation. Maiden Voyage is one of his most high-profile examples. Here, trumpet (Hubbard) and tenor saxophone (George Coleman) are the central storytellers while Hancock’s stuttering, propulsive rhythm interlocked with bass and drums suggest the allure and pull of the sea itself. This musical subtext communicates both serenity and unpredictability as the horns tell their oceanic tales.

Hancock expanded his reach into the world of television and movie soundtracks, including Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up and later Michael Winner’s Death Wish and Bertrand Tavernier’s Round Midnight. But before the 1960s ended, he employed his compositional and arrangement chops toward an animated feature starring Bill Cosby’s beloved Fat Albert. Tell Me A Bedtime Story provides a musical theme to capture the spirit of that character, infused with an affable, affectionate, and wistful tone to reflect a well-remembered and cherished childhood.

By 1973, and still approaching genres as a spectrum rather than in strict categories, Herbie Hancock applied his artistic curiosity to a new arena; jazz funk. True to that tradition, Chameleon is all about the song’s hook and throughline; that central bass riff. Melding Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder, and James Brown with his own long-established rhythm and groove-centric approach, Hancock and his Headhunters blur the lines between melody and rhythm, jazz and funk, until those distinctions become entirely irrelevant.

Herbie Hancock spent the 1970s exploring that same spectrum across multiple releases from electro funk to acoustic trio-based jazz. By the time Rockit came out with its era-defining video alluded to earlier, he’d found a new audience. This was due to his continuing interest in Black culture and how it’s translated and expressed through pop music. In the world of electro and early hip-hop, this cut is still all about rhythm and hooks, elements that fascinated him since he started.

Just before world music became a recognised part of Western mainstream vocabulary, Hancock’s musical curiosity expanded in kind. Inclusive of African drumming that would inform many of his recordings in the 1980s and into the next decade, Karabali sounds like a spiritual exhortation. It relies on an interplay of percussion, intoned vocals, his own jazz piano, and long-time bandmate Wayne Shorter’s keening soprano saxophone. True to form, these disparate elements are proven to be cut from the same musical cloth.

Like many jazz musicians, Hancock played the standards. But by the 1990s, it was time to explore some new ones. This included Peter Gabriel’s ruminative and moody Mercy Street. Hancock places it in a brighter mood, adorning it with unexpected instrumentation. In absence of a drum kit, the tabla holds down the insistent rhythm with Michael Brecker’s soprano saxophone as a second voice to Hancock’s piano. This is a collage of melodic exploration that conveys, preserves, and reimagines the original.

Joni Mitchell’s music and artistic voice had been a part of Hancock’s own past as her collaborator on 1979’s Mingus. Here, he refashions her Edith And The Kingpin to great effect. And as if to further prove that rock, jazz, soul, R&B and other forms are all of a whole, the star of this song is none other than Tina Turner who distinguishes herself as a versatile jazz interpreter, capable of as much subtlety as she is power and gravitas.

Continuing his exploration of musical possibilities with the input of musicians from startlingly disparate backgrounds and genres, The Song Goes On features Chaka Khan, Anoushka Shankar, and stalwart friend and collaborator Wayne Shorter. As such, those artists bring their signature sounds into a musical melange that defies strict genres. Hancock is at the piano but also serves the primary role as an instigator at the center of the musical maelstrom, empowering his guests to lean into its pull.

Allied to Miles Davis’s propensity to push boundaries in the 1960s when jazz was in danger of being eclipsed by the innovations of other musical forms, Herbie Hancock went in another direction to his mentor’s darker path. Instead of defiance and tumult, Hancock embraced a kind of childlike curiosity and sense of playfulness instead. In the video for his hit song in 1983, that was what was on display, and what so many Gen-X kids responded to; a playful spirit matched with the undeniably rhythmic, funky, and downright fun.

Those results were the fruit of a longer journey than many of us suspected by then. Hancock had always been interested in rhythm and feel and that sense of fun, whether it was in jazz or otherwise. His artistic open-mindedness matched with supreme skills as a pianist, composer, arranger, and technician distinguishes him as a singular musician. Throughout his career and up until today, he pushed boundaries in his music by showing that they are and have always been largely illusory anyway.

Herbie Hancock’s 41 studio albums here

Herbie Hancock official website

Herbie Hancock’s official YouTube channel

Herbie Hancock on Elvis Costello’s Spectacle

Herbie Hancock MOJO magazine interview (2010)

Making of the Rockit video

Herbie Hancock autobiography “Possibilities”

Herbie Hancock plays Chameleon (article by Rob Jones)

Herbie Hancock biography (AllMusic)

Rob Jones is a music writer and blogger born in Toronto. After living in London, England for a time, he now lives in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia with his partner and their many houseplants. As a child, he followed the familiar path of falling in love with The Beatles and with AM radio hits in the 1970s and into the 1980s. He came into his own as a music fan during the new wave era, then embracing all manner of music into adulthood from 1930s country blues to Big Beat techno, while always feeling at home with indie-rock and singer-songwriter folk as his sonic homebase. He is the primary author and Editor-in-Chief of the music blog The Delete Bin. He has previously written about Martha and the Muffins, Ron Sexsmith, Joe Jackson and World Party, Thomas Dolby on Toppermost.

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