Essential Herbie Hancock

Read About This Recording

With Herbie Hancock's recent surprise Grammy® victory for River: The Joni Letters, winning the award for the year's best album, it serves as a good excuse to look back at the pianist/keyboardist's remarkable career. The enjoyable task is made simple by the release of the two-CD The Essential Herbie Hancock, which includes many of the musical highpoints of his productive life.

Born in Chicago in 1940, Hancock began on the piano when he was seven. After extensive classical training, he had his first important job in jazz when he joined the Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet in 1961. Within a year, he was signed to Blue Note and had debuted his hit Watermelon Man. A member of the Miles Davis Quintet during 1963-69, Hancock developed highly individual styles on both piano and electric keyboards. Since that time, he has consistently displayed the ability and willingness to play in nearly any modern style while still retaining his own strong musical personality.

The Essential Herbie Hancock covers every important period in Hancock's career. It begins with Watermelon Man, features Hancock with Sonny Rollins on 'Round Midnight, has the original versions of his Cantaloupe Island and Maiden Voyage and finds him playing Circle with the Davis Quintet and The Sorceror with an all-star group that includes flugelhornist Thad Jones.

During 1969-72, Hancock led an intriguing and versatile sextet that is remembered here by two numbers. He formed the Headhunters in 1973, a pacesetting funky jazz group that is represented on this twofer by several performances including their hit Chameleon. In 1979 Hancock led the all-star acoustic band V.S.O.P. (which includes trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and tenor-saxophonist Wayne Shorter) with Finger Painting heard from that short-lived group. Also included on this overview are performances featuring Hancock in a trio (Milestones), with electric bass innovator Jaco Pastorius, and on his funk hit Rockit, a version of St. Louis Blues with Stevie Wonder and a closing piano solo on Manhattan.

Covering 1962-2000, The Essential Herbie Hancock is a definitive overview of the keyboardist's work during that era and shows why he is considered one of the most important jazz musicians of the past half-century.

-Scott Yanow

Extended Article

Now in his fifth decade of playing in the musical big leagues, Herbie Hancock (b.1940) has more than mastered every musical challenge set before him. Since the early 1960s, when he began a five-year association with the trumpeter/leader Miles Davis' second great quintet, the keyboardist/composer/producer has placed his unique stamp on everything he's touched: from post-bop to free-bop to free jazz; standards to modal tunes; and rock to funk to hip-hop. He's had hit singles, like 1983's hip-hop jam Rockit (included in this collection) and has composed the original soundtracks for such box-office successes as 1967's Blow-up and 1974's Death Wish.

But even if he had not racked up the aforementioned credits, Hancock would be acknowledged as a major figure of the grand piano. Quite simply, he is the most widely imitated, globally honored and commercially successful creator of true jazz since Bill Evans, whose pellucid sound and approach to rendering a ballad were important influences. But Hancock's sound is slightly more crystalline than Evans', and at up-tempos, his solos seem borne by a bracing breeze. Hancock could have forged a highly impressive career had he been content to concentrate solely on acoustic improvisation. But, like his mentor Miles Davis, he had farther-ranging ideas and a universe of tonalities, harmonies and rhythms in his head.

The Essential Herbie Hancock, drawing on his work for seven different labels, is the finest and most panoramic mini-retrospective ever assembled on his consummate artist. All of those sonorities, chord voicings and rhythmic directions are in evidence over the course of the 20 tracks in this two-disc package. Spanning the early 1960s to the late 1990s, Hancock is captured as sideman (with no less than Davis and the brilliant tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins) and leader, on grand piano or a battery of keyboards. Virtually every crucial item in his glittering discography as a bandleader - from the original Watermelon Man and Maiden Voyage to Chameleon and Rockit - is here, with a supporting cast that numbers Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Stevie Wonder and, of course, the eternally astounding bass/drums team of Ron Carter and Tony Williams.

Herbie Hancock is one of the select few improvising artists whose accomplishments surpass his ambitions. The Essential Herbie Hancock is the perfect introduction to his relentlessly multi-faceted major figure.

Contents

Watermelon Man; 'Round Midnight; Cantaloupe Island; Maiden Voyage; Circle; The Sorcerer; Tell Me a Bedtime Story; Hidden Shadows; Chameleon; Joanna's Theme; Butterfly; People Music; Milestones; 4 A.M.; Come Running to Me; Finger Painting; Stars in Your Eyes; Rockit; St. Louis Blues; Manhattan.

Herbie Hancock, Piano; Miles Davis, Eddie Henderson, Trumpets; Freddie Hubbard, Trumpet/Cornet; Thad Jones, Johnny Coles, Flugelhorns; Garnett Brown, Trombone; Peter Phillips, Bass Trombone; Julian Priester, Alto Trombone; Jerry Dodgion, Alto Flute; Joe Henderson, Flute/Tenor Sax; Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, George Coleman, Wayne Shorter, Tenor Saxes; Bennie Maupin, Soprano Sax/Saxello/Bass Clarinet/Alto Flute; Wah Wah Watson, Guitar; Butch Warren, Ron Carter, Buster Williams, Paul Jackson, Jaco Pastorius, Freddie Washington, Bill Laswell, Alex Al, Basses; Billy Higgins, Roy McCurdy, Tony Williams, Mickey Roker, Albert Tootie Heath, Mike Clarke, Harvey Mason, James Levi, Terri Lyne Carrington, Drums; Alphonse Mouzon, Drums/Keyboards; Billy Hart, Bill Summers, Sheila Escovedo, Percussion; Baba Duru, Tablas; Raul Rekow, Conga; Greg Walker, Vocals; Stevie Wonder, Vocals/Harmonica; Grand Mixer D.S.T., Turntables; Daniel Ponce, Bata.

CD Special Features

The most comprehensive and panoramic career overview ever!

21 tracks - 5 record labels - spans 40 years!

The most definitive Herbie Hancock retrospective ever released.

Every facet is here:

Early Blue Note classics; the Miles Davis Quintet; Mwandishi; The Headhunters; Death Wish and 'Round Midnight soundtracks; MTV hit, Rockit; and his recent Grammy