Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancockis an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer and actor. Starting his career with Donald Byrd, he shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet where Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace synthesizers and funk music. Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had many songs "cross over" and achieved success...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPianist
Date of Birth12 April 1940
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
Recently I've been listening to Mahler; it's beautiful stuff. I just saw a performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony on television, and it was awesome. The music was so gorgeous I wasn't just crying tears, I was sobbing.
There are some other things I'm looking for in the future. I'm getting ready to put together something, to open up a new avenue for myself, having to do with a symphony orchestra.
Fact is that I played piano and performed, as a young kid, a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra . Don't forget I was only eleven-years-old and to be on the stage at that age had tremendous impact on me. Basically love for classical music and performing as a kid on the big stage probably led toward this decision, which meant that music is going to be my big love but also my profession.
I was a jazz purist at the time, I had tunnel vision about jazz and classical music,
I think a lot of young people being brought up in this scene feel a sense of ruthlessness. There's nothing to plant them deeply down in the soil somehow so they can bend and sway from there.
It gets boring when you look out at the audience and you see that 90 percent of the people out there are males.
Jazz is a music that translates the moment into a sense of inspiration for not only the musicians but for the listeners.
I said, 'If Miles is so open, it must be cool to be open to all this other stuff.'
People are afraid to spend money now because they don't know how long they're going to be working.
We're dealing with jazz, so we don't have pop/mainstream budgets.
Well, I was becoming more of a jazz snob, in thinking that jazz was a higher kind of music, and that R&B was, yes, for the body and more commercial.
Over the years I've made decisions about things, especially music, and have been scoffed at and ridiculed and opposed, but I knew I had to do these things.
Pieces don't have to have the same tempo from beginning to end.
I think I heard the name Muddy Waters first, then John Lee Hooker.