Herbie Hancock

Jazz was once popular music, but as far as the jazz community of today is concerned, the less said about that, the better. For many fans and critics, jazz that is dissonant, demanding, and rhythmically complex is to be cheered, while jazz that is funky and direct is to be scorned. As such, the jazz community remains baffled and bemused by Herbie Hancock, a gifted composer and keyboardist who successfully plays both sides of the street.

Most jazz fans think of him as having started as the pianist in Miles Davis' classic mid-to late-'60s quintet, where his playing bridged the gap between the cool intellectuality of Bill Evans and the edgy abstractions of McCoy Tyner. But actually, Hancock's first big splash was in the pop end of jazz, having composed the Mongo Santamaria hit "Watermelon Man" (which went to #10 in 1963). His own take on the tune, recorded that same year and included on Takin' Off, is more hard bop than Latin pop, and uses its supple groove to fuel the improvisatory musings of Freddie Hubbard and Dexter Gordon. Hancock radically reinvented the tune 11 years later with his first dip into electro-funk, Headhunters. But there "Watermelon Man" played second fiddle to "Chameleon," the only single to put him within spitting distance of Billboard's Top 40 (it peaked at 42).

But let's get back to the '60s. Where his debut found him playing the sort of funky jazz Horace Silver was known for (though even Silver rarely got so soulful), My Point of View finds Hancock moving toward a more abstracted, Davis-oriented sound -- although "Blind Man, Blind Man," featuring guitarist Grant Green, does seem to proceed from that "Water-melon Man" groove. His subsequent sessions for Blue Note reflect a steady move away from pop-jazz. That doesn't mean they aren't tuneful; the dreamy title track from Maiden Voyage, for instance, quickly became a jazz standard. But Inventions and Dimensions (which was briefly available under the title Succotash) proffers loosely structured experiments with Latin rhythms; Empyrean Isles and Maiden Voyage are Davis-influenced small-group sessions with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet; Speak Like a Child and The Prisoner use slightly larger ensembles to extend the coloristic possibilities of his music. The casually curious may want to settle for Blue Note's The Best of Herbie Hancock, which highlights the best of these recordings, while completists should seek The Complete Blue Note Sixties Sessions, which includes everything from Hancock's solo albums as well as some notable sessions he cut as a sideman.

Fat Albert Rotunda was Hancock's first album after leaving Blue Note in 1969, but it's more of an aside than an indication of where he was headed. Consisting of material he wrote and recorded for Bill Cosby's Fat Albert cartoon series, its funky, R&B-oriented material is actually more of a piece with Hancock's Blow-Up score (best known for "Bring Down the Birds," which Deee-Lite sampled for "Groove Is in the Heart") than with his regular jazz output. "Li'l Brother," in fact, seems a continuation of an earlier attempt at instrumental R&B called "Don't Go There" (included on the Complete Blue Note set).

Mwandishi, Hancock's first proper album for Warner Bros., was a radical move away from the sound of his Blue Note recordings, recalling the rock-influenced sound of Davis' Bitches Brew sessions but augmenting it with the Gil Evans-ish horn voicings heard on The Prisoner. Mwandishi is dark and dreamy, with its rolling rhythms and swirling electronics, while the sonic tapestry of Crossings conveys an almost otherworldly sense of atmosphere, particularly on the haunting, synth-colored "Quasar." But Sextant is the standout, thanks to its richly detailed sound and intricate interplay.

Hancock changed direction again with Headhunters, dumping two horn players and devoting more energy to synths than to electric piano. But it was the pop credibility he earned through the success of "Chameleon" that truly altered the course of his career. The music on Headhunters isn't R&B per se, but Hancock was getting there, and his output became funkier and funkier. Thrust plays down the more abstract elements that rounded out Headhunters, emphasizing the music's pulse, while Man-Child added R&B guitarists to the mix, bringing depth to the groove without compromising the improvised content. (These are the albums emphasized in Columbia's The Best of Herbie Hancock.)

Yet despite his pop success (Headhunters, Thrust, and Man-Child all cracked the Top 40 of the Billboard album chart), Hancock hadn't given up on jazz. The import-only live album Flood shows how easily Hancock's mid-'70s band could move from straight jazz to groove-heavy funk without compromising its sound or identity. Secrets went for a similar balance in the studio, and even included an imaginative up-date of "Cantaloupe Island." V.S.O.P., a 1976 concert recording, presents three sides of Hancock -- his then-current funk band, the reunited Mwandishi group, and an acoustic quintet featuring his old Davis bandmates Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams (Hubbard did the honors on trumpet). Of the three, it was the acoustic group that thrilled jazz fans most, and so they were reconvened for an album of their own: V.S.O.P. -- The Quintet. Although it has much the same sound as the Davis quintet's classic recordings, it lacks the fire and daring of the Davis albums. (Far more persuasive is the import-only Herbie Hancock Trio, which finds Hancock, Carter, and Williams pushing limits with abandon.)

Neoconservatism has always sold well with jazz fans, however, and so Hancock regularly released Davis-schooled live albums with all-acoustic bands. Quartet features a young and brash Wynton Marsalis; A Tribute to Miles Davis uses shameless Davis-clone Wallace Roney. Fortunately, not all of Hancock's "traditional" recordings mine that vein or are as predictable. 1+1, an album of duets with Shorter, is quiet, touching, and wonderfully lyrical -- a staggering performance by both. The New Standard, meanwhile, inverts the pop formula by offering straight-ahead jazz treatments of such tunes as Peter Gabriel's "Mercy Street" and Nirvana's "All Apologies."

By that point in the '90s, it seemed as if Hancock had put his funk days behind him. Although his '70s electronic albums after Man-Child – Secrets; Feets, Don't Fail Me Now; Monster; Lite Me Up; and Magic Windows -- aspired to mainstream R&B, Hancock lacked both the aesthetic insight and commercial touch of Quincy Jones. In a word, the albums stank. Mercifully, hip-hop and high technology saved the day.

With Future Shock, Hancock uses drum machines, digital synths, and DJ Grandmixer D.ST to conjure the sound of the urban jungle, an approach that turned "Rockit" into a club hit (and earned Hancock airtime on MTV). Sound System adds a world-beat flavor to the mix, thanks to Hancock's use of Gambian griot Foday Musa Suso (with whom he later recorded the wonderfully exotic Village Life and a somewhat more predictable live album, Jazz Africa), while Perfect Machine recruits P-Funk bassist Bootsy Collins and Ohio Player LeRoy "Sugarfoot" Bonner. The ambitious Dis Is da Drum found Hancock once again flirting with R&B, but the music was too cerebral to successfully engage the booty. Maybe that's why Future 2 Future, despite its use of vocals and flirtation with drum and bass rhythms, chose to offload its overt "pop" content in separately sold remixes; overall, the album has more in common with Sextant than Headhunters.

In addition to his solo career, Hancock has also been doing soundtrack work since 1966, when he scored Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up. Although his contributions can be heard in films ranging from Death Wish to House Party 2, he's probably best known for the elegiac Round Midnight, a score as jazz-soaked and moody as the film itself. (J.D. CONSIDINE)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide