Herbie Hancock

Alucard wrote: Herbie Hancock is one of the most important modern Jazz pianists   his first"electric" period :   1969 : Fat Albert Rotunda 1970 : Mwandishi 1971 : Crossings  1972 : Sextant   important for their mixture of free form improvisatioins and modern contemporary music, use of electronic instruments (Stockhausen , Schaeffer etc)   second period 1971-1976 with the Headhunters   same as for Miles big influence of Sly Stone,intelligent progressive  Funk Fusion (as for Miles second electric period, steady bass line, basic rhythmic and free form soloing etc.     1971 : Crossings  1972 : Sextant  1973 : Head Hunters 1974 : Thrust 1975 : Love Me By Name 1975 : Man-Child  1975 : Flood, Live in Japan 1976 : Secrets

You missed a couple other jazz-rock albums

1977 (or 78?) : Sunlight (though only half this album is good IMO, mostly the stuff with Tony Williams and Jaco Pastorius)

1980 - Mr. Hands (highly recommended later fusion-era HH album)

1994 - Dis Is Da Drum (more modernized and little more electronic, but this is still jazz-rock/fusion!)

everything else he did after the late 70s was more or less electronic music, with some jazz-rock elements throughout. Or jazz, which Hancock has never stopped playing.


Edited by darkshade - August 21 2008 at 21:01

oh no doubt those albums are jazz-rock. Mwandishi, Crossings and Sextant are some of the most interesting, spacey music i know. and the first few Headhunters albums are serious progressive funk/jazz-rock. What other funk band do you know playing funk in all those different rhythms and time changes? And the first 3 Headhunters albums are in no way dated whatsoever,  same with the Mwandishi-era albums.

I listened to Mwandishi yesterday and I forgot how serious the music is from this era. The opening track Ostinato with it's 15/4 (i think) time signature for the main groove, and the e-piano and bass clarinet give this piece real atmosphere. This is jazz-rock/fusion by every definition, and prog by every definitition.

Logan wrote: Mwandishi must be one of my next purchases.  Not that relevant to discussion, but I really love his early years jazz period.  Not that keen on the direction he took in the 80s from what I know.

me neither. I have the song 'rockit' cause it is a cool song, but i dont have that album, or any of his 80s albums, minus a couple of jazz albums. his 90s stuff is cool, there's a few gems in there. lately, he's been playing a lot of jazz, and revisiting his Headhunters days live. I havent heard the Joni Letters yet, so i dont know how that is. Hancock has always been about quality, even his 80s stuff is quality music, just not what im looking for right now.

gave some fresh listens  to HH the last couple of days...listening to Man-child as I type actually   couldn't agree more with his addition

Cheers Martin...  your post was dead on. If you need any help with adding.. let me know.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: darkshade wrote: I'm surprised there hasnt been more support on this site..    Could it be because this is Prog Archives and not Jazz Archives.   Iván

the main point of this site is to be the most complete archives. I've just felt in the last couple of years that the jazz-rock section was not complete, because of certain key artists missing (Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock) and only recently have I been trying to fix that. I'm not trying to add every jazz artists who dabbled in jazz-rock, I think those 2 were the only missing links for a complete jazz-rock/fusion section on this site.

darkshade wrote: Man-Child is fantastic. Im trying to find my copy of Flood (one of the best live albums ever made!) but I may give up and just put it on on my iPod Logan wrote: darkshade wrote: Logan wrote: Mwandishi must be one of my next purchases.  Not that relevant to discussion, but I really love his early years jazz period.  Not that keen on the direction he took in the 80s from what I know. me neither. I have the song 'rockit' cause it is a cool song, but i dont have that album, or any of his 80s albums, minus a couple of jazz albums. his 90s stuff is cool, there's a few gems in there. lately, he's been playing a lot of jazz, and revisiting his Headhunters days live. I havent heard the Joni Letters yet, so i dont know how that is. Hancock has always been about quality, even his 80s stuff is quality music, just not what im looking for right now. I still don't know his 90's period beyond certain, but what I've heard is definitely good.  Incidentally, though I do think Hancock suitable for the jazz-rock fusion category due to the qualities of his music, if he weren't of that quality, I wouldn't care.  Going go back about a comment made about lack of interest because this is progarchives, not jazzarchives, Hancock's addition as a jazz-rock fusion artist would be a further step for this being qualityarchives.  I hope he's included soon -- like Davis, he's been "on the table" for a long time. i personally feel he belongs here for many reasons i stated before. I know this is not 'jazz archives' or 'quality achives' but Hancock's addition is a must in order to have a complete jazz-rock/fusion section. I feel Hancock has all the prog qualities you need to be on this site. There are many moments of 'proggines' in his music, especially from 1968 to about 1979 or 1980. And his music always went somewhere, they weren't just long jams and "epic jazz odysseys", there was reprises of the themes, melodies, harmonies, complex time signatures, complex rhythms, even long suite's. And there are many synth sounds, and progressive ways of using keyboards that no one else had done before. If I were talking about a nobody prog band from east Europe and used this same description, there'd be no problem adding them.

You know him better than I, something I plan to remedy, but yes, absolutely.  For his progressive jazz-rock/ fusion he should be on the site.  I have long wanted him here -- even if he wasn't of the same quality, it would still be a worthy addition.  That qualityarchives started in my head as a little joke (a term I've used before as a little Prog put-down).  Had wanted to do this to Ivan's post as a tongue-in-cheek correction (due to certain implications):

Could it be because this is Prog Archives and not Jazz Quality Archives.

 I think Hancock is on a much higher level than most artists in the archives (and I tend to put jazz on a higher pedestal than Prog generally-speaking even though I love Progressive Rock, and of course I put Prog on a much higher pedestal than rock generally).  Aside from him being suitable for the site, which he is, I like the idea of having these great progressive artists here (it raises the bar in a way even if there are distinct camps in PA).

And regarding Micky's post: I want Coltrane in, and he's not even rock (I desire a progressive non-rock category).

Micky wrote: and yes.. this is prog archives..  the home of prog....  forget about the bullsh*t with prog 'rock' that barn door was ripped off the hinges long ago. Prog includes jazz, metal, pop, folk, and electronic.  Pointless to even really argue about. It ain't ever going back.. who would want it to...  exploration.. discovery.. that is the name of the game brothers...

You should have been a preacher, Micky.   In this case, I expect you're mostly preaching to the converted.


Edited by Logan - August 22 2008 at 18:49

^ makes sense to me.

^ it's up to the JR/F Team, who happen to be one of the most - if not the most - qualified teams on the site.. I think the decision is in good hands

Well if you're going to add Herbie (and basically I have only minor objections to that), better get someone on the Keith Jarrett shift.