Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock (b. April 12th, 1940)
a.k.a. Herbert Jeffrey Hancock

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HERBIE'S NEW DIRECTION
With Brecker and Hargrove, Herbie Hancock Salutes Miles and Trane
A meeting of jazz's heaviest hitters, Directions in Music finds Herbie Hancock connecting with saxophonist Michael Brecker and trumpeter Roy Hargrove, anchored by the rhythm section of bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade. It only makes sense that this super session should pay tribute to Miles Davis and John Coltrane, arguably the two most influential jazz musicians of the past half century, both of whom would have celebrated 75th birthdays in 2001. On their debut album, Live at Massey Hall Directions in Music reinterpret Davis and Coltrane classics including "Naima," "Transition," and "So What" while also bringing in original tunes that acknowledge the work of the two masters. Hancock, of course, has an intimate understanding of Davis's music, having played with Miles's quintet from 1963 to 1968. The brilliant pianist and composer recently shared memories of Davis and Coltrane with Ted Panken.

Barnes & Noble.com: One thing that jumps out about the new album is that there are a number of tunes associated with John Coltrane that I can't recall your having recorded before.

Herbie Hancock: Right, I hadn't. The approach to this project was a special one to begin with. The reason for celebrating Miles's and Trane's birthdays to begin with was that they themselves had found creative, innovative ways of treating the music that they dealt with, whether it was their own compositions, or whether they were standards, or whether they were compositions written by other people. They always figured out new approaches to the music. For example, "My Favorite Things" that Coltrane did, was a unique arrangement that fit the character of his band. It was not the "My Favorite Things" that everybody knew. I remember when that came out, I hadn't heard his version, but I heard that John Coltrane had recorded "My Favorite Things" and I thought, "My Favorite Things"? Trane? How is that possible? Then I heard it and went, Oh, I see. Because he really made it his own. We felt that in order to really honor these guys, we should follow their lead and create our own approach to the pieces that were associated with their names.

B&N.com: Back in the '60s, when Coltrane was making this music and you were working with Miles Davis and in other situations, were you paying a lot of attention to his records and what he was doing?

HH: To Trane? Absolutely! To all of their stuff. And McCoy Tyner was a big influence on me. Whenever I got a chance to hear Trane's band, I would go to see them.

B&N.com: Did you ever happen to sit in with them?

HH: No. Well, [Miles' quintet drummer] Tony [Williams]did once. One time Elvin [Jones] couldn't play a gig at Birdland for a week, and so Tony played instead of Elvin.

B&N.com: Did you hear that?

HH: I didn't get a chance to hear that, and I don't remember why. But I remember Tony telling me that after the first night he couldn't even move his arms, they were so tired! [laughs] Because he wanted to play with the kind of power that Elvin played with; his own style, but with that kind of power. So he really worked hard at trying to do that. [laughs] Let me add this. One time when Miles's band was playing at the Village Vanguard in New York, Trane came by. I didn't actually see him, because he was sitting in a part of the room where with the lights on the stage you couldn't see who was there. But Miles told us afterwards that Trane had showed up and heard us, and we were excited. Then Miles said what we hoped he would say, that Trane said he was going to come and sit in with us the next night. Tony was like my buddy, see. So he and I were really jumping up and down with the hope that Trane would show up. So I went back to my apartment and practiced all my kind of McCoy Tyner licks and things! And the next night, actually Trane...he never did show up; he never did sit in with the band. I was always curious as to what that would have been.

--June 2002

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