Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Herbie Hancock was born Herbert Jeffrey Hancock on April 12, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois.  Illinois. Starting with a classical music education, he was considered a child prodigy, studied from age seven and played the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Chicago Symphony at age eleven.

Through his teens he was influenced by the vocal group Hi-Lo’s, Herbie never had a jazz teacher, developing his ear and sense of harmony. Influenced by Clare Fischer, Bill Evans, Ravel and Gil Evans, his harmonic guru was Chris Anderson with whom he studied. In the Sixties he attended Grinnell College, moved to Chicago, began working with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins, studied at the Manhattan School of Music, quickly gained a reputation and played sessions with Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods.

In 1962 Hancock recorded his first solo album Takin’ Off for Blue Note Records that contained the hit for both Hancock and Mongo Santamaria – Watermelon Man. More importantly it caught the ear of Miles Davis and landed him an introduction by Tony Williams and membership of the second great quintet in 1963. It was during the Davis years that Herbie found his voice and subsequently produced two of the decade’s most influential albums, Empyrean Isles and Maiden Voyage.

He has recorded a catalogue of nearly sixty albums as a leader dozens of sessions as a sideman, working with the likes of Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Grant Green, Bobby Hutcherson, Sam Rivers, Donald Byrd, George Coleman, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard among others. He has been the subject of five films, won an Oscar for “Round Midnight soundtrack, received 14 Grammy Awards, five Playboy Music Polls and was honored as a NEA Jazz Master in 2004 along with a host of other recognitions. He is currently occupies the Creative Chair for Jazz with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Hancock joined the University of California, Los Angeles faculty as a professor in the UCLA music department where he teaches jazz music. He has received a Kennedy Center Honors Award for achievement in the performing arts, won 14 Grammy Awards, 1 Oscar for the Original Soundtrack of ‘Round Midnight and has been honored as an NEA Jazz Master among numerous other accolades.

He is the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. Holders of the chair deliver a series of six lectures on poetry, “The Norton Lectures”, poetry being “interpreted in the broadest sense, including all poetic expression in language, music, or fine arts.” His theme is “The Ethics of Jazz. Pianist Herbie Hancock continues to advance the jazz genre in new directions.

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