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Herbie in Time Magazine's Top 100

ValerieB
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porcy62 Contributor

porcy62

Posted
Posted

you guys almost make me sorry that i started this thread. no one has anything worthwhile to say about this honor?!?

Well...uhu...mmmh...me?

I don't like charts.

Mark Stryker Collaborator

Mark Stryker

Posted
Posted

Any mainstream recognition like this is positive for the music.

Beyond that, I was struck by the byline -- Wayne Shorter and Joni Mitchell (!) I really would have liked to see the unedited prose those two came up with -- I guarantee that it was more in the clouds than the final product, which went through the layers of at least one Time assigning editor and copy editor. There is, for example, this gem that either survived the original drafts or got truncated by an editor: "For a while there, he was really into dotted 16th notes and minor ninths." Um, ok.

Free For All Newbie

Free For All

Posted
Posted

you guys almost make me sorry that i started this thread. no one has anything worthwhile to say about this honor?!?

Yeah Herbie!

Sure, he got edged out by the venerable veteran Miley Cyrus, but he opened a big ol' can o' whupass on the Coen Bros., Mariah Carey, George Clooney and Bruce MF Springsteen!

Rockit! :party:

JSngry Grand Master

JSngry

Posted
Posted

...this gem that either survived the original drafts or got truncated by an editor: "For a while there, he was really into dotted 16th notes and minor ninths." Um, ok.

My sentiments exactly. :g

ValerieB Newbie

ValerieB

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Any mainstream recognition like this is positive for the music.

Beyond that, I was struck by the byline -- Wayne Shorter and Joni Mitchell (!) I really would have liked to see the unedited prose those two came up with -- I guarantee that it was more in the clouds than the final product, which went through the layers of at least one Time assigning editor and copy editor. There is, for example, this gem that either survived the original drafts or got truncated by an editor: "For a while there, he was really into dotted 16th notes and minor ninths." Um, ok.

i also thought about that and smiled to myself! :rolleyes:

ValerieB Newbie

ValerieB

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Nice for Herbie, maybe good for the music, very good for his publicist. Don't know it will mean anything for anybody in the future.

Thanks for posting this anyway.

he doesn't usually have a publicist - maybe does though since the Grammy nomination and win.

Christiern Newbie

Christiern

Posted
Posted

The Mitchell-Shorter piece is as shallow as anything we might see from a publicist. Hey, it may well have been written by one of those people.

I had to smile when I read this "And he doesn't really have a need to be understood. So when jazz pianists objected to his moving toward pop, he deflected them easily because he's just so warm."

Years ago, in Rock It's red glare, I asked why he diluted his music, Herbie told me that he had noticed people leaving the club "confused." They didn't understand his music, so he decided to make it simpler and more readily acceptable.

That said, and lest the above be misconstrued as criticism of him, I like Herbie, both as a person, a fellow Mac-nut, and a musician.

Mark Stryker Collaborator

Mark Stryker

Posted
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Deserves accolades, yes, but one of the 100 must influential people? What were they thinking?

Well, they weren't thinking; they were reacting to Herbie's Grammy win, which got tons of attention and suddenly thrust him back into the the center of popular culture, at least for 15 minutes. Collectively, the folks who put together a list like this don't really know anything about music, art, theater, literature, etc., so it becomes a barometer of which creative people have managed to sneak onto the radar of the mainstream, and it becomes an outlet for the list makers to prove how "hip" they are. Except they're not.

But that's why I think this kind of stuff (Herbie's Grammy win; Time magazine, etc.) is good for jazz; it gets the music into the discussion. Not that any single moment will change the world. In the end, it may well end up being meaningless, but if enough little moments can coalesce, it might make a difference. Maybe. Reminds me of the marketing strategy that says any single radio ad, billboard, TV commercial, newspaper ad or whatever is unlikely to move somebody into the "buy" column. But the aggregate has an effect on people. Suddenly, the product "clicks" with consumers and lodges in their mind -- it's the 10th contact that does it, not the first. That's another reflection of the shame of jazz disappearing from TV, radio, general interest magazines, newspapers, etc. Out of sight, out of mind.

Another interesting thing about the list by the way, is that Wynton Marsalis is not on it (unless I missed him). Ten years ago, if a jazz musician would have made the list, it would have been him.

Edited by Mark Stryker
Big Al Collaborator

Big Al

Posted
Posted

Deserves accolades, yes, but one of the 100 must influential people? What were they thinking?

Well, they weren't thinking; they were reacting to Herbie's Grammy win, which got tons of attention and suddenly thrust him back into the the center of popular culture, at least for 15 minutes. Collectively, the folks who put together a list like this don't really know anything about music, art, theater, literature, etc., so it becomes a barometer of which creative people have managed to sneak onto the radar of the mainstream, and it becomes an outlet for the list makers to prove how "hip" they are. Except they're not.

But that's why I think this kind of stuff (Herbie's Grammy win; Time magazine, etc.) is good for jazz; it gets the music into the discussion. Not that any single moment will change the world. In the end, it may well end up being meaningless, but if enough little moments can coalesce, it might make a difference. Maybe. Reminds me of the marketing strategy that says any single radio ad, billboard, TV commercial, newspaper ad or whatever is unlikely to move somebody into the "buy" column. But the aggregate has an effect on people. Suddenly, the product "clicks" with consumers and lodges in their mind -- it's the 10th contact that does it, not the first. That's another reflection of the shame of jazz disappearing from TV, radio, general interest magazines, newspapers, etc. Out of sight, out of mind.

Another interesting thing about the list by the way, is that Wynton Marsalis is not on it (unless I missed him). Ten years ago, if a jazz musician would have made the list, it would have been him.

I completely agree.

Big Al Collaborator

Big Al

Posted
Posted

Years ago, in Rock It's red glare, I asked why he diluted his music, Herbie told me that he had noticed people leaving the club "confused." They didn't understand his music, so he decided to make it simpler and more readily acceptable.

Wasn't "Rockit" immediately following his "Feets Don't Fail Me Now" phase? No wonder they were walking out: they thought they'd accidentally walked into a disco! ;)

I give Herbie Hancock a lot of slack, though: few musicians' music moves me the way Hancock's does, and AFAIC if the only thing he'd done was Maiden Voyage, that would be enough for me to consider him legendary.

  • 2 weeks later...
clifford_thornton Mentor

clifford_thornton

Posted
Posted (edited)

I don't really know what to say - he did some great music at one point, but that point is long past. I also don't see him as hugely influential as some of his pianist peers who didn't veer so hard into the mainstream (Tyner, Evans).

I mean, people like Cecil, Braxton, Ornette, Coltrane, Miles, Bird, and of course those whose influence people are still wrapping their brains around (Bill Dixon, George Russell) - those are 100-listers. But not in Time. Nothing ever was, anyway...

Edited by clifford_thornton

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