Herbie Hancock Memoir

[JSngry]

Reasons why tuna salad should be refrigerated overnight? Things you find in rejected fortune cookies? Parts of a car? What your boss says when you're getting a promotion?........PASS!

[Larry Kart]

Line from an old Second City parody of "Family Feud" -- one member of a family that has lost turns on another family member (the one who was the inept final contestant) and screams: "'Blue' is not a fruit!"

[JSngry]

Second City/SCTV ruled. (still do?)

Biggest regret I have is getting rid of a mid-60s compilation of their early stuff, a Mercury album called Second City Writhes Again. It was on that album where the snooty museum guide responds to the rather confident visitor's assertion that they didn't like a certain piece (after hearing the guide's oh-so pointy "explanation" of the piece's meaning) with a hearty, "well...YOU'RE WRONG." Every time I tell straight-up tell somebody they're wrong in a discussion of things artistic, I always have that bit in mind, and I always have to suppress a literal LOL when I say it.

Maybe it's time to start trawling eBay for some old Second City Mercury albums...did some research once and there were at least two, maybe three, plus the compilation.

[robertoart]

We Want Herbie.

[fasstrack]

You guys are losing me. Take pity on the addled brain of an old Jew-and carefully explain that sharp right to SC. As if I was Hal the Computer fresh from singing 'Daisy, Daisy-give me your answer do...' Or as G-d is my witness I'll retrieve 2 members of Firesign Theater and a nice glrl from Ace Trucking Company that I stored in my Norge fridge directly after the Hamburger Sketch ca. 1968. I'm grabbing them, Tanya, amd to be safe Louise Lasser-and I swear I'm NOT FUCKING RESPONSIBLE!! This ir WAR!! What? Meds NOW? Alright, alright. (Sighs, drools) They don't let you LIUE. Bastards..

You guys are losing me. Take pity on the addled brain of an old Jew-and carefully explain that sharp right to SC. As if I was Hal the Computer fresh from singing 'Daisy, Daisy-give me your answer do...' Or as G-d is my witness I'll retrieve 2 members of Firesign Theater and a nice glrl from Ace Trucking Company that I stored in my Norge fridge directly after the Hamburger Sketch ca. 1968. I'm grabbing them, Tanya, amd to be safe Louise Lasser-and I swear I'm NOT FUCKING RESPONSIBLE!! This ir WAR!! What? Meds NOW? Alright, alright. (Sighs, drools) They don't let you LIUE. Bastards..

Shit. I don't get the double posts. I'm sorry for it.

[JSngry]

You guys are losing me. Take pity on the addled brain of an old Jew-and carefully explain that sharp right to SC.

We didn't take the left at Albuquerque, so Charleston is our second choice.

[fasstrack]

I apologize for the double posts. And Jim, I have no clue as to your references. Like Perky in The Fortune Cookie you're too smart for me...

[Pete C]

I'd say before anybody puts down Herbie's career choices they should remember this.

Though, I must admit, watching him sing it makes me hate it a little less.

[robertoart]

I'd say before anybody puts down Herbie's career choices they should remember this.

Though, I must admit, watching him sing it makes me hate it a little less.

Rock-it was the hit Miles always wanted.

[fasstrack]

I can't see. Did he have his Spaceman suit on? Then why, Mommy? Why?

[JSngry]

And Jim, I have no clue as to your references. Like Perky in The Fortune Cookie you're too smart for me...

Thread drift on the O-Board? I'm shocked!

Dude, this is the Herbie Hancock thread. Targeting different audiences and leaving other ones totally befuddled in the process should be expected!

Now, what's this about benzadrine and Chinese food? I have more work to do and I'm hungry. Sounds like just what the doctor ordered (or will, if I can get the number to him).

[AllenLowe]

I actually thing it was different with Armstrong - I actually wrote a piece about this, in which I drew parallels between Armstrong and Elvis Presley.

[fasstrack]

Jim, I hate to break it to you. But SEINFELD WAS CANCELLED. In other news: Lucky Lindy made it!! Now to this Hancock guy. Like I mentioned back in this thread's Bronze Age, all was cool by me until Rockit and Rock School. And statements like 'I don't make albums anymore, I make EVENTS! Still, he did more than most ever will. The 70s funk stuff was deep, and hard to do-especially from whence he came musically just prior. AND he never fucking named a tune Captain Senor Mouse...

[robertoart]

I actually thing it was different with Armstrong - I actually wrote a piece about this, in which I drew parallels between Armstrong and Elvis Presley.

Can you precis the thought? And throw some Herbie Hancock in there for context?

[JSngry]

Jim, I hate to break it to you. But SEINFELD WAS CANCELLED.

But Herbie Hancock still makes records. And has a book deal. And can improvise rather than riff.

Win, Herbie Hancock.

I actually don't mind Rockit at all. Don't really like it, but I've got no problem with Gadget Geeks playing with their new toys, nor with making unabashedly commercial music, not if you're upfront about it and do it like you mean for it to be done.

[robertoart]

Jim, I hate to break it to you. But SEINFELD WAS CANCELLED.

But Herbie Hancock still makes records. And has a book deal. And can improvise rather than riff.

Win, Herbie Hancock.

I actually don't mind Rockit at all. Don't really like it, but I've got no problem with Gadget Geeks playing with their new toys, nor with making unabashedly commercial music, not if you're upfront about it and do it like you mean for it to be done.

In retrospect it might be Laswell's most successful project, and I don't just mean commercially.

The element of bringing together disparate styles in Laswell's other projects (when he is not merely being a 'producer' for others 'styles') often ends at the idea alone.

Rock-it actually sounds like it was meant to be. Everyone was in the right place at the right time.

Re-Allen Lowe's point about the middle class not being able to produce anything truly innovative, I don't think it's middle class so much as middle age, or post middle age as such. Which innovative musicians (who made it past mid-career) have been able to make music that had a real impact on the music around them, after a certain point in their lives. Beyond just making certain advances or changes within their own personal idioms. After Prime Time Ornette certainly didn't. Herbie Hancock after Rock-it? Laswell? Archie Shepp? Sonny Rollins? Armstrong? Miles Davis perhaps?

Edited April 20, 2012 by freelancer

[PHILLYQ]

With respect to selling out, how would you view the following jazz luminaries:

Stanley Turrentine

Gerald Wilson

Count Basie

Chuck Mangione

Art Blakey

Maynard Ferguson

Alfred Lion

I guess I'm arguing that anyone who has at some point decoupled from their muse almost always does so based on economics. I don't think Herbie is any different. He's certainly smart enough to realize that interest in the kind of music to which he had devoted his life was drying up. Time to switch gears in order to remain hip, relevant and, most importantly, marketable.

I'm jumping in the middle here, so apologies if this has already been answered, but keep in mind that Herbie studied electrical engineering and was always fascinated by gadgets, so it would seem natural for him to grvitate towards synths, etc. Also, he had plenty of grounding in funky stuff, so he wasn't really going too far afield in his funk stuff. Some of it is brilliant, some eh, but such is life...

[fasstrack]

I can't tell on a cell phone who said what on the last one. But I remember a special on WKCR here on HH's elec. stuff ca. 70s on. It had an interview where he said his (complex and intellectual) music was fun, but not reaching anyone. I remember him remembering asking himself 'am I performing a SERVICE with this music?' Now doubters will doubt, groaners will groan-but if people want to get inside the guy's cranium I wouldn't refuse a tour guide's rope. Not THAT tour guide.

[JSngry]

I remember him remembering asking himself 'am I performing a SERVICE with this music?'

In and of itself, that's a good question about living your life in general, not just making your music.

Plenty of ways for that to get weird and/or go wrong, but in and of itself...yeah.

[fasstrack]

It's an important question for anyone-especially musicians. What really makes HH tick and whether he's sincere or not-it ain't my thing, it's his. Or a priest (Nicheran Buddhist) or shrink. I like almost all the services provided myself. Not nuts about the last few years-but I didn't listen that close either.

[Pete C]

IMO, the only question an artist needs to ask is, "Am I making something that would please me if somebody else had made it." Service schmervice.

[JSngry]

Yeah, always be the center of your own universe. That's the ticket!

[ep1str0phy]

Jim, I hate to break it to you. But SEINFELD WAS CANCELLED.

But Herbie Hancock still makes records. And has a book deal. And can improvise rather than riff.

Win, Herbie Hancock.

I actually don't mind Rockit at all. Don't really like it, but I've got no problem with Gadget Geeks playing with their new toys, nor with making unabashedly commercial music, not if you're upfront about it and do it like you mean for it to be done.

In retrospect it might be Laswell's most successful project, and I don't just mean commercially.

The element of bringing together disparate styles in Laswell's other projects (when he is not merely being a 'producer' for others 'styles') often ends at the idea alone.

Rock-it actually sounds like it was meant to be. Everyone was in the right place at the right time.

Re-Allen Lowe's point about the middle class not being able to produce anything truly innovative, I don't think it's middle class so much as middle age, or post middle age as such. Which innovative musicians (who made it past mid-career) have been able to make music that had a real impact on the music around them, after a certain point in their lives. Beyond just making certain advances or changes within their own personal idioms. After Prime Time Ornette certainly didn't. Herbie Hancock after Rock-it? Laswell? Archie Shepp? Sonny Rollins? Armstrong? Miles Davis perhaps?

If you count Last Exit and Massacre as Laswell projects (and the latter has definitely always been a collaboration, to varying degrees, with Fred Frith), then I'd say that those are more successful than any of the grab bag/synthesis projects. Material is no one project, but its best moments (a lot of Memory Serves, that Archie Shepp/Whitney Houston track) have been musically fantastic. Last Exit actually has that sort of vibe--American free jazz guitar pioneer, iconic German enfant terrible, free rock legend/early Prime Time drummer, and a dub/experimental bassist--but it was a longtime touring group and much more cohesive than any of the shorter-term things I can remember.

As far as innovative guys having an impact on the music around them at a later stage in life--a lot of the AACM and Euro free improv guys, especially in their older years, have maintained these sort of musical apprenticeships that ensures that their current music has an impact (by virtue of osmosis) on current, "developing" music. Evan Parker is one example, and his work with both younger musicians (Peter Evans and our own Alexander Hawkins come to mind) and more "leftish" improv (his EAI experiments in more recent years, even though he was already sort of doing this with the Music Improvisation Company in the 70's) ensures his continued relevance. Fred Frith is a different example; the changes in his own music may not always been immediately audible, but the man is deep into looking for new things and nurtures this interest, actively, via his teaching at Mills (where I met him) and his very public work with younger generations of composers/improvisers. There's a whole generation of younger/current American improvisers, I think, that bears at least some connection to Fred's work in various fields.

Then there are guys like Braxton who tend not to sit with their own idioms very long before drastically mutating them into something else. There's plenty of personal development in Braxton's music, but I know that, at least in terms of the younger musicians he's worked with and the sheer ambition of his trying to produce something completely new every number of months, his music has a continued resonance. I've actually gleaned more off of studying both the 80's quartet and Ghost Trance music than I have looking at the more broadly celebrated 60's/70's music, and Braxton's creative wanderlust makes me think he'll never turn into someone who merely "coasts." Threadgill is similar, Roscoe too (although a lot of his hardcore experimentalism tends to go relatively unnoticed/unrecorded--my judgment is based in main on my time at Mills, where Roscoe seems to write a new, boundary pushing chamber piece on a pretty regular basis).

Also, I wouldn't want to disservice a guy like Ornette whose music post-Prime Time may have not had a visceral impact but whose idiom most definitely continues to evolve. The primary reason his latter day music has not had as shattering an impact is because there's nothing to hang the hysteria on--like you said, it's a matter of personal advances or changes, not the invention, wholesale, of a new style. I think that Ornette's incremental evolution in the past ten years or so has been much more interesting than people often give it credit for, and many of these ideas (the reinstitution of a regular harmonic form with measures/beats spontaneously added or removed, the end of the formal "horns play the melody" thing with the melody traded freely between horns and basses, the superimposition of completely contrasting rhythmic feels on top of one another) parallel certain developments in the supposed "cutting edge" of contemporary jazz/improvised music.

[Larry Kart]

Yeah, always be the center of your own universe. That's the ticket!

About the "always be of service" goal, as opposed to (if indeed it is) Pete C's "the only question an artist needs to ask is, 'Am I making something that would please me if somebody else had made it.''"

"Always be of service" would seem to call for one of two things (and maybe more): that the artist be able to read the audience's mind, or that he regard applause, ticket and recorded music sales, back-patting, etc. as the primary determinants of what he or she should be doing. And a secondary question: if the artist could read the audience's minds, how does he balance out, say, nine people who thought the results were so-so and one who thought they were life-changingly brilliant versus ten people who thought the results were good. Also, in that first sample, who is this tenth person? Is he Jim Sangrey? Chuck Nessa? Me? Charlie Parker? Duke Ellington? And who are the nine others?

[Pete C]

I don't think my answer implied selfishness. The only aesthetic criteria that works for me with my own work is what I stated. The business of art is aesthetics, and as far as I'm concerned the best answer to whether my output works is: 1. Does this please me and 2. Have I avoided the kind of self-indulgence that would annoy me in the work of others. Outside of that any work or art, regardless of genre or form, is essentially about making pleasurable things (and pleasurable encompasses a wide range of emotions). I also give myself extra brownie points when I can say I've done it in a way that nobody else would do quite the same way, and hopefully that individuality of expression will resonate with my readership or audience. So, yes, only consider the audience as an abstract entity and simply strive to make art that expresses you and pleases you. If it's honest it'll find its audience, and on its terms it will "serve" that audience. I like Gertrude Stein's line: "I write for myself and strangers."

Edited April 21, 2012 by Pete C