Herbie Hancock: Heart of a head hunter

From the time the tentacles of a song begin wrapping themselves around Herbie Hancock’s head, it’s clear to him who’s the master. “At a certain point, the music begins to take on a life of its own,” the legendary jazz pianist/composer said last week from his headquarters in L.A.

Hancock used to make the mistake of trying to squeeze a song into what he originally had in mind, but learned through experience that doesn’t work.

“If it starts telling you what it wants to be, you better listen,” he chuckles. “Because it’s natural and it comes from your soul, your convictions; comes from who and what you are, so that’s your truth.”

Hancock’s truth became self-evident on his 1973 crossover record, Head Hunters. “Chameleon,” the breakout single, introduced a mainstream audience to funk, changing the face and direction of jazz as well. The jazz world had known of Hancock’s formidable presence for more than a decade prior to Head Hunters. “Watermelon Man,” from his 1963 debut, Takin’ Off, got Hancock his first acclaim outside the jazz world, and his association with Miles Davis starting that same year earned him icon stature in that world as well.

During his five years with the Miles Davis Quintet, Hancock was involved in putting out a series of groundbreaking jazz records, including Nefertiti and Sorcerer. After leaving Davis’ group, he contributed to and appeared on Miles’ classic jazz/fusion record, Bitches Brew. Davis said in his autobiography that Hancock was the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk. “I haven’t heard anybody yet who has come after him,” Davis remarked.

But even as early as Head Hunters, Hancock was discovering that the music would have its own way. “It kind of evolved into this mixture of jazz and funk that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind at first,” the keyboardist says. “I hadn’t really heard that before.” The closest thing to it was what his old employer, trumpeter Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds, had been doing in the ’70s, when funk was in its infancy and fusion was a pipe welder’s term. But that prefunk jazz fusion was not exactly what Head Hunters turned out to be. Hancock says he liked it because it was much more original than if he had done a funk album.

“It was much more of a stamp of me and the Headhunters band than a copy of what other people were already doing.”

But even though some of his work doesn’t turn out like he intends, that doesn’t mean Hancock never has a design in mind. His 1996 release, New Standard, adapted R&B tunes and songs such as the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” to a jazz format. “What I’ve been doing since that record is to make every record different from every other one,” he says, laughing. “I’m doing this as a challenge to myself, but also to stand up for something I firmly believe in, and that is there’s an infinite way to do things.”

Hancock sets out to prove that theory on his upcoming record, due out in October. Although it’s based loosely on something he’s done before, he says he prefers to do things with no template. “That’s harder, and I like the challenge of doing things the hard way, which is kinda stupid,” he laughs. Hancock lifted the template for the next release from his 1998 album, Gershwin’s World, but this one will be based on Joni Mitchell’s world instead.

With Gershwin’s World, Hancock concentrated not only on Gershwin himself, but the world the composer lived in and the music he was surrounded by. “That’s why there’s a Duke Ellington tune on it, because it’s based off of rhythm changes – which is ‘I Got Rhythm.’ And there’s a [Maurice] Ravel piece because Ravel and Gershwin were friends, and they influenced each other.” Mitchell also appeared on the record.

Most of the songs on the as-yet-unnamed disc will be Joni Mitchell’s songs, but there will be some songs associated with music or artists that either influenced Mitchell or that she influenced one way or the other. “That’s why I’m saying it’s not a complete template,” Hancock says. “The challenge is, how am I going to realize each piece? How is that going to be described?”

Hancock says he tries to be aware that the music is not the end, it’s the means. “What it’s all about is life.” He believes there’s a bigger picture out there than the musicians. Rather, it’s all about the people who are gonna buy the record.

“What is it that you want to share with them? Is it just that you know some nice, pretty chords? What’s the overview you have that is a life message that you might want to share with other people?”

If you think all this sounds vaguely Eastern, you’re right on target. “I’ve been practicing Buddhism for 35 years now,” Hancock confesses. “And a lot of what I do [contains] the realizations that have come about through my practice of Buddhism. [It’s reflected] in how I approach music.” To Hancock, music is a vision, he says. And he fulfills that vision by using “art and creativity to encourage and inspire the listener ... to see something in their own mind that they can feel good about.”

But it’s not all a thought process, he cautions. Music is just a catalyst. In order to really communicate, you need to use another organ. “It’s in the heart, not in the brain,” Hancock says. “That’s where real honesty lies.”