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Tomorrow night: Herbie Hancock


timwat

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So this show was last night.

 

Thundercat played as a trio, with Dennis Hamm on keys (Justin Brown on drums). Lots of speed, lots of out, impressive, wall of sound kind of stuff, except for the Them Changes and Dragonball Durag. Vibe was pretty loose, relaxed and cool - I dug them.

 

While Herbie acknowledged Thundercat and their set, nope, he didn't sit in w HH.

 

One of things was it was outside, and it got borderline frigid by the time HH hit the stage - Elena spent the entire set wearing a stylish, bulky full length wool winter coat. Essentially Herbie's set was sort of a medley effortless free flow from tune to tune, with very few breaks in between, and the breaks were mostly an occasion for Herbie to encourage the crowd about love, unity and all of us being part of one human race.

 

Loueke is a great player, spending more time with the synth and processed sounds than actual guitar. Pinderhughes is a confident player I greatly enjoyed listening too - voice was struggling but before the encore Herbie noted she is getting over being ill. I wasn't a big fan of Genus' heavily looped based solo - I kinda think there's a more effective way to build a looped solo to "solo with yourself", where less is more in the loop. But he is a great player no doubt.

 

Herbie spend most of his time on the Kronos, for synth, strings, pads, and vocoder. Any real soloing was on the Fazioli. He played one solo on the keytar, which seemed a little gratuitous - just an excuse to sling the thing on. But I suppose as soon as I say keytar, that entire previous sentence is assumed LOL

 

After all these years, I'm still impressed by Actual Proof, a tune I've not yet been able to get under my hands with the rhythm and hits. Any suggestions on this tune?

 

Also, all the familiars - cantaloupe, watermelon, chameleon, 13 seconds of butterfly. And a dizzying number of parts of other tunes all medleyed together.

 

All in all, a wonderful (very cold) night.

..
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After all these years, I'm still impressed by Actual Proof, a tune I've not yet been able to get under my hands with the rhythm and hits. Any suggestions on this tune?

 

 

No useful help from me. I'll just say that I only felt comfortable on this tune when I had internalized it so well that I stopped feeling any need to count. Trying to count almost seemed to make it harder.

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I got to see Herbie live in a nice hall right after "Headhunters" came out and I was still bamboozled by just the ARP Pro Soloist. I couldn't hope to quantify it all, but you always leave such shows with a big music lesson under your belt.

 

A doofus felt the spirit so much that he began dancing in front of the stage. Security shortly sprited him right out the door as the band grinned at the sideshow. :laugh:

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

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I've seen this group (or the iteration of) several times over the last few years, mostly because of my everlasting Herbie fandom. Agree with Dave Ferris, slightly afraid also because of the Chick thing.

 

I don't understand the praise for Terrace. Yes, I'm aware of his producer prowess, and that he also contributed to the still-unreleased new HH album. But dude's playing is beyond basic. You ever hear him take a solo? A guy like that shouldn't be sharing a stage with Herbie Hancock. The good thing is he persuaded Herbie to start playing "Come Running To Me" again (vocoders and all), that's a beautiful song. :laugh:

 

Genus is a great bass player. I loved his playing with Dave Douglas, for instance. But IMO he's the wrong guy for this group, despite now having been there for years. His sound always comes off as mushy, muffled and "too phat" if there's such a thing. As far as electric bassists go, IMO Herbie needs someone with a crisp clean sound like the one Paul Jackson (R.I.P.!) had. He sounded great with Jaco too back in the day.

 

The drummer is new. It used to be a guy called Trevor Lawrence Jr. - I don't think he ever managed to get "Actual Proof" right. :laugh:

 

By the way - what the hell happened to that new album? Wasn't it supposed to come out at least 5 years ago? I still see Herbie is rocking the "greatest hits" thing, the same keytar schtick, the "funk hits" etc. I personally believe he's still capable of producing a masterpiece-caliber acoustic jazz album. Even though the last two were cover albums, and the good one (River) came out in 2007 already. Maybe if he hooked up with Shorter instead of folks like Flying Lotus? Wayne is still going places creatively...Chick was too.

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IMO, as one of few remaining African-American Jazz pioneers, Mr. Herbie Hancock doesn't have anything left to prove. He's earned the right to run his program however he so chooses both in terms of personnel and set-list Enjoy being able to hear him play while he's still on the planet.:cool:

PD

 

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy"

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IMO, as one of few remaining African-American Jazz pioneers, Mr. Herbie Hancock doesn't have anything left to prove. He's earned the right to run his program however he so chooses both in terms of personnel and set-list Enjoy being able to hear him play while he's still on the planet.:cool:

 

 

+1 to that.

 

Herbie is always exploring looking for new sounds, music, musicians, and trying to learn from them and keep adding to his own bag of tricks. Herbie says he likes working with young people to checkout new ideas and sounds. Herbie is teacher and student, Chick was the same way. To me the key is listening and asking yourself what is it Herbie, Chick, Wayne Shorter, Charles Lloyd hearing in these young people.

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Regarding Actual Proof, what helped me was to use a chart that was 4/4 all the way through the form and then internalize that, rather than the charts like the one in New Real Book vol 3 that end with a 5/4 bar, a 4/4 bar and a 3/4 bar.

 

But still a (fun) challenge either way. I think it's just one of those tunes that's designed to make you hear the beats in funny places, so if you've heard it a lot before you try to play it, you have to unlearn how your mind was processing it first.

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IMO, as one of few remaining African-American Jazz pioneers, Mr. Herbie Hancock doesn't have anything left to prove. He's earned the right to run his program however he so chooses both in terms of personnel and set-list Enjoy being able to hear him play while he's still on the planet.:cool:

 

....a career built, in fact, on doing just that.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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I had an offer of a free ticket to go see him last Wednesday in Portland, and I declined, because I'm still not comfortable with with big outdoor shows, and I'm still kind of kicking myself over not going. But I have seen him 3 times, once with the re-united Headhunters (an amazing show, among the best concerts I've ever seen), once in a duet with Wayne Shorter (which was wonderful, I got the sense they were not trying very hard, and they could just play together for days on end) and once on his Future2Future tour (some of the tech stuff was not working, especially the visuals, and you could tell Herbie was kinda pissed, but still a great show, Wallace Roney (RIP) was amazing).

Turn up the speaker

Hop, flop, squawk

It's a keeper

-Captain Beefheart, Ice Cream for Crow

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I need to catch him next time whenever I can. Yes I was shaken up by Chick's sudden passing an the realization that I had taken for granted that every 2 years Chick and Herbie would both swing through town in their latest iterations and I could go catch them as I pleased.

Kawai C-60 Grand Piano : Hammond A-100 : Hammond SK2 : Yamaha CP4 : Yamaha Montage 7 : Moog Sub 37

 

My latest album: Funky organ, huge horn section

https://bobbycressey.bandcamp.com/album/cali-native

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