Although Herbie Hancock continues to perform and record regularly today, he is best remembered for playing with Miles Davis in the 60s, pioneering jazz-funk in the 70s, and contributing to the ascent of hip-hop a decade later.
Herbie Hancock’s “The Imagine Project”, the new CD from multiple Grammy-winning artist and musical pioneer Herbie Hancock, is an unprecedented international recording and film project featuring collaborations between music legend Herbie Hancock and over a dozen superstars from every region of the planet.
In addition to “The Song Goes On,” tracks include “Don’t Give Up,” a duet recorded in London featuring Seal and Pink, “Imagine” with Konono No. l, Jeff Beck, Oumou Sangare and Lionel Louke recorded in Paris and London; “Tamatant Tilay/Exodus” featuring Tinariwen, “Times They Are A Changin’” featuring The Chieftains, Lionel Loueke and Lisa Hannigan recorded in Ireland; , “Space Captain” with Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, “Mi Tierra” recorded with Latin superstar Juanes in Miami, “A Change Is Gonna Come” with James Morrison and a track with Brazilian singer-songwriter Ceu recorded in Sao Paulo.
“Music truly is the universal language,” says Hancock, “The Imagine Project” will explore that concept across the globe, uniting a myriad of cultures through song and positive creative expression. My hope is that the music will serve as a metaphor for the actions taken by the inhabitants of this wonderful planet as a call for world harmony on all levels.”
Herbie Hancock’s — “The Imagine Project” is the next step in Hancock’s extraordinary ground-breaking career, and builds upon his recent successes and recognition. (2007 Grammy for Album of the Year – “River/The Joni Letters”, Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, multiple award-winning album/film, “Possibilities”, Jazz Chair for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, amongst many others).
In 1963, Hancock, a promising young jazz pianist was hand-picked by Miles Davis to play in his ‘Second Great Quintet’. Hancock continued to release his own solo sessions on Blue Note, including the hugely important albums Empyrean Isles (1964) and Maiden Voyage (1965). Alongside Davis, Hancock began to experiment with fusing rock or funk elements into jazz, before leaving Davis’ ensemble in 1968. He later made notable appearances on influential Davis albums like In a Silent Way and On the Corner. Meanwhile, Hancock’s solo work won more admirers. In the early 70s he introduced synthesizers into jazz with the avant-garde Mwandishi albums. However, they were not very accessible and sold few copies, so Hancock decided that funk could be integrated to jazz in a way that would be more accessible. He formed The Headhunters and released Head Hunters (1973), one of the first and most influential jazz-funk records ever.
After Head Hunters, Hancock continued with less-successful jazz-funk records and made several film and TV soundtracks. In 1983, Hancock won a Grammy for the innovative single “Rockit”. The first hit to feature turntablism, it introduced the wider world to the possibility of deliberately manipulating a vinyl record to produce a ‘scratch’ sound that could be used as if another instrument.
In 2008 Herbie Hancock was the shock winner of the Album of the Year Grammy for his Joni Mitchell covers album River: The Joni Letters (2007).
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