Herbie Hancock

Birthday: 12 April 1940, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Birth Name: Herbert Jeffrey Hancock

Height: 170 cm

Herbie Hancock was born on April 12, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois, USA as Herbert Jeffrey Hancock. He has been married to Gudrun Mexines since August 31, 1968. They have one child.

I never chose what kind of music to make, strictly for the goal of maximizing sales. I made the musi...Show more »

I never chose what kind of music to make, strictly for the goal of maximizing sales. I made the music my heart led me to make - and some records sold millions of copies while some sold very few. Show less «

I've been practising Buddhism for forty years and that's what has led me to this path of discovering...Show more »

I've been practising Buddhism for forty years and that's what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others. The wonderful thing is that jazz itself is a wonderful model of that kind of thinking, because it's a music that's in the moment. It's also collaborative, so it's unselfish in that way. And it certainly is creative. Show less «

[on 'The Imagine Project'] It's the 21st century, and already it's quite clear that we're at the beg...Show more »

[on 'The Imagine Project'] It's the 21st century, and already it's quite clear that we're at the beginning of a more global connectivity on the planet. That carries with it its own challenges. We can see that it's a very difficult world that we live in, and the idea of global collaboration is something that I think needs to be promoted over and over again. In other words, if we're active participants in creating the kind of globalized world that we want to live in and want our children to live in, there's much more of a chance for us to be happy about the future than if we sit on our hands and wait for somebody else to create the globalized future of the planet. Show less «

Playing in stage with Mwandishi ginally the Herbie Hancock Sextet] meant treading a fine line betwee...Show more »

Playing in stage with Mwandishi ginally the Herbie Hancock Sextet] meant treading a fine line between brilliance an chaos. Everything was intuitive, in the moment. Nothing was planned. When it worked it was so, so powerful. When it didn't, it was truthfully kind of a mess. Adding synthesizers opened up whole new territories for us to explore. It was when they came along that I saw that the dream in the back of my head of marrying two things - technology and music - could happen. Show less «

[on the influence of Clare Fischer] Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He a...Show more »

[on the influence of Clare Fischer] Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were. Show less «

[on Miles Davis] He was unquestionably my favorite musician. Miles represented everything I wanted t...Show more »

[on Miles Davis] He was unquestionably my favorite musician. Miles represented everything I wanted to be in jazz, though at twenty-two I couldn't imagine achieving it. He never said much about our playing. He wasn't the kind of leader who gave notes or made suggestions. We did our best, and if he didn't say anything it must have been okay. These are the cornerstones of jazz: living up to the idea of playing in the moment, and not just repeating something that you did before because the audience liked it. He would hate it if you did something just for applause. Thanks to him I discovered an unexpected love for electronic instruments that would change the way I made music. Show less «

I wanted to find a way to tap into the younger generation's creativity. In the city's streets and pl...Show more »

I wanted to find a way to tap into the younger generation's creativity. In the city's streets and playgrounds, especially in the Bronx, people were exploring spoken-word poetry and sharp, percussive beats, combining them in a new musical form called 'rap'. This was a music revolution! It was exciting and unpredictable, [including 'scratching'] which let you change direction suddenly, cutting to another sound or groove. Exploring all these possibilities made me feel more energized than I had in years. Show less «

My main work is to grow and expand, and to investigate what else I'm made of besides being a musicia...Show more »

My main work is to grow and expand, and to investigate what else I'm made of besides being a musician. We all manifest ourselves in a lot of different ways. But most of us define ourselves by that one single thing that we're probably best known for. And my belief is that we shortchange ourselves in that way, whereas if we define ourselves as a human being first, it includes that and every other aspect of what we are. So when you talk about 'doing the work', that's the work I'm interested in. What can I contribute as a human being? Show less «

The great thing about jazz musicians is that they freely share information. By the time I got to col...Show more »

The great thing about jazz musicians is that they freely share information. By the time I got to college where I formally studied theory, I knew the stuff they were teaching me because I had learned it on the street. Show less «

Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock's FILMOGRAPHY

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