# Between the icon, Herbie Hancock

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/08/29/icon-herbie-hancock/
- Published: 2017-08-29T17:48:25+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**A young native of Los Angeles and an adopted icon of the city shared a double 
bill at the Hollywood Bowl on Aug. 23 that demonstrated what a big tent jazz can
be.**

[https://bluesjazzscenes.com/](https://bluesjazzscenes.com/)Between the icon, Herbie
Hancock, and the highly touted newcomer, Kamasi Washington, there was a rainbow 
of cross-generational possibilities onstage—sonically, stylistically and culturally.
But for all the good feeling and manifest virtuosity on stage that night, not all
of those possibilities were realized musically. Still, Hancock proved that age is
just a number when it comes to visionary energy, as the 77-year-old led his new 
electro-acoustic quintet through a bracing set of futurist funk. By the end, he 
was out front with his keytar, summoning sounds like a shaman plugged into an everlasting
power source.

Hancock—born in Chicago but a Los Angeles resident for decades—is surely the most
lauded of any living jazz artist, with 14 Grammy awards, an Academy Award and such
current positions as the Los Angeles Philharmonic Creative Chair for Jazz and the
Chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. His music has ranged from timeless
soul-jazz favorites on Blue Note and a tenure in the epochal mid-’60s Miles Davis
Quintet to widely influential avant-funk recordings, pioneering synthesizer work
and chart-topping electro-dance hits. He has crossed over audiovisual divides from
jazz to pop and back again, exploring classical and world sounds to boot.

His new group references various aspects of his catalog—retooling his Blue Note 
smash “Cantaloupe Island” and numbers by his Mwandishi and Headhunters bands—while
remaining resolutely, even fiercely, contemporary. The quintet featured Hancock 
on acoustic piano and synthesizer, along with West African guitarist-vocalist Lionel
Loueke, electric bassist James Genus, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and saxophonist-keyboardist-
vocalist Terrace Martin.

Martin—another native Angeleno and one of the producers of rapper Kendrick Lamar’s
multiple Grammy-winning _To Pimp A Butterfly_ album—has been tapped by Hancock to
helm his next record. It’s hard to imagine Hancock needing much help in the studio,
but while introducing the band, the veteran extolled Martin’s talents, saying, “
I’m not going to let him get away.”

Martin, Loueke and Hancock each sang at various points of the set, though all the
vocals were processed through Vocoder effects that, by night’s end, had grown wearying.
However, Hancock was magic as he switched from heady acoustic improvisations on 
his Fazioli piano to pitch-bending and atmosphere-stoking on his Korg Kronos synth.
There was zero resting on the leader’s considerable laurels, from the opening “Overture”(
freaky washes of sound from Hancock’s synth and Loueke’s guitar before Colaiuta’s
precision-tooled backbeat kicked in) to the loping funk of the encore, “Chameleon.”

In between, one song bled into the next, the set’s hyperdriven fusion marked by 
hard rhythms, day-glo colors and dense textures. Hancock called “Actual Proof,” 
his vintage Headhunters tune, “a flashy one,” and the performance lived up to that
description, with Genus and Colaiuta taking epic solos during the heavy-metal remake.
The drummer’s hard-hitting sophistication was particularly impressive, although 
one couldn’t help but imagine how a more lithe-sounding drummer might have made 
the band feel less relentless.

Introducing Loueke, Hancock said, “What comes out of his guitar—it sounds like a
team of people. No one in the world can do what he can do.” Loueke indeed conjured
a universe of music on his guitar, from grainy wah-wah and spacey sound-clouds to
lyrical guitar-synth and even a searing, rock-like solo in the funhouse version 
of “Cantaloupe Island.”

Martin’s extended alto solo played dynamically off the song’s famous rhythmic-melodic
hooks, making for one of the evening’s standout improvisations. By the time “Chameleon”
rolled around—with the leader showing how the keytar can be every bit a jazz instrument,
at least in his sage hands—one marveled at how, even as a younger generation looks
to Hancock’s past for inspiration, he keeps on searching. His mind is as open as
his fingers are nimble.

Washington was a star player at the Hamilton High School Music Academy here and 
studied ethnomusicology at the University of California-Los Angeles before going
on to play with the likes of trumpeter-bandleader Gerald Wilson, as well as Kendrick
Lamar and Snoop Dogg. The tenor saxophonist, born in 1981, garnered raves in jazz
and beyond for his triple-disc 2015 album, _The Epic_ (issued via Brainfeeder, the
label of L.A. electronica artist Flying Lotus).

Kamasi Washington, a Los Angeles native, performs at the Hollywood Bowl in his hometown
on Aug. 23. (Photo: Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging)

In late September, Washington will release an EP, _Harmony Of Difference_, featuring
a six-part suite for a multimedia exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art
2017 Biennial. Opening for Hancock, Washington led a many-hued, nearly 50-piece 
ensemble, complete with a brass section, two drummers, strings, choir and conductor—
along with piano, electric keyboards, bass, vocalist Patrice Quinn and turntablist
Battlecat.

Mine may be a contrarian view—the hometown crowd was with him all the way—but Washington
often convenes maximalist means to minimal ends. His compositions aspire to a kind
of spiritual-minded, r&b-accented uplift, but there’s little dissonant shade to 
help one appreciate the diatonic light; many of the pieces seem to start at the 
relief of sunshine, without any clouds of struggle. The orchestrations tend to be
overblown, the harmonies pastel, the melodies slight.

For “The Magnificent 7,” from _The Epic_, Washington said he was going to “release
the fire in the band,” but the music mostly sounded like something from a ’70s TV
soundtrack. That said, there was some grit to Miles Mosley’s long double-bass solo,
his instrument tweaked with electronics that built to a bowed climax evoking distorted
rock guitar.

Washington had family and friends in the band—including his father, Rickey Washington(
soprano saxophone and flute), and former schoolmate Cameron Graves (piano)—and he
noted how his orchestra and its music underscored an ideal of community that he 
grew up on in multicultural Los Angeles. “Diversity is not something to tolerate—
it’s something to celebrate,” he said, prefacing the live premiere of “The Truth”
from _Harmony Of Difference_.

In that spirit, Washington spread the spotlight generously when it came to solos,
and his tenor features often had more in common with the levity of r&b than the 
challenges of jazz. But his almost childlike wonder in the potential of spectacle
and color in music has its virtues, along with that sense of community.

There’s no doubt that Washington has a considerable profile—he’s currently signed
to the alternative-oriented, Beggars Group-distributed Young Turks label. If he 
develops a sharper edge to his sound, his music may become more reflective of our
dissonant times.

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