Thinking ahead
“You’ll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi Band” is now scheduled for release in July 2012 by University of Chicago Press. Editing work is wrapping up, as the production process unfolds. My next work on this will be the creation of an index, a few months down the road, after layout and design is complete.
Meanwhile, I have begun preliminary work on another, related writing project. Untitled so far, it will be set in 1970-71, overlapping the Mwandishi period. I am interested in looking at this time period more broadly as a transitional moment in the development of new musical possibilities. Among the topics I am working on are the band Circle (Anthony Braxton, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul), Wayne Shorter’s immediately pre- and early Weather Report period, the second touring incarnation of King Crimson in the UK (Islands), Morton Subotnick’s works for the Buchla system following his departure from NYC for CalArts, and the growth of NYC new music and free jazz venues (something I have been working on, in it’s 1967-1971 stages for a while). And of course how Mwandishi fits into all this. So, it’s back to interesting interviews and listening.. Stay tuned in!
Bob Gluck's Blog 
Of course Bob this sounds exciting. Looking forward to the Herbie book. BTW that Islands band might have been less appreciated but it did some incredible music. The definitive Fripp Edition (of Islands) with remastering and lots of extra cuts helps flesh out the story! Circle changed so much in how a quartet could function…but I will await your insights!
Looking ahead,
Grego
Grego, I think you’ve got a good handle on where I’m going. I saw the Islands band in mid-July 1971 and it was an astounding experience; I felt, walking out of the hall (Watford Town Hall, north of London) that I had emerged from a nuclear reactor. I also just received and listened to the new Islands release and agree about its helpfulness. Circle was very influential in my own musical directions in college, in large part for the reason you note. I’m also really interested in Wayne Shorter’s transitional recordings in 1970, only one of which was released; the one that was not points right towards the emergence of Weather Report and in fact includes most of the band to be (with McCoy Tyner, not Joe Zawinul, playing piano)
Important work on an undervalued and too little understood era of experiment, cross fertilization and rich creativity. So, glad that the scholar doing this work is also an accomplished musician and composer.
Thanks, Jim. You’ll be interested to know that my band with Mike Saarie, Phil Moylen, and Sterling Post – Maya – was really modeled upon Circle, at least for me.