Bob Gluck's Blog

Various critics over the years have expressed confusion if not discomfort about Herbie Hancock’s eclecticism, genre crossing, movement between playing acoustic piano and using all sorts of musical technologies … but I’ve never understood why anyone should be surprised. Its unfortunate that “purists” in every musical walk of life insist on applying their own biases and aesthetic preferences to what they expect from creative musicians. Hancock’s playing with Miles integrated aspects of his early roots in the pianists of the previous generation (in high school, he listened to Oscar Peterson, Eroll Garner, George Shearing and others) – but also (particular beginning in 1965), the abstraction that dates to his early gigs with Eric Dolphy, the interest of the Miles band in Ornette Coleman (and of course John Coltrane), and during Hancock’s college days, when he was listening to the music of Olivier Messiaen and Igor Stravinsky, later expanding his horizons to Krzysztof Penderecki and others of the European avant-garde. And why would Hancock’s interest in funk and popular music of every era be surprising? The musical style during the early years of his professional life, with Donald Byrd and on his own early 60s recordings, was in the context of the music often referred to as “hard bop.” This was an eclectic music that bridged bebop with gospel and blues; you can hear it all over Hancock’s first recordings under his own name. Hard boppers wanted to continue the advances of Charlie Parker, but in the context of rediscovering the music listened to by people in their neighborhoods. As for electronics, Herbie Hancock not only began college as a major in electrical engineering, but, along with Tony Williams, had as early as 1964 become interested in experimenting with tape and electronic musical devices. And he had been listening to the music of Edgard Varese in college and during the early 60s, Karlheinz Stockhausen. Let’s hear it for eclecticism!

Posted in Reflections on musical context