The following is a concert review of Herbie Hancock's appearance at the Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis, MN, on November 8, 2002. It was written during my college days, for a class called "The Music of Black Americans".
Pianist Herbie Hancock has had a career spanning over 40 years, in which he performed everything from acoustic hardbop to jazz-funk, disco pop, electro, African music, experimental improv, hip-hop and classical music – and apart from that, Hancock is justly considered a keyboard and synthesizer pioneer and has also won an Academy Award for creating the soundtrack to 1986's ROUND MIDNIGHT. With a musician who has explored so many different directions, often enough several of them at once, one is bound to expect surprises.
When Hancock played Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis on November 8, 2002, his band was an acoustic quartet including Terri Lyne Carrington (drums), Scott Colley (bass) and Gary Thomas (saxophone) – an entirely different approach than last year's acid trip hop fusion group FUTURE 2 FUTURE (which also had Carrington on board), or this spring's DIRECTIONS IN MUSIC combo, which celebrated the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. But since Hancock has always both been looking forward to new territory while at the same time revisiting and reinventing his past music, the new group complemented his earlier explorations rather than simply leaving them behind.
Pianist Herbie Hancock has had a career spanning over 40 years, in which he performed everything from acoustic hardbop to jazz-funk, disco pop, electro, African music, experimental improv, hip-hop and classical music – and apart from that, Hancock is justly considered a keyboard and synthesizer pioneer and has also won an Academy Award for creating the soundtrack to 1986's ROUND MIDNIGHT. With a musician who has explored so many different directions, often enough several of them at once, one is bound to expect surprises.
When Hancock played Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis on November 8, 2002, his band was an acoustic quartet including Terri Lyne Carrington (drums), Scott Colley (bass) and Gary Thomas (saxophone) – an entirely different approach than last year's acid trip hop fusion group FUTURE 2 FUTURE (which also had Carrington on board), or this spring's DIRECTIONS IN MUSIC combo, which celebrated the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. But since Hancock has always both been looking forward to new territory while at the same time revisiting and reinventing his past music, the new group complemented his earlier explorations rather than simply leaving them behind.
