Herbie Hancock Memoir

[JSngry]

Re: Herbie & business - he was one of the first, under Donald Byrd's tutelage, to actively investigate controlling his own publishing from the "beginning" rather than accepting the status quo.

So, yeah, Herbie got his business chops together, consciously and deliberately, and seems to have always wanted it that way.

That's not a problem for me.

the James Brown/Sly/Kuti continuum,

I say this with a twinkle, but also with complete seriousness - is this continuum something that you young folk now recognize and accept without a whole lot of botheration?

World gone right for a change it it is.

I don't speak on behalf of young musicians everywhere, but I did ask a drummer friend of mine right in the middle of a rehearsal yesterday--"do you remember the last time you had trouble juggling so many genres?" He replied, plainly, "I don't think I've ever thought of it in that way."

All I know is that I have to activate the same nerve centers playing afrobeat that I do playing neo-soul that I do playing JBs type stuff. I don't think of it all as "the same," but the notion of a continuum is very present and real for me.

First of all - how you ever gonna have a career if you don't claim to speak for young musicians everywhere?

Second of all - Excellent. All of it. Thank you, fwiw.

I say this as somebody who first heard of Fela in the mid-late 70s, when Mercury released Zombie and something else. Rolling Stone had a big article/review/something. Sounded interesting, but couldn't find them in the stores. But did stumble across a discarded promo copy of Zombie about six months later and carpe diemed. What I heard suddenly connected what was then the last Miles Davis music, JB, & Sly in a way that clicked instantly. One of those, ok, things will never be the same again things.

Now that time has passed, etc. it's obvious. But in "jazz circles"...you know...

Etc.

[fasstrack]

Epist: I hear you, but ain't messin' with it myself-though it's fun to get to brass tacks and play some JB rhythm or some raw blues or funk. But it's not ME. I do best in pop w/the melodic stuff. People just like my sound and I'm glad. I put a lot of work in on just melodic purity bringing out a song. If I got into, say, pedals or even a lot more treble I'd fool no one and sound dumb. So I do my thing and let the guys who do THAT do that. Now to Grant Green, I think Grant was cool but lazy. I think there are many better and more developed models for horn-like single-string playing. Start with his (and my) hero Jimmy Raney. Eddie Diehl, from his own generation and a natural talent like Grant, holds up as way more interesting. But then I played with Eddie a lot and never with Grant. Never even heard him live. But for a time he was a favorite. He's lyrical, swings, has a sound. And no one, Wes included, who was pretty great, ever touched the Father of them all: the man from Oklahoma City, Charles Christian.

Edited April 17, 2012 by fasstrack

[fasstrack]

Ran out of characters but wanted to say Christian said all that and cut out at 26-also Tal Farlow brought chords into it with great invention. His failing was a big one, monumental though his talent was: swing and time. Grant did kick his ass there. Ok, this is off-topic. 'Eeexit...stage Left...'

[ValerieB]

and yes, it is a question of authenticity - but not in the way you think. Because the problem isn't the consideration itself, but how authenticity is determined. Herbie is too middle class in his musical attitudes to pull any of this off in a way that's musically interesting.

Like George Benson & Lou Donaldson, right?

Damn those middle class values. Damn them all to hell.

They ruin everything they touch. Especially the Negro-American ones.

thanks for providing me with some good laughs, JSngry!

[JSngry]

[mikeweil]

Thanks for posting that youtube video from the 1974 Bremen performance - brings back memories - it was that German tour during which I saw that band live and watching Bill Summers was the key experience that made me want to become a serious percussionist. But I must admit I learned more form Herbie as far as rhythmic improvisation is concerned than from any drummer or percussionist ...

Secrets seemed bland to me after the Headhunters band - especially James Levi seemed leadfooted after Harvey Mason and Mike Clark. What made the Headhunters band so great was jazz improvisation on a high level and rhythmic sophistication combined with the funk - I was missing the improvisation on the following efforts. But apart from that, I can follow JSngry's thoughts ...

Edited April 16, 2012 by mikeweil

[AllenLowe]

ok; the problems of going to sleep. Valerie came back and made fun of me. But that's ok.

I just want to mention a few things before I actually work today.

1) I don't "look down my nose" at other kinds of music. This is a Republic tactic of argument - don't deal with the specific argument but attack the motivations of the person you are disagreeing with. It's dishonest. And anyone who knows me knows that I am not a snob, as a matter of fact probably have put in more time with vernacular music than any other jazz musician on the planet. And I like Kitty Wells and Molly O'Day more than I like Herbie Hancock.

2) as for George benson and Lou Donaldson: I respect Lou's history, but also think he's a a hypocritical jerk. There I said it. HE puts down commerical music and then puts out things like Hot Dog (well he once did). He puts down Dolphy, Ornette, and everybody else but hasn't played a fresh idea since, maybe, 1953. He's a good player but boring. Now that's his right as a jazz musician, but he lives in a glass house. Benson has made a fortune playing crappy music, at least to my ears. What does it prove? It has nothing (well, it has SOMETHING) to do with the middle class, but that's a longer argument than we might want to get into here. I don't really care what he does. As with Herbie, It's Muzak done by a superior muzaker.

but yes, the middle class, both black and white, is frequently culturally destructive. Tends to want to back off from/deny/disavow its own history. Just as European Jews looked down on those from Eastern Europe, Maud Cuney Hare wrote an entire book in which she tried to disavow the blues, pre-blues, ragtime, pop songs, medicined shows, and tent revivals. Different than what he are talking about here but, from a cultural perspective, similar in its almost complete misinterpretation of her own sources and heritage.

as for playing funky, jazz people tend to be overqualified. Almost everything goes through their fingers and turns out slick, when they are trying to play pop music. For down home funk by outsiders, I'll take any of a number of '60s teen bands (see the Nuggets collection), each of whom, on a bad day, out-funks Herbie and all his friends.

yes, just my opinion. And I think Noj makes perfect sense here. We all have different expectations. It's not right and wrong, but those are what I hear.

as for my own personal ideas of it all, see my last CD; I spent 5 years showing that there are other ways into the blues for jazz people than through the top 40 or Lincoln Center. I also just wrote an essay on a related question, and which can be found somewhere around here.

Edited April 16, 2012 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

One thing about the benighted, culturally destructive middle class -- it's generated its own most adamant and at times most trenchant critics, who proceed to attack along just those lines. See previous post. Thus some rethinking of the dynamic here would seem to be in order. And it often works that way in creative terms, too. Mike Bloomfield was a child of the middle class if ever there was one.

[fasstrack]

Lou Donaldson dug his grave with his Kramdenesque BIIGG MOOUUTHH. He is antediluvian in his thinking and probably jealous. Not a favorite either, though he's good and been around. But-Allen-give George Benson a frickin' break. Before he 'sold out' to make one the classiest and biggest-selling presentations for hollow-body guitar since Johnny Smith (Breezin') he tore it up on the CTIs and live. He was something. The stuff since then has been bland perhaps, but he's playing a hollow-body like when he started, they are songs, not hip hop or Baby Baby Let's Fuck in my Van. His gtr. solos on these dates are revelations. He knows just how far to go and when to take it home, knows his listeners. And when the gig's over he finds a local jazz joint, orders a nice Scotch, then sits down and smokes the joint. Is that so bad?

[AllenLowe]

1) I agree that Benson is a great guitarist - but please note, I NEVER use the term "sell out" or "sold out" - I engage the music on its own terms - I have no concrete standard of acceptance or rejection. On the other had, Breezin' makes me want to breeze my way out of any room in which it is playing.

2) Larry - not sure if we are disagreeing or not. Certainly many great things, artistically-speaking, have come from middle class sources. But I do believe they tend to come as a form of resistance, though that resistance, and its dynamic, can vary. And I also note, ironically or not, that certain aspects of the middle class - standards of education, intellectual query, at least as I experienced them - are integral to not only my own being but to the survival and persistance of certain musical and literary movements.. But this may take another thread entirely (or a book)-

Edited April 16, 2012 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kURHsRYvSUc

[Larry Kart]

1) I agree that Benson is a great guitarist - but please note, I NEVER use the term "sell out" or "sold out" - I engage the music on its own terms - I have no concrete standard of acceptance or rejection. On the other had, Breezin' makes me want to breeze my way out of any room in which it is playing.

2) Larry - not sure if we are disagreeing or not. Certainly many great things, artistically-speaking, have come from middle class sources. But I do believe they tend to come as a form of resistance, though that resistance, and its dynamic, can vary. And I also note, ironically or not, that certain aspects of the middle class - standards of education, intellectual query, at least as I experienced them - are integral to not only my own being but to the survival and persistance of certain musical and literary movements.. But this may take another thread entirely (or a book)-

No, we're not disagreeing, but I think the middle class' penchant for turning critically upon itself needs to be taken into account, and I'm not sure that it's wholly a form of resistance --rather, off the top of my head, it's a kind of semi-unconscious collaborative effort that keeps the whole shebang rolling along.

[Pete C]

Well, I agree with Allen 100% regarding Lou Donaldson.

However, I find the whole question of authenticity in black music (and that category includes white players playing black music), along with its assumptions about class, is a slippery slope full of questionable assumptions that I had thought were put to rest ages ago. I also think that third parties judging the "authenticity" of other artists is just plain bad form. I'm not talking about aesthetic judgments, I'm talking about something that almost takes on a dimension of moral reprobation.

[fasstrack]

Well I LOVE Breezin'. It's a class act that presents the hollow-body w/o pedals or distortion. The pop elements are never cheesy. And George didn't have to sing even. This Masquerade is a bitch, though. Show me where on 70s commercial radio there was a piano solo as musical or with the feeling of what Jorge Dalto did with that. Funny thing: I played in Jaki Byard's NY Apollo Stompers in the mid-80s. He was always making the guitar the commercial sacrificial lamb and I wasn't feelin' it, hangin' with C. Sharpe, Tommy Turrentine, and other partners in crime. Thought I was too hip for This Masquerade when Jaki made me play it on a gig. But at least I KNEW it, unlike the bassist, who kept playing the changes for the 3rd and 4th bars in the 1st and 2nd. And talk about an attitude! People change and grow up though. I'm a melodist and I don't care who wrote or played 'em if they work for me. Yeah, George! Helping save the world from the pretentious self-absorption of MethenyWinkle.

[AllenLowe]

"however, I find the whole question of authenticity in black music (and that category includes white players playing black music), along with its assumptions about class, is a slippery slope full of questionable assumptions that I had thought were put to rest ages ago. I also think that third parties judging the "authenticity" of other artists is just plain bad form. I'm not talking about aesthetic judgments, I'm talking about something that almost takes on a dimension of moral reprobation. "

I make no assumptions about class, I only note that it is often a factor; and "moral reprobation" depends on other things. There is something somewhat unethical about an artist deliberately doing something opposed to his principles; problem is figuring out what, if any, those principles are.

As for authenticity, I am not talking about black versus white, but rather in all things creative. As I said earlier, I believe it's a legitimate consideration, but the problem is criteria. Mitt is inauthentic, as I (almost) said; the problem with authenticity arguments is not the attempt at determination but avoiding past abuses, those things that have been done in the name of authenticity (for instance, many of the intellectual crimes of the multicultural movement).

However, everyone has that moment, that flash of light, that tells them, in the moment, that "this is it." I had it when I heard Muddy Waters at Newport in 1969. And I remember standing next to Roswell Rudd on stage one night maybe 20 years ago when he let out the most beautiful blast of music I'd ever heard. Loren Schoenberg looked over at me and said, "Now that's the real thing" and I knew exactly what he meant - let us say, to quote Peter Handke, that it was "a moment of true feeling." For me, that's the best definition of authenticity.

Edited April 16, 2012 by AllenLowe

[Pete C]

Artistic "principles" are not static.

[JSngry]

I think the only authenticity one needs to really be concerned with is that of one's own life.

That's pretty much a full time job right there, although there is room for recreation and light entertainment in the off hours. See your manager for details.

[Larry Kart]

I think the only authenticity one needs to really be concerned with is that of one's own life....

Which of course has little or no connection with the authenticity of the lives of other people let alone the authenticity of the lives of other groups of people, such as they may be.

"No man is an island...'

[fasstrack]

When I heard Charlie Christian at around 17 ('I learned the truth at 17') and that was an 'it' moment. Other influences followed, some lasting, others less so. But as that core formed Stevie Wonder came out w/Music of My Mind and Talking Book, Donny Hathaway-Roberta Flack had Where is the Love. I still love and play all of it, 7 Come 11 to Superwoman. I think jazz players of my generation that don't have R&B or pop influences must've been hermetically sealed. Not sure if Funk or Wagnall were involved. But there was so much good music-jazz, pop, and more-to have as formative influences then that born-again jazzers older than 50 and snotty about pop just amuse me. I feel bad for them. As far as motivations/black/white, etc. we're getting into tricky and cerebral territory and IMO the land of Not All That Useful. Though different for each, there either is something real in music, something skillful, unique-or not. More often not, but we're dreamers here, aren't we? Can't we leave the parsing to the parsers?

[JSngry]

I think the only authenticity one needs to really be concerned with is that of one's own life....

Which of course has little or no connection with the authenticity of the lives of other people let alone the authenticity of the lives of other groups of people, such as they may be.

"No man is an island...'

You can't worry somebody else into or out of "authenticity". That's for them to do themselves, if they become so concerned.

As far as "authentic feelings", geesh, there's a job for a new breed of thought police.

[AllenLowe]

well, we all make judgments on a regular basis. Otherwise we would sit at home, never vote, never do what we consider to be the right things, never make any attempts at personal growth.

[JSngry]

sit at home, never vote, never do what we consider to be the right things, never make any attempts at personal growth.

Now that's middle class!

Except when it's not...

[ValerieB]

ok; the problems of going to sleep. Valerie came back and made fun of me. But that's ok.

just to set the record straight, Allen, the only problem i have is with your saying you have never and would never listen to "Speak Like a Child" because of the title. talk about biased and closed-mindedness. that was a big disappointment hearing that coming from your mouth. i always thought you were much more intelligent and hip to utter such words (and stand by them vehemently)!! i remain incredulous.

[7/4]

true colors!

[Larry Kart]

I think the only authenticity one needs to really be concerned with is that of one's own life....

Which of course has little or no connection with the authenticity of the lives of other people let alone the authenticity of the lives of other groups of people, such as they may be.

"No man is an island...'

You can't worry somebody else into or out of "authenticity". That's for them to do themselves, if they become so concerned.

As far as "authentic feelings", geesh, there's a job for a new breed of thought police.

Again -- no man is an island. "Authenticity," as dubious a term as that might be, is not only an individual matter but also one of the individual in relation to his social surroundings, such as they may be. And no one (at least not me) said anything about worrying "somebody else into or out of" it.