You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our 7 Favorite Herbie Hancock Albums

Episode Date: June 5, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam list their 7 favorite Herbie Hancock albums. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Manus. You're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Today we're going to give you seven of our favorite Herbie Hancock albums. I believe it's pronounced Herbert Hancock. Actually, I believe it's pronounced Herbert Jeffrey Hancock. All right, we're getting a little too formal for Herbie, I think.

Herbie Hancock born in a little trivia, throw it out there. Are we talking about year or place? Well, year and place. Was he born in Chicago? Chicago, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. not sure the year, though. 1940.

Nice. Yep. All right. We love Herbie here. That's why his name comes up almost every episode. I'm shocked that we haven't actually done this before, but maybe we have. I know. Would you say that he's probably like one of the most influential pianists in your, like, professional?

Yes. Yeah, I think he's the most in a way. It's definitely for me. Yeah. And I'm a little bit ashamed to say that because there's so many other great players, but you can do a lot worse than Herbie Hacock. Yeah, I mean, his sound is just so cool, like, and it's still so relevant, and even all these records that we're about to list. Some of these are from, you know, the 60s, the early 60s, and they still sound fresh to me. Yeah, we're going to get to some later stuff, too, I think, but, I mean, for me, and it didn't even come directly from Herbie Hancock influencing me.

It actually came through Kenny Kirkland first, which led me back, because I saw Kenny Kirkland when I was real young live, and that was one of the things that really made me want to be a jazz pianist. I mean, I was into jazz a little bit before that, but like, you know, not like seeing something like that live where you're like, wait, I want to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, when I got to meet Kenny Kirkland, one of the first names of terms of records and stuff was check out Herbie Hancock. And I was like, yeah, I've heard of him, but I want to be like you. Yeah, he kind of laughed, you know. That's awesome. So let's jump right into it.

Why don't you start out with. Yeah, I'm going to kick it off with this. This is one of my favorite albums of all time. It's Made in Voyage, 1965, Blue Note Records. One of the greatest jazz albums ever made. This is such a cool. It's kind of minimalist vibe, and I don't know how this didn't make our minimalist album.

Even the album cover is minimalist and cool. Even the album cover is minimalist. This is such a cool album. Tunes like Maiden Voice title track, one of my favorite tunes. I have the Herda Cain, Little One, Dolphin Dance. I mean, these are all standards. It's kind of thematic, too, with the whole C.

He was into this idea for a couple of years. He was, yeah. We got Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, George Coleman on tenor. Ron Carter and Tony Williams. I think this is some of the best George Coleman point. He sounds so good on this album. Oh, it's awesome. But just this

whole vibe is it still feels fresh to me. I could listen to this tonight. I've heard it a million times. I think I'm going to listen to it tonight. You want to come over tonight? Let's do it. A little bourbon, little main voice. Hey, that's not a bad combination. So what about

what do you think in terms of, I know this is not the official thing for this podcast, but like if you had give somebody one Herbie Hancock album that had never heard. Or maybe they heard him, but they didn't, oh, I've always wanted to listen to some more. Where should I start? Well, you know, I always say it depends on the person. Yeah.

You know, but I would, this is definitely one I would start people with. That's cool, because I was thinking the same thing. I think I've actually done, I mean, this has definitely been one of just jazz records, period, I've given to people. It's so accessible. It sounds like jazz, but it's not hitting you over the head with a bunch of chord changes or, or, I mean, it's beautiful is what it is. And I love that it's a classic record and it's, you know, 50 plus years old now, but it's by an artist that you can still go see live and it's still

relevant. So I think it's, it kind of bridges the whole thing. Yeah, that's awesome. Good choice. Way to steal mine. Okay. All right, so I'm going to go in a little different direction to a record that maybe some folks haven't heard or haven't listened to recently, and that is M. Wan Dishi. And so M. Wandishi was, of course, the name of the band that Herbie ended up putting together, and, you know, they had great names, but it's like the foundation of it was Billy Hart. Jabali and Buster Williams. And, you know, this was, I don't think it was like Herbie's first fusion record or what they later called fusion records.

But to me, it's like kind of the first time he got into some long-form stuff that was not really just funk-based. I mean, Herbie's made, he's so many great influences and he was able to jump around so much. So I'm probably, you know, overly simplifying things. But, you know, he had a little bit bigger group, you know, Julian Pryster. Is that how you say the name? Priester, I guess, yeah. Trombone, Betty Maupin, of course, all that great, you know, flute and bass clarinet,

contra bass, whatever it was. Eddie Henderson, you know, he started to put together this nice little larger ensemble, although he certainly used some of that on, on Speak Like a Child, experimenting with that sound and interplayed with the piano. And I love this record. I mean, it's got, you know, these really long tracks on there. And I think it was repackaged later, which is what I actually heard it, with some of the Fat Albert Rotunda stuff. you know, which is a little bit of the more funky stuff with that same ensemble. But I love that period. I mean, I love headhunters as well, which is like right after.

Right after, yeah. Is it right after? It's right after. Yeah. This is such an interesting choice because this is not the most accessible Herbie. No. By stretch, but it's some of the best. It's not your first album to give someone.

No, but it's some of the best music. I mean, and it was really revolutionary in time. It was awesome stuff. Yeah, a lot of roads playing for Herbie. And it's interesting, you know, having read Herbie's autobiography recently, and he talks about this era and sort of like, like the wanting to kind of do their own thing. Even if they would go and audiences would not,

a lot of audiences wouldn't understand this at all. Or a lot of audiences would be too high. Exactly, as I was I said, the only audience that understood it was smoking weed, which is most of it. And a lot of, I mean, this album, I would say, has a little bit more rock influences, although this is always an oversimplification,

but a little bit more rock than funk wherein headhunters. That's oversimplified, though. But it's something to listen for. It's hard to classify this one. It is. It's great. Well, I'm going to go for number three. I'm going to go, this is a little bit maybe a lesser known pick.

And this is sort of towards the late Headhunters era. And this is secrets. Now, this is a record that this was kind of my introduction to that Headhunter's sound. Yeah. I hadn't heard Headhunters. I hadn't heard any of the other ones. And a friend gave me this tape when I was, I think, a junior, sophomore, junior in high school or something. And it was just on repeat in my car for.

a year. And I didn't know the names of any of the songs. You know, it was one of those things. It was like a blank tape. Remember getting those? Yeah, yeah. And it was amazing. So this is from 1976. This is Herbie's playing a ton of different you know, like synths and

you know, it's got the ARP Odyssey and the clavinet and the Oberheim and all this stuff. Benny Moppin, we have Paul Jackson on bass, James Gatson on drums on one track, and James Levi on drums on everything else. Wawa Watson, who's the guitarist. Oh my God.

It's so killing on this record. I mean, just makes it. And if you haven't checked this out deep, some of the stuff on here is so sick. Doing it, the title track, The Spider, which is track 4, is like the most unbelievable epic song. Gentle Thoughts.

It's all so good, man. This is taking me back, actually, to high school. This is great. Yeah. You went to high school in the early 70s? Mid-70s? No, man. Late 90s, but that was...

If you were going around high ridge and you heard a, Herbie's doing it, bumping out of an S-10, that's me. Nice. Okay, so we're up to, what are we up to? Number one, two, three, four. Yeah, yeah. Right. Okay. I'm going to go, you know, this is good.

We're kind of jumping around chronologically with Speak Like a Child. Nice. This is a little later than, I guess just a couple of years after Maiden Voyage, but a pretty different sound. But Maiden Voyage and this, I always kind of connect those too because they're very, just pleasing to listen to and just sit and they make sense from beginning to end. And this is another one. I think that's a good recommendation to someone as a first record for Herbie, you know, a little bit more accessible.

But he's starting to, you know, some of the stuff he did with Mwandishi in terms of the instrumentation and arrangement and how the, you know, a little bit unorthodox instrumentation, you know, with the flute and the Stad Jones is on here. And then I can't, I know it's Ron Carter. I want to say Mickey Roker. Yeah, I think. But I don't know if he's on the whole record, but I know he's on there.

Trombone, you know, like just some nice instrumentation, nice interplay with the piano. And then, you know, this is really from right in that era when he was, I don't remember exactly where it lays, but it's definitely he was playing with Miles and really playing. This is sort of some reserve playing compared to what they were doing, like Plug Nickel, a lot of the live stuff that I heard with Miles around that period. So I think it's a great record, cool cover, the whole thing. That's awesome. For number five, I'm going to go with kind of around that era a little bit before, and that's Imperian Isles, 1964.

Again, just one of the great jazz records of all time. So that's before Main Voice. I always think about them as the other way around. I know. I know. No, this was right before Made in Voyage. This is, and this doesn't have George Coleman. This is Herbie, Freddie, Hubbard, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams.

Just quartet. One finger snap. Freddy's killing it. You know, a lot of people think that that melody is. Herbie's melody. That's just the first chorus of Freddy's solo. I always thought it was like, yeah, yeah. We used to play it like that. But it's kind of become the de facto melody of the tune. Right. Well, I remember when they, when they had the, when the Blue Note revival kind of late 80s or maybe even mid 80s, I was still in high school and they, you know, Blue Note was coming back and they brought the label back and they reissued stuff and CDs were just coming out. And I'd heard this on LP. I had it on LP. And then when they did the CD, they had two versions, like an alternate version of that tune

of one-finger snap. And it's killing also. It's just as killing as the main one. But you're like, where's the melody? I was like, where's the melody? I was like, oh, I see why they didn't use it because Freddie forgot the melody. But he had another killing melody on it. It's how melodic of a player, Freddie Hubbard is. It's amazing. That's good. Yeah, so

Aliloquie Valley, Caneloop Island, which was kind of a hit, but then even, I'm sure, made Herbie a bunch of money in the 90s when I got sampled a million times, you know. Flip Fantasia. That's right. Yeah. One of my favorite albums ever. I mean, all of these are. That's the thing with Herbie albums, man. I know. It's like I'm such a fanboy.

Like, they're all my favorite. Yeah. Well, we're doing the seven best. We could do the seven wars. That would be dark. The, there are, yeah. He didn't really have seven. I mean, he has lesser ones, kind of, but pretty high level. Because he didn't always record. You know, he's not one of these. And he recorded, but like, you always get the feeling there was a reason when he made records. It wasn't

just like, oh, I got a record. I need some money. Yeah, yeah. So I wanted to jump up because it's always easy to get stuck in the classic periods. And he so many classic periods, but I'm a big believer in Herbie's, not a believer, just acknowledger of his current relevancy. So I wanted to do next, River, the Joni letters. And now that I always think about this was just recorded, but it's like mid, I don't

know, 2007, 2008 around that time. So it's 10 years old now, but definitely from the sort of modern era of the way that Herbie makes records and has really interesting guests. And to me, what he's got into now is just these, their theme records kind of, but really interesting. And like he's never afraid to like leave the reservation on a theme. So this is supposed to be the music of Joni Mitchell, but he's got solitude, like a Duke of Lincoln standard. That he plays in a really modern way that's not at all Joni Mitchellish, but is really fits in with everything else that's happening there. So I love that.

And then, you know, he does that great version with Wayne Short of Nefertiti, which is, I guess that's Wayne's tune, or is that, yeah, that's, is that Wayne's tune? I think it is, yeah, yeah. How great is that, by the way, that those guys are still, like, playing together. Playing and exploring. Yeah. No, actually, they hate each other. They hate each other.

They play like friends, which is great. But there's some really, like, you know, interesting collabs. Do we call them collabs? Well, you do. Because we don't have time to say collaboration. Call them that. But I think my favorite on there is the Tina Turner, you know. That's cool.

Edith in a kingpin. And like every time somebody, not every time, but many times over the last 10 year, somebody comes to my house. I was a big early adopter in Sonos, you know, a little plug out to our friends at Sonos. A little Sonos sponsorship. That could be a good sponsorship for you. Let me just put that out into the universe for the you'll hear of pocket. I have to say that I was a way, I'll tell the story at another time, but I was a very early

adopter with the company way back to 2006. Nice. I'm OG with Sonos, you know. And but I would always pull. up and especially before people knew what it was, they were so impressed like, man, you have this thing where you can pull up all this music. Now it's, you know, there's a lot of different systems. But I would play this track. I was like, check out this track. I was like, this Herbie Hancock track off one, you know, it's kind of new a record. Because a lot of people don't just, they're not as in tune to these new releases. And I was like, check this out, this vocalist out. And like, they would normally could, even if I didn't say Herbie, they could guess Herbie's playing because it's Herbie. But, but I was like, who do you think that is singing? And I have no idea. When I'd say it's Tina Turner, they were shocked. Yeah, yeah. You know, because it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, she has such a distinctive voice, but somehow the placement on that track is just hard to tell that it's her. Once you hear it's her, you're like, oh, yeah, of course, it's Tina Turner.

But I think it's just genius. I mean, it could have been just a disaster, you know. You know, Herbie Hancock with Tina Turner. And this whole... Singing Joni Mitchell. I think Herbie's whole, like, kind of, if you want to call it, quote-unquote, third act of whatever, even from like the New Standard Era. You remember that record in the 90s?

I think that's what ushered it in, I would say. That's a great record, though. Are you going with that for number seven? No, I'm not. I mean, but that could be one. One Plus One, that duo record he made with Wayne. Amazing. I saw that live.

That two were unbelievable. And I think New Standard might have been right before that. So that kind of became the era of these theme, thoughtful theme records. That's a category there. Yeah. Thoughtful theme Herbie albums or just in general? Yeah. All right.

Well, no, that's not my number seven, although maybe we should do a whole other list. But my number seven. Seven Mo favorite. My number seven is thrust. If you haven't heard of thrust, this is to me, the pinnacle of Herbie's Headhunters era. I think it's one of the great records of the 1970s of any genre. Genre.

And this was a special record to me because I had a friend who had it on CD with like Japanese packaging. Yeah. And it wasn't in print in like 1998 in St. Louis. I couldn't find it in record stores. That's for all you kids out there, there was a time where you would hear about a record and you wouldn't be able to get it. You'll hear it, but you won't get it.

You won't get it. So I drove to Chicago and found this album in a record store on CD and brought it back. Not only was this before the Internet, this was apparently before the U.S. Postal Service as well. Yeah, I mean, I didn't know specifically I was going to get this, but I did drive up there and found it. And I mean, I had gone through crates in every record store I knew in St. Louis. That's awesome. Yeah. And when you got home with it,

I heard it. Okay. But that we can keep going. Oh, yeah, I was going to say that. Sorry. It's awesome. So the famous one is actual proof. This is one of his most famous, you know, compositions, recordings.

This is with Paul Jackson and Mike Clark as the rhythm section, iconic rhythm section. They also have Paul Jackson and Mike Clark. That's the headhunters. It's the headhunters, Tria, right. But they have the most iconic VHS instructional video. If you haven't seen it, I think some of it's on YouTube. But they literally just go, here's how you be funky and then they play for like 30 minutes and it's amazing yeah it is Mike

Clark and Paul Jackson yeah yeah and it is really really funky but they don't really explain much quick aside I met Paul Jackson Jr right is that his complete name is it yeah yeah yeah I met him on a flight to Japan nice and I you know knew him from the from the Herbie recordings but he had been living I don't know if he still does was living in Japan and he kind of came up to us he was like are you guys a man and we're like yeah and he's like i'm paul jackson we're like dame that was what's up yeah but all the tracks on this um palm grease actual proof of course butterflies also a oh man it's become a jam session the standard yeah spankalee don't sleep on spanklea the synth work in that is unbelievable so that this is one of my uh definitely one of my

all-time favorites yep good stuff all right um i think we covered it we we uh we just need to talk about the ratings are we Are we still pushing ratings? Are we backing off of that? Man, this is your thing. What do you want with the ratings? Well, I mean, I didn't say how many. I just said, are we still asking for them?

Well, we appreciate any ratings and reviews that you might put below here on the podcast. So we're not begging for them anymore. We're just appreciating them. We're just appreciating our listeners. Six, six, please. Six. Again, six is impossible, but if you had five, that'd be very much appreciated. And if you have any ideas for episodes, or you just want to leave us a message or tell Peter to stop begging.

for ratings you can always go to you'll hear it.com and leave us a message there either by voice or by print. Wait, can you print? Or by telegram or by carrier pigeon. By telex.

Give us a shout out if you remember telex. That's right. That's right. You don't remember that. I have no idea what you're talking about. No. T-E-L-E-S. What about facts? You don't know about that. I kind of know about facts. I never figured that. It's a facsimile. It's not the original. It's a fact simile. It's a fact simile. I'm down.

All right, well, you'll hear it.