E-mail a friendHerbie Hancock
original airdate February 13, 2008
Herbie Hancock is an icon of late 20th century modern music. He played with the jazz greats, including Miles Davis and Donald Byrd and went on to become an Oscar- and multiple Grammy-winning musician and composer. The Chicago native took up piano at age 7. Classically trained, he was performing Mozart with symphony orchestras by age 11. Hancock has scored a number of feature films and is devoted to several educational and philanthropic endeavors, including the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.
Jazz icon discusses winning the Grammy award for Album of the Year. (3:32)
Herbie Hancock
Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Herbie Hancock back to this program. The legendary jazz artist won, of course, the most coveted award at this year's Grammys - album of the year - for his terrific CD "River: The Joni Letters." The disc pays tribute to the work of his dear friend Joni Mitchell and includes collaborations with so many terrific artists. Here is some of the recording session for "River."
[Clip]
Tavis: Herbie, I am just tickled to death for your success.
Herbie Hancock: (Laughter) Oh, thank you - thanks, Tavis.
Tavis: The only thing cooler than this is you. (Laughter) Herbie Hancock is one of the coolest cats I've ever met. How cool is this, though?
Hancock: When my name was announced, I didn't even hear it. And all of a sudden I heard the word "River." And then it was like "What?" And then I turned around and looked at Larry Klein, who was the producer for the record, and I was speechless. And he said, "I think we won." (Laughter) And then I grabbed him and we were just crying right there before we walked on the stage. It was the most amazing feeling I've ever felt. It was surreal. I couldn't even - my feet - I was walking, but I don't know how.
Tavis: Just kind of levitating, huh?
Hancock: Yeah.
Tavis: I've seen so much commentary since Sunday, so much commentary since the awards program about what this really means, and there have been all kinds of commentary about the Academy patting itself on the back for giving an award to - it's certainly a great album, but patting itself on the back for coming around to jazz.
It's been 43, 46 years since this last happened. You're only the second time it's ever happened where a jazz album wins. All the commentary out there, how do you - how does Herbie properly contextualize what this win for jazz and for Herbie means
Hancock: Well, I seriously had to think about that, because I've felt that if I were to deserve that award, it had to be for something that's bigger than just me. Otherwise, it's just ego. I have Grammys. Look, I'm 67 years old. Over a period of four and a half decades I'm fortunate enough to have Grammys at home. So it was important to me to have clearly a purpose that was larger than just me receiving the award because of the significance of it, which you mentioned.
It's the second time in 50 years. So I just had to solidify the fact that if I were to win this award, this would be a win for jazz, which is not only just the music that I personally love, but it's the music that represents the heart of America. And really, I believe the heart of the spirit of the human being because the music contains characteristics that are the best of what a human being has to offer, which is that it's nonjudgmental, that it's about sharing, not about competition.
That it's about being in the moment, and it's totally creative, and also the music is eclectic, and it borrows from other genres of music, and it lends itself to other genres of music. And there are just so many characteristics that really talk about the human spirit. So I wanted to win so that people would begin to pay attention to this music which I think is a great music.
Tavis: Which raises - I didn't want to interrupt you for one second because I wanted you to get all of that out because I wanted to hear every bit of it, because I knew that when you finished I wanted to ask this question.
Hancock: All right.
Tavis: Which is having said all of that so beautifully, why it is that jazz, the only music art form that we have created in America and given to the world, how is it that this music is so sparingly rewarded, celebrated?
Hancock: Well for one thing I think because in this country there's so much attention to the quick, the short-term view, the fast food. What's right in front of your face, the immediate gratification, that kind of thing. And jazz has a long history and a very long future. And it's not the music of just the moment. It has evolved to become a music that really has set high standards, and people like to take the easy way all the time.
Jazz is not just about the easy way, it's about having the courage to explore territory that you don't know. Listen to things that you haven't heard, not just what's familiar.
Tavis: I got a clip from your friend.
Hancock: But in Europe -
Tavis: Yeah, in Europe, very different story.
Hancock: - and in Japan -
Tavis: Yeah, they love it.
Hancock: - they love it. It's a whole different story.
Tavis: In a moment I want to play a clip here from your friend Joni Mitchell, who sat in this very same chair not long ago on this program. We talked about you, Joni, we had a good conversation. Before I show that clip, though, I want to ask how this project came to be. And even before I do that - I'm all over the place - before I do that, the morning of the Grammys, this CD on Amazon.com was where. The morning of the show, it was where?
Hancock: Somewhere around 7,000.
Tavis: Around 7,000 the morning of the show. Sunday morning when you woke up, it was like 7,000.
Hancock: Right.
Tavis: Monday, the day after the show, it was where?
Hancock: Number one.
Tavis: Number one. (Laughter)
Hancock: And it's still number one.
Tavis: You went from 7,000 - see, you keep this up, you going to sell what Kanye's been selling. (Laughter) What do you make of the fact that before you won this thing had sold roughly 55,000 copies, Kanye had done like two million, and you go from 7,000 to one? I think it speaks to the power of the Grammys and the beauty of the music.
Hancock: Well, thank you, I hope so. I hope so. But I guess there are tons of people that never heard of this record.
Tavis: Obviously.
Hancock: (Laughter) And many of them have never heard of me. Or if they have heard of me, they thought maybe I haven't been doing anything in many years, and I've still been recording, I've still been touring. And for all of a sudden in the press they see "River," Herbie Hancock, the album of the year, and they're wondering "What?"
They have to see what is this about? And so they're buying it so they can hear the music. Hopefully they'll like it.
Tavis: Yeah, Herbie said, "I've been doing stuff since "Rock It," y'all. (Laughter) That ain't the last time.
Hancock: By the way, that was my first Grammy.
Tavis: "Rock It" was?
Hancock: Yes.
Tavis: That was the first one?
Hancock: That was the first one.
Tavis: Wow.
Hancock: I had been in the business 20 years already.
Tavis: Before you got that one.
Hancock: Yeah.
Tavis: Yeah.
Hancock: How long has Kanye been in the business? (Laughter)
Tavis: He got time, doesn't he?
Hancock: Oh, he's got plenty of time. He's got plenty (unintelligible).
Tavis: He got plenty of talent and plenty of time.
Hancock: Absolutely.
Tavis: All right, Jonathan, show me that clip of our friend Joni Mitchell on this program not too long ago.
"Tavis Smiley:" How do you process that, when you said you can't imagine you'd ever play with Herbie, here Herbie is now covering your stuff but he's just one of so many people that have covered your stuff over the years.
"Joni Mitchell:" Well, Herbie and Wayne and I are old friends. We've spent New Year's - there was a restaurant or a bar called The Nucleus Nuance and our families, we had New Year's together. It was Herbie's sister and my parents. So we go back, so that's more - there's a comfortability there and a friendliness.
Hancock: That's nice that she mentioned my sister. My sister actually died in a plane crash in 1985, so this was before that.
Tavis: What do you make of the fact then that you don't just win, but you bring along with you - they celebrate this as well. Wayne Shorter and Joni Mitchell and Tina and all the folk who are on the - Norah - all the folk who are on the project.
Hancock: Wayne's my secret weapon. (Laughs)
Tavis: That's a good weapon to have. (Laughs)
Hancock: Yeah, yeah. I always steal Wayne Shorter from the Wayne Shorter Band. (Laughter) It's his band but I steal him from his own band. He's amazing, and Joni worships Wayne. So do I. And Norah Jones was amazing. Tina, who's ever heard Tina sound like this? This is a whole different side of Tina Turner that's never been exposed before.
Tavis: When you and I were discussing this on the radio program some weeks ago - this is before your win - you were in the radio studio with me on our radio program on PRI and you made the point that because of what you do, because of the instrument that you play, you really hadn't given notice to Joni's lyrics until you did this project. And when you did this project you then started to focus in on the lyrics, and what do you make of her stuff, her writing?
Hancock: Well first of all, I always want to have a specific purpose in doing a record, a particular challenge for me, because I don't want to just make a record. I can make a record. That's not what I want to do. I want to make something that in some way will challenge me some way I'll learn something.
And so because I have such a deep respect for Joni - she's like a real renaissance person. She's a wonderful painter in addition to being a great poet and songwriter, and she's directed films, she recently wrote a ballet -
Tavis: A ballet, a ballet, yeah.
Hancock: Right. And plus she's a fighter, and she stands up for what she believes in and she's always supporting social issues. So I really admire her. But this gave me a chance to challenge one of the weaknesses that many of us jazz musicians have, which is we never pay attention to lyrics. But what a great opportunity I had.
It doesn't get better than Joni Mitchell.
Tavis: Not much better.
Hancock: Right, and I know that her lyrics are really the driving force for her music. So I felt that if I really wanted to justice to her music I had to make the words be the engine for our rendition of her music. So I tried to think of how many ways can I make that happen? So one of the things, for example, we did was we wrote out the lyrics for each of the members of the band when we were doing the tracks, and I handed that to them.
We'd sit in the engineer's booth and we would all discuss the lyrics for about 10 or 15 minutes before we recorded it.
Tavis: That's a deep concept, Herbie. (Laughter) I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall because if you bring the band into the booth and you're sitting around and every one of them has a copy of Joni's stuff in their hands and they're reading it and dissecting it and discussing it and then they go play it, you were supposed to win album of the year (laughter) after you did all of that, man.
Hancock: Yeah, well, I treated it seriously. I always treat every record really seriously. I think about is something that I want to share with someone, something that - I want to learn something from it myself, and I also want to share the spirit of the lyrics, the spirit of the process of putting the record together, and just the feeling that goes into creating that particular rendering of the music, and I want to share that with other people. So it requires a real determination to do your very best.
Tavis: And he always does just that, his very best. And he, this time, did better than his best, (laughter) so much so that he was awarded, as you know, just days ago the album of the year. It's called "River: The Joni Letters" by the one and the only Herbie Hancock, who we could not be prouder of. Congratulations again, Herbie.
Hancock: Thank you. By the way, I chanted three hours a day for about a week and a half -
Tavis: Getting ready for this.
Hancock: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was determined.
Tavis: You can take a break now. You can take a break now.
Hancock: Not yet. (Laughter)
Tavis: Everybody else is chanting now - they're chanting for Herbie Hancock and "River: The Joni Letters."
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