Herbie Hancock's science

In China on tour, the veteran iconic jazz pianist continues to expand the genre's musical vocabulary, Zhang Kun reports in Shanghai.

American jazz master Herbie Hancock tours China this weekend, giving concerts in Beijing's MasterCard Center on Saturday and Shanghai's Mercedes-Benz Arena today. This is the first time Hancock has brought his own band to perform in China, though he has played in Shanghai and Beijing before.

The 73-year-old iconic jazz pianist has been active in the music scene since the 1960s, when he was in Miles Davis' Second Great Quintet. Hancock has won 14 Grammy awards and an Academy Award.

"Herbie Hancock is always making new sounds in the new age, with the latest technology, equipment and methods," says You Dai, a renowned radio DJ. "He has proved jazz is a music that keeps developing, integrating new sounds and expanding its vocabulary in every new era."

Hancock started as a child prodigy of classical music. When he was in high school, he heard a classmate performing jazz and was fascinated. "It was really the first time I opened myself up to really listening to it and I liked it," he tells Chinese media in a telephone interview prior to the tour.

Hancock chose to study engineering rather than music in college. "I didn't know I could get a job as a musician, so I took the easy way." But two years later, he realized he was spending most of his time on jazz rather than science, and changed his major to music.

"I never thought there would be a way to combine my interest in music with my interest in science, until synthesizers came along and computers eventually," Hancock says. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace music synthesizers and funk music, and has many crossover songs.

Miles Davis recognized the talent in Hancock when he was 23, and handpicked him to play the piano in the rhythm section of his Second Great Quintet. The group is known as one of the best jazz ensembles, and the rhythm section won especially high praise.

Miles was a major influence not only as a musician, but also as a human being, Hancock says.

"You know at that age you are like a sponge that soaks up so many things. One thing I noticed about Miles is that he was a great listener. I could tell from his plan that he was listening to me. He was listening to the drummer, he was listening to the bass player and responding, shaping his improvised solo for whatever he was hearing from us, from our own ideas of course," he says.

"When we were accompanying Miles, there was so much unity and that was due to the fact that he was listening and trusted me.

"And also he didn't judge what we played. He didn't say, 'I don't like what you are doing', unless we were copying something or just playing for applause or practicing something in our room that would draw applause He was really true to the real essence of what jazz is all about."

In the past few years Hancock joined hands with Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang in a series of international concerts, playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Bernstein's Tonight (from Westside Story) in an arrangement for two pianos and an orchestra, as well as classical hits, such as Brahms' Hungarian Dance No 5.

"We just really connected with each other very well. Even that very first meeting (in 2008, at the Grammy Awards), it just went so well." Hancock says. He describes the relationship with the much younger classical musician as "more like brothers", though "I'm generations older than he is".

Hancock says Lang "is very much of an influence to me I learned (there's) a lot more freedom in playing classical music than I thought".

Lang recently posted a picture of himself with Hancock on weibo, China's Twitter-like micro blog, calling on jazz lovers in China not to miss the unforgettable music experience of Hancock's tour in China.

"Herbie Hancock is a jazz legend," says Michael Craig Enoch, general manager of the Mercedes-Benz Arena. "There are few artists in the music industry who have had more influence on acoustic and electronic jazz and R&B."

Hancock's band consists of bassist James Genus, guitarist Lionel Loueke and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta.

Contact the writer at zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn.