Herbie Hancock, unlike Miles, has never been afraid to revisit his back catalogue and this Sunday\u2019s concert in Manchester was a trip down memory lane.\u00a0 However, as we know, revisiting is usually rather more than revamping.<\/p>\n
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This evening\u2019s concert started with \u2018Actual Proof\u2019 from Hancock\u2019s second Headhunters\u2019 album, Thrust, And for a while in there it seemed as though Hancock had found a rhythm section to rival the Michael Clark\/Paul Jackson combination that drove the Headhunters into superstardom.\u00a0 Terence Blanchard\u2019s current drummer, Kendrick Scott and bass player James Genus move this group as though from the heart itself. And, as Hancock himself said, Scott is very much a listening drummer, moving through the dynamics with ease and virtuosity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The concert moved onto a combination of a reworking of the classic \u2018Speak Like a Child\u2019 and Wayne Shorter\u2019s \u2018The Visitor\u2019.\u00a0 Hancock has always been able to write in such away that the theme and its framework seem to ease themselves away from their mooring and float, taking the group and the soloists with them. The soloists here were Blanchard\u2019s trumpet and the harmonica of Swiss-born Gregoire Maret, and this instrumentation combined with Hancock\u2019s Korg floated the tunes from silky lyricism towards a free atmospherics.\u00a0 Blanchard is a trumpeter very much in the Miles mould, alternating short stabbing phrases with soaring runs into the higher registers to give a sense of real authority and strength. Maret is a virtuosic harmonica player who is perhaps still finding the way to swing in this company. In Benin-born guitarist Lionel Louete, Hancock has found guitar player who blends the influences of the West African guitarists with the contemporary sound of a John Schofield.<\/p>\n
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And it is the tension with swing that often underlines Hancock\u2019s bands. There were times when this band seemed to re-echo Miles\u2019 Jack Johnson sessions, with a charged darkness that seemed to open a gap beneath itself. It wasn\u2019t really until the leader himself sat to play \u2018April in Paris\u2019 as an acoustic solo that the \u2018melody, logic and soul\u2019, that Julian Joseph sees in Hancock\u2019s playing, really shone through. After that things took off; and we were treated to an opulent version of the original \u2018Watermelon Man\u2019, and finally, a twenty minute encore of \u2018Chameleon\u2019.\u00a0 It was then that we were truly in the presence of the man who had achieved his ambition \u2013 to out-groove Sly and the Family Stone.<\/p>\n
Ian Pople<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Herbie Hancock, unlike Miles, has never been afraid to revisit his back catalogue and this Sunday\u2019s concert in Manchester was a trip down memory lane.\u00a0 However, as we know, revisiting is usually rather more than revamping. \u00a0 This evening\u2019s concert started with \u2018Actual Proof\u2019 from Hancock\u2019s second Headhunters\u2019 album, Thrust, And for a while in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n