Herbie Hancock Quotes

In 2014, my friend Herbie Hancock was invited to give the prestigious Norton Lectures at Harvard University, where he shared great insights on the topics of mentorship and changing poison into medicine. Herbie related lessons from his jazz mentor, Miles Davis, who taught him that “a great mentor can provide a path to finding your own true answers,” and to always “reach up while reaching down; grow while helping others.

Life is not about finding your limitations; it's about finding your infinity.

I don't look at music from the standpoint of being a musician; I look at it from the standpoint of being a human being.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language

I think there's a great beauty to having problems. That's one of the ways we learn

Don’t be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That’s where the joy and the adventure lie.

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music

Man, why don’t you practice?” Tony would ask, as if there was nothing strange about a teenage drummer lecturing the greatest jazz trumpeter of his generation, a man old enough to be his father.

There is no such thing as art," he said. "There is only this painting, this piece of music, that sculpture. And it either resonates with you or it doesn't." He paused for a moment and then added, "There is no such thing as art, there are only works." ... In those two moments, Antonioni taught me something profound.

Jazz is about being in the moment.

I wonder where she came from, I wonder where she's gotta go. Who's to say she's single and who's to say she's on her own... Girls like that don't sleep alone

BOP / SOUL JAZZ: RECOMMENDED LISTENING Cannonball Adderley, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” October 20, 1966 Art Blakey, “Moanin’,” October 30, 1958 Clifford Brown and Max Roach, “Sandu,” February 25, 1955 Art Farmer and Benny Golson, “Killer Joe,” February 6–10, 1960 Herbie Hancock, “Cantaloupe Island,” June 17, 1964 Lee Morgan, “The Sidewinder,” December 21, 1963 Wayne Shorter, “Witch Hunt,” December 24, 1964 Horace Silver, “Señor Blues,” November 10, 1956 Jimmy Smith, “Midnight Special,”April 25, 1960

There's a thread, now, that connects us, and that thread is Miles Davis. It's... I don't even know how to put it into words, but it's like, once you've been touched by Miles you're changed forever. But what you change to is more of who you really are...

Fifteen years had passed since I first learned to improvise by copying George Shearing records. From the beginning, the goal was to move beyond imitation and find my own voice, and I felt that that was finally happening. Miles had been the guiding light to my growth, encouraging all of us in the band to develop our own styles of playing, and during my five and a half years in the quintet I did start to develop my own sound. But it wasn’t until I got out on my own that I felt I could really explore it. Now that I had my own sextet, I started thinking analytically about what actually goes on within a jazz group. At every moment onstage players are making choices, and each choice affects every other member of the group. So each player has to be prepared to change directions at any given moment—just as Miles did when I played that “wrong” chord onstage a few years earlier. Everybody in a jazz ensemble has learned the basic framework of harmony and scales and how they fit. They know the basic song structure of having the rhythm section—piano, bass, and drums—playing together while the horns carry the melody. But apart from those basics, jazz is incredibly broad. There are really uncountable ways of playing it. For the pianist alone there are so many choices to make: what pitch, how many notes, whether to play a chord or a line. I have ten fingers, and they’re in motion almost all the time, so all of those decisions must happen in an instant. I’m reacting to what the rest of the band is playing, but if I’m only reacting, then I’m not really making a choice; I’m just getting hit and being pushed along. Acting is making a choice, so all the players must be ready to act as well as react. The players have to be talented enough, and confident enough, to do both. I had watched Miles surround himself with amazing musicians and then give them the freedom to act.

In the 1960s he had scratched his jazz itch on 1965’s A Shot in the Dark, which sat alongside contemporary scores by Herbie Hancock (Blow Up), Neal Hefti (Barefoot in the Park), Quincy Jones (The Pawnbroker, In the Heat of the Night, In Cold Blood) and Lalo Schifrin (Bullitt).

Miles,” I said, confused, “am I in the band?” Miles turned to look at me, a hint of a smile on his face. “You makin’ a record, muthafucka!” he said. And then he was gone. That Tuesday, May 14, I went down to the CBS 30th Street Studio with the rest of the guys. We still had never really played the tunes for the record together, but Miles wasn’t interested in rehearsing. He just wanted us to play, with the tape recorders rolling, to capture whatever was going to happen. I later found out that this was the way Miles always recorded: He wanted to capture the first, most honest version of a song, even if there were mistakes in it. Miles believed that if you rehearse a song too much, you stifle the creative moment. Music was about spontaneity and discovery, and that’s what he tried to capture on his records. The first time the horns made it through the entire melody, that was the take that would be on the record. Miles didn’t waste words, and he didn’t waste time. In 1956, with his first quintet, he recorded four full records in one day—Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, and Steamin’—with just a few tracks added from an earlier session. He just went into the studio and played. When you record like that, it’s scary at first, but then it sharpens you up. You’re forced to go in with confidence, because you know you just have to do it.

It’s funny that because a lot of old jazz is being sampled now, you are finding a lot of young kids, a lot of scenesters and clubgoers, who are getting praise, laurels and dates with women because they listen to people like Herbie Hancock. In my day, listening to Herbie Hancock would have gotten you beaten up.

His favorite Herbie Hancock, 'Someday My Prince Will Come'." I'm no prince, but when I'm buried inside Ivory, I will always come.

I showed her the Mobb Deep song “Shook Ones Part II” in the first days or weeks when we got together. Now, all of a sudden, she was excited, showing me a video of some pool party where the crowd was puzzled when the DJ played a little childlike tune with very few notes and sounds. Until they recognized the sampled song being played with the original piano tune of Herbie Hancock underneath, called “Jessica”, she was acting like she was teaching me something or something I didn't know beforehand. She was acting like she was smarter than me, or as if I didn't know anything about music, hip hop, or rap. It was very odd. Who could have shown her that track, that video, and Herbie Hancock? I wondered. So, I played the next song myself - Bob Marley's “Forever Loving Jah”. Then, she played Jonathan Richmann's “Something about Mary”. So, I played the song “Jah is One” from Mosh Ben Ari and certain members of Shotei Hanevua to see her reaction to Israeli reggae music. So she played Notorious BIG and the Junior Mafia’s song: “Get money.” She was singing the chorus shaking her boot. Then I played Tupac Shakur's “Hit 'Em Up.” She played Notorious BIG’s song “Juicy.” So I played his song called “Somebody Gotta Die.” She then played the Moldy Peaches, „We are not those kids, sitting on the couch” So I played Mad Child's “Night Vision” to see if she knew it.