Herbie Hancock – Goodbye to Chilhood (Piano transcription)
Herbie Hancock
Jazz pianist, Herbie Hancock, was born on April 12, 1940 in Chicago. He attended Grinnell College and Roosevelt University. At the age of seven he began to play the piano and at eleven he gave a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for young performers. His interest in jazz was sparked by listening to records by Oscar Peterson and George Shearing.
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In 1962, he signed his first recording contract for Blue Note with Donald Byrd. The label’s producers upon hearing him play offered to record in his name and the pianist responded with the album “Takin ‘Off” which included his first great composition entitled “Watermelon Man”.
For one season and independently he was with the Eric Dolphy quintet (1962-1963) and in 1963 he joined the Miles Davis quintet. He was with the trumpeter until 1968 and became without a doubt Davis’ main musical support. Parallel to his training with Davis, Herbie Hancock recorded a series of magnificent albums for Blue Note, the most notable of which was entitled “Maiden Voyage”, a masterpiece of jazz piano.
He combined various electronic techniques with piano acoustics creating the jazz-fusion style with his own band in the early 1970s. The resulting album of all that music was entitled “Headhunters” which became the best-selling fusion album of all time until its publication.
Hancock mixed styles and resources such as pop, hard-rock, synthesized disco, music dubbing techniques, and mix editing. He had the idea of bringing together all the musicians who had been with Miles Davis and formed a band called: “VSOP” with notable critical and public success. During the eighties he discovered scratch music, based on an original rhythmic effect of rap, and together with his new group, the Rockit Band, explored the rhythms of contemporary urban music.
His single “Rockit” was number one on the charts and won a Grammy for best instrumental recording. Hancock won an Oscar from the Hollywood Academy (1987) for the original soundtrack of the film: “Round Midnight” (Around midnight) by the French director, Bertrand Tavernier directed in 1986.