Herbie Hancock Quotes (173 Quotes)


    It's a statement of our position, which is that we are not making this record in order to honor technology we're not slaves to that, we don't want to be slaves to that.

    So, he taught me how to play a simple riff and I somehow found a couple of other notes to play, then I learned how to watch his left hand and I learned where the notes were.


    Music is the tool to express life - and all that makes a difference.

    We are eternally linked not just to each other but our environment.


    I hope to do more movie scores, I hope to do more work in the orchestral setting, some more tours that are more in the line that classical musicians play.

    From '70 to '73 I'd had a sextet, but the band was not self-supporting and I couldn't afford it, so I broke it up. And then I didn't know what kind of music I wanted to do, because I was just fed up to here with it. It wasn't fulfilling anymore.

    I just wish more attention could be placed on the human being.

    It was interesting putting this record together, because I was putting it together with musicians who claim that I was a big influence on the music they're making now.

    And it's also made me aware that music isn't about music.


    It's primitive now, but when you get to the point where you could see someone's face on your screen while you perform with them, that's a step in the right direction.

    Over the years I've made decisions about things, especially music, and have been scoffed at and ridiculed and opposed, but I knew I had to do these things.

    The concept of improvisation is an idea that's very close to my heart, but I can manifest that in a lot of different genres. It really comes from a jazz sensibility.

    And I don't always talk about music, and I don't always play music, and I don't always think about music.


    What's music supposed to be about anyway Is it a means for a musician to masturbate, or is it for people to listen to

    When you try to define a purity as being something that's closed and limited, you're not talking about the music that I play called jazz.

    Now we see that we have to pay attention to the environment. We have to protect it. It's become a real issue and a lot of people are still looking at it from a 20th century standpoint.

    One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.

    Both men and women have masculine and feminine elements. We've just been concentrating on the masculine elements in jazz coming out for too long. It's time for feminine elements to emerge.

    And I just practiced on it and practiced on it. I found a lot of little things about details, about accents and how much of an accent to make.

    The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

    Because I have certain things I feel very passionate about, and I don't want to just make albums with tunes anymore.

    A lot of the people that are making the music didn't have the kind of experiences I've had, playing with some of the great masters of jazz.

    I didn't know much about this new electronic scene. I knew it was going on, but I hadn't really followed it or paid any particular attention to it.

    When synthesizers came along, it was the first time I thought that the two things I loved, which were science and music, could be put together.

    So to answer your question more directly, I think it's very important, in order not to have a boring life, to continue to have a sense of exploration, and the courage to take risks, in order to utilize and expand your sense of creativity.

    A couple of years ago, I came up with the idea for a film that I thought could be interesting, and I took it to a couple of people - nobody professional or anything - but I thought it was kind of cool.

    I agree with taking the time and respecting the great innovators of the past, but the word innovation would cease to exist if we all do is look at the past.

    As the 1960s began, jazz music was still at an apex, with hard bop groups led by the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane remaining a force on the musical landscape.

    I always hope that as a performer I'm able to come out with something that not only makes people feel inspired but even beyond that, I always hope that what happens on the stage makes people feel like they can do it.

    At the same time, I'm still enjoying working with young people.

    So the ideas is not to shut out jazz - but it is very inclusive, which is great - because jazz is also an inclusive music.


    Wisdom is on a higher plane, and as human beings, it's part of our 'being-ness' to have the capacity to manifest wisdom through creativity.

    I'm always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.

    Well, I was becoming more of a jazz snob, in thinking that jazz was a higher kind of music, and that RB was, yes, for the body and more commercial.

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

    I knew of jazz, but I didn't like it. I always thought only older people liked jazz - you know, you had to be 19 or 20.

    That's one of the reasons for the title of the record, Future 2 Future, because here they are creating kind of a new musical approach, underground approach, but coming out of what used to be underground but what has become popular, which is the whole hip-hop scene.

    I would be all over the piano, but Miles would play a few notes that would just wipe out all that fancy stuff I was playing.

    Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

    Nowadays people jog and listen to music. Work out and listen to music. They've got these headphones on all the time. It's just the normal scene.

    I've started something called the Rhythm of Life Foundation to encourage the technological community to develop ideas and software that directly effect the advancement of humanity.

    I was making a hierarchy out of music, and it's ridiculous.

    Recently I've been listening to Mahler it's beautiful stuff. I just saw a performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony on television, and it was awesome. The music was so gorgeous I wasn't just crying tears, I was sobbing.

    I decided years ago that I wasn't interested in being a virtuoso of the piano.


    I was on tour with Miles Davis, and we had a gig to play at a theater in Los Angeles in 1965. And the opening act was the Aretha Franklin Jazz Trio. She was this young artist and she played sort of funky jazz piano with an upright bassist and a drummer. Then she sang, and she blew the roof off the place. The rest is history. I'd rate her up there with Zeus.


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