Listeners who like their music strong, fresh, mysterious, challenging might share pride in pianist Herbie Hancock’s Grammy Award for River: The Joni Letters<\/i><\/a> — but some snipe it celebrates moderation more than creativity. What’s your take?<\/p>\n Listeners who like their music strong, fresh, mysterious, challenging might share pride in pianist Herbie Hancock’s Grammy Award for River: The Joni Letters — but some snipe it celebrates moderation more than creativity. What’s your take?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-78","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-1g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":426,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/07\/unesco-names-pianist-herbie-hancock-goodwill-ambassador.html","url_meta":{"origin":78,"position":0},"title":"UNESCO names pianist Herbie Hancock “goodwill ambassador”","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"July 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Pianist Herbie Hancock has been appointed a \"goodwill ambassador\" by UNESCO. The 71-year-old multiple Grammy winner, Chicago-born child prodigy, Miles Davis' keyboards man ushering open-form improvisation, electronic instruments and studio procedures into the past half-century of jazz-based music and talent scout with global interests joins an international coterie that currently\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":819,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2012\/03\/which-herbie-hancock-comes-to-jazz-at-lincoln-center.html","url_meta":{"origin":78,"position":1},"title":"Which Herbie Hancock comes to Jazz at Lincoln Center","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"March 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Pianist Herbie Hancock is a chameleon -- as I say in my newest column in\u00c2\u00a0CityArts-New York. 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A review of his Friday night concert by Jon Pareles in the New York Times takes a generous view of Hancock darting among his multitude of possibilities, but I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/herbie-keytar.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1739,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2014\/10\/jazz-men-and-women-and-jazz-itself-honored.html","url_meta":{"origin":78,"position":3},"title":"Jazz men and women — and jazz itself — honored","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"October 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Tonight (Oct. 24) will be a Great Night in Harlem, as pianist Herbie Hancock, winner of the Jazz Journalists Association's 2014 Award for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz,\u00c2\u00a0receives likewise\u00c2\u00a0recognition at\u00c2\u00a0the Jazz Foundation of America's gala fundraising show (goal: $1.7 million to help health-, housing- and employment-challenged jazz and blues musicians), genuinely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/BzDiIvCIgAM3eb5.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/BzDiIvCIgAM3eb5.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/BzDiIvCIgAM3eb5.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1700,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2014\/08\/chicago-jazz-festival-club-tour-images.html","url_meta":{"origin":78,"position":4},"title":"Chicago Jazz Festival club tour images","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"August 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The 36th annual Chicago Jazz Festival (mostly free) kicked off Wednesday with a trolley tour of\u00c2\u00a0neighborhood clubs. 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\nI voted “Yea!” back last October when River<\/i> was released, writing “The music is languid as still water or slow clouds, but it has substance, stimulating reflection and ushering in welcome repose. Over the course of early listenings, it feels (at least in part) like a masterpiece” and advised the collaborators “if you can reaffirm the conjunction of pop and jazz we will all be the richer.”
\nNo waffling on this! — Hancock’s sublime piano touch, Vinnie Colaluta’s stirring brushes on the cymbals and drums, Wayne Shorter’s keening high above the range of Norah Jones’ warm voice, Dave Holland’s subtle solid pulse all cohere just as pleasingly and provocatively this morning, though the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences has honored them, the other vocalists, producer Larry Klein composer Mitchell herself with acknowledgement they created the Album of the Year.
\nBut in the New York Times estimable critic Ben Ratliff notes the last time this happened was in ’64, for Getz\/Gilberto<\/i><\/a>, and that both these anomalies are “beautiful, though practical . . .syncretist collaborations . . .[with] light voiced singing . . . the drums sound chastened . . soft-edged, literate and respectible. . . an audience bridger.” These aren’t good things?
\nRatliff rightly mentions that a split of NARAS votes for the other nominees, Kanye West and Amy Winehouse, may have given River<\/i> its success, finally calling Hancock’s album “august and exquisitely acceptable.” Maybe that’s why I like it — but I wouldn’t if it were august, exquisitely acceptable, and just like hundreds of other records. No, this music sounds new, convening a creative if subtle ensemble (guitarist Lionel Loueke, too) around enhancing transformations of some familiar but not overworked material, nudging talents including Tina Turner beyond their comfort zones, offering innumerable depths as well as surface pleasures.
\nCongrats to NARAS members for having honored this! And if there are jazz snobs reading: please get over it. Just because a lot of people like something doesn’t mean it sucks. Sometimes the avant-garde slips into the collective conscious on little cats’ feet. There are no compromises with esthetic integrity on River<\/i>, just elegance applied by distinguished artists to songs in which they realize previous unexplored possibilities, and in the performance suggest even more.
\nThough I wouldn’t call it avant-garde Getz\/Gilberto<\/i> has aged well, too. Maybe by virtue of its syncreticism it’s jazz-beyond-jazz. Other opinions are invited.
\nhowardmandel.com<\/a>
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