D

uring a career that spans seven astonishing

decades, the Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based,
Grammy- and Oscar-winning pianist and com
poser Herbie Hancock has gone where no jazz
musician had gone before. He was a member of
Miles Daviss groundbreaking quintet in the 1960s; he recorded
a long list of seminal albums for the legendary Blue Note jazz
label; and his compositionsfrom Maiden Voyage and Wa
termelon Man to Cantaloupe Islandare recognized as jazz
standards. Chameleon, his synthesizer-driven smash hit, ush
ered in the jazz-fusion era of the 1970s. A decade later, he scored
another hit with Rockit, a track inspired by hip-hop, and won
an Oscar for the soundtrack to the film Round Midnight. And in
recent years hes recorded and collaborated with a star-studded
lineup of musicians, including J oni Mitchell, Sting, Stevie Won
der, and classical pianist Lang Lang.
In Herbie Hancock: Possibilities, his first book, which will be
released October 28 by Viking, the 74-year-old jazz master
chronicles the pioneering arc of his musical career, describing
many aspects of his lifehis musicianship, his family, his com
mitment to Buddhism, and his work with Unescoin eloquent
and honest detail.
Though Hancock had thought about writing a book for years,
Possibilities, which is named after his 2008 album, was slow to
make the leap from his mind to the printed page. Quincy J ones
was an instigator," Hancock says, laughing, during a phone call
from his Los Angeles home-office, because he had written a book
about his life [Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones'], He kept prod
ding me, Herbie, you better get started on that book, because
the older you get, the more youre going to forget. So you better
start writing now.
Hancock tours constantly, so he could not simply stop, sit
down, and write the book. His agent, Robert Barnett, enlisted
ghostwriter Lisa Dickey, who has worked on a number of bestsell
ing books on the arts, business, and science (The Time of My Life,
with Patrick Swayze; Remembering Whitney, with Cissy Houston),
to coauthor Herbie Hancock: Possibilities. We got together a lot,
Hancock recalls fondly. She would write. I would read and edit,
and sometimes shift the wording, or change phrases or delete
things. We would continually refine what was written. It wasnt
like I just talked to her, and she wrote the book. It wasnt that
simple. We were both involved in writing the book.
With Dickeys assistance, Hancock writes about growing up
on Chicagos South Side with his brother, Waymon J r., and sister,
J ean. His parents came to the Windy City from Georgia. Intro
duced to the piano by a childhood friend, Hancock soon devel
oped impressive skill with the instrument and performed
Mozarts Concerto No. 26 in D Major with the Chicago Sym
phony Orchestra when he was 11 years old.
In the book, he writes lovingly about how he came under the
spell of jazz pianists George Shearing, Errol Garner, and Oscar
Peterson. Hancock paid his dues playing numerous R&B gigs
around Chicago before attending Grinnell College in Iowa, orig-
l l e r b i e H an c o c k
A u t h o r
A LITERARY
MAIDEN
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inally as an engineering major before
switching to music. (Hancock has had a
lifeiong fascination with technology; he
eventually received degrees from Grin
ned in both music and electrical engi
neering.)The late jazz trumpeter Donald
Byrd discovered Hancock, brought him
to New York, and introduced him to
Davis, who would become his next musi
cal mentor. Working with Davis
alongside tenor saxophonist Wayne
Shorter, bassist Ron Carter, and drum
mer Tony WilliamsHancock went on
to expand the compositional and impro-
visational possibilities of the jazz idiom.
Hancock praises Davis for his musical leadership and musical
mentoring. Once, during a performance, when young Hancock
played an obviously wrong chord, Davis instantly played a
note that miraculously made my note sound right, and never
chided or reprimanded the pianist for the gaffe. Davis encour
aged his musicians to experiment and take chances even if they
made mistakes. This incident, Hancock says, reinforced the
value of trusting yourself to respond on the fly. If you can al
low yourself to do that, Hancock writes, you never stop explor
ing. yu never stop learning, in music or in life. I t was an
important lesson for a jazz musician.
While the book outlines Hancocks admiration of Daviss
musical influence and mentoring, it also acknowledges Daviss
personal failings. I know Miles did some really rotten things,
like beating up women, almost killing a woman who was a
friend of mine, Hancock admits. And he had huge problems
with coke. This is not praise for Miless everyday life; its more
about his relationship to the musicians, and how he felt about
his responsibilities as a musician, and his wisdom and trust in
himself and in others.
Hancocks younger sister, J ean, a computer analyst who died
in a plane crash in 1985, also figured prominently throughout
his artistic life. She named one of Hancocks most famous com
positions, Maiden Voyage, and wrote lyrics for it, as well as
for several other Hancock songs, including Harvest Time, and
Butterfly.
Hancocks success has not come without costs. He married
Gigi Meixner in 1968, and he writes about the challenges that
touring can place on a marriage and on J essica, their only child.
But the biggest revelation to emerge from the book is that
Hancock was addicted to cocaine. It began with gradual use in
the 1960s and escalated in the 1980s and 90s, until his wife
confronted him about his addiction. He entered rehab in 1999
and eventually managed to kick the habit.
I knew at some point, I was going to be talking about this,
Hancock says. One of the main things in Buddhism is that you
look at a challenge in your life and turn it into an opportunity.
That s what occurred to me when I was writing this book: now
I know why [the addiction] happened to
me. That happened at that point, so I
could write about it in the book, and pos
sibly help other people. That turns it into
something positive.
Hancock was introduced to Nichiren
Buddhism by bassist Buster Williams,
who gave an inspired performance at a gig
with Hancock in 1972 in Seattle, rousing
the rest of the band, whose members were
hungover after too much partying the
night before. Williams credited his stellar
performance that night to Buddhist
chanting; Hancock was so impressed he
went to a Buddhist meeting with him the
next night.
Hancock writes passionately about his commitment to Bud
dhism. Ever since I was seven years old, music has been the
number one thing in my life, he notes in the book. But as I
got into deeper into the practice of Buddhism, a new realization
began to form inside me. I began thinking of myself as a human
being first, removing any sense of separation between myself
and anyone else.
This realization has had a strong impact on Hancocks life.
Since the 1990s, he has worked to extend himself beyond the
confines of the jazz world. In 1998 Hancock released Gershwin's
World, a tribute to George Gershwin, with Stevie Wonder;
The New Standard (1995) featured Hancocks reimagining of
the music of Prince, the Beatles, Sade, and Paul Simon; and
River: Thejoni Letters, Hancocks jazzy shout-out ro his friend
J oni Mitchell, earned him Grammy awards for Album of the
Year and Best Contemporary J azz Album in 2008. He co
founded the Rhythm of Life Foundation, dedicated to using
technology to aid humanity. In 2011, he was named Unesco
Goodwill Ambassador, and was instrumental in the creation
of the organizationsfirst International J azz Day. In 2013, he
was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, and this
year he was named Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry
at Harvard Universitythe first African-American (not to
mention the first jazz musician) to hold that position in its
88-year history.
As Hancock approaches his 75th birthday on April 12, 2015,
he continues to explore the infinite possibilities of his life. I
like it when people tell me I cant do something, he says with
a hearty laugh. That automatically makes me want to do it. I ts
my nature. I m naturally curious. I like to combine two or three
different things. My interest in science and technology comes
into play throughout my life: seeing two things that look like
oil and water, and me trying to figure out how to get them to
interact and play nicely together.
Eugene Holley Jr. is a freelance writer on music who contributes to Down
Beat, Wax Poetics, N P R s A Blog Supreme, and Philadelphia Weekly.
HERB I E
HaNCOCK
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