Herbie Hancock offers an age-defying trip back to his '70s heyday
There's always a first time to say "I need more keytar" and mean it.
I promise there is more to this Substack than reviews of shows at Hancher Auditorium, but I’ve seen some great shows the past few months, and usually leave wanting to write about them. I recently reviewed Hancher shows by Lyle Lovett and Children of the Light.
It started with the synthesized sounds of rain and ended with an 83-year-old man jumping into the air, keytar in hand, to bring the final song of the night to a close. It might not have been what one expected from a performance by arguably the most-esteemed living legend of jazz's '60s and '70s heyday, but perhaps it should be. Herbie Hancock has made a career as a restless spirit compelled to keep moving, and on Saturday, he proved that 50-year-old sounds can have currency when played with fire and passion.
One must come at the night's most striking element from two angles. Both involve Hancock's bandmates. At first, one is amazed that an artist of Hancock's stature would allow such accomplished musicians to share the stage and give them so much time to show their skills. With that as a given, one is further amazed that this legend doesn't simply coast — as others in his age bracket have done — by leaning on these talents while playing just enough to appease the crowd. Hancock worked; he pushed and jousted with his band, meeting each impressive burst from a sideman with one of his own. He might have ceded the spotlight from time to time, but he was the star.
Hancock was joined by his longtime guitarist Lionel Loueke, trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, bassist James Genus, and drummer Jaylen Petinaud. Loueke and Blanchard both have headlined Iowa City in the recent past (Blanchard at Hancher in 2017; Loueke at the Iowa City Jazz Festival in 2009), so this is a powerhouse group. But each member subsumed his talent as necessary. This is a band, each part integral to the sound of the whole. I came to the show perhaps foolishly hoping for a more acoustic sound, something more '60s than '70s. I left impressed at the sheer power and artistry of the performance of a sound that won me over.
Hancock began — after a short reminiscence about his time as a student at Grinnell College just down the road — with "Overture," something he has described at other shows as featuring bits and pieces of songs from his back catalog. One could hear snippets of familiar tunes that came and went before it resolved into the Headhunters' track, "Chameleon."
After this lengthy opening, he moved right into warm and generous introductions of his bandmates. He lauded Genus's "tough but sweet sound," Blanchard's prolific film scoring career, and Loueke's ability to use an extensive pedal board full of bells and whistles to make his guitar sound like, well, bells and whistles, and in the case of what sounded like an homage to "Rockit" on "Overture," turntable scratching that would make any Rage Against the Machine fan cheer with approval. "I see that he plays a guitar, and it has seven strings on it. What did you hear? Did you hear the same thing I heard? I heard way more than seven strings on a guitar," the boss said. Last came 24-year-old Petinaud, a revelation on the drums who drove the band with inventive playing, who pushed and prodded while always keeping the time.
That led into a song by the late Wayne Shorter, who died in March. Hancock called Shorter his best friend and eulogized him with a Blanchard-arranged version of the standard "Footprints." That was followed by "Actual Proof," from the 1974 album, Thrust. This came two years after Hancock's breakout Headhunters, and it continued the jazz-funk fusion that brought the keyboard player his greatest success. This proved to be a rich seam for Hancock to mine in the early to mid-1970s, and while the set pulled from songs before and after these fertile few years, everything felt of a piece with it stylistically. Hancock is at home here, and even as his bandmates nudged the sound in different directions as they explored possibilities not followed on those classic albums, it remained a base for the duration of the set.
Among Hancock's bandmates, Loueke was the standout, his guitar mimicking any number of different instruments throughout, playing both rhythm and lead roles that found him the busiest performer of the evening. Blanchard, playing the only purely lead instrument on the stage, played least, but every time he brought the trumpet to his lips, magic emanated forth, his heavily reverbed sound filling the hall with bright, keening tones that anchored the songs. Genus was a secret weapon, deferring to the other performers with unshowy bass playing that locked in with Petinaud's drums. That made his occasional solos — and one gorgeously understated moment of unaccompanied bass — all the more resonant. Petinaud brought an energy to the proceedings that kept the set moving forward. An early highlight during "Overture" found the drummer pushing Hancock and the boss giving it right back, the two attempting to one up the other in a spiraling crescendo of sound while the others laid back and watched.
The group's chemistry is all the more impressive when you consider the ages of Hancock's sidemen. Only Blanchard, the oldest of the four, could possibly remember any of the older songs in the set when they were released. At 61, he would have been 11 or 12 when the set's highlights hit the airwaves. Genus might have heard them from the open door of a record store while walking home from kindergarten. Loueke's parents might have played the songs quietly in the front room after their newborn went down to sleep. And Petinaud? Well, his parents might have boogied to 1983’s "Rockit" at a high school dance.
But none of that mattered Saturday night, whether they were playing Hancock's one nod to his '60s music with a questing version of "Cantaloupe Island," the relatively new and still unrecorded "Secret Sauce," or the set closing "Chameleon" from the Headhunters album that called back to the opening of the set. It all felt cohesive. And despite the dated way ‘70s music of any stripe can sound, it felt timeless, as Hancock roamed the stage on that final tune, keytar in hand, like someone a decade or two younger.
Save for the new tune (which fit well with the rest of the songs) and a couple of the snippets from the opening "Overture," this was a set that could have been performed in 2000 or 1985 or 1976. A peek at setlists over the past several years finds that this is where Hancock resides now. It makes sense. While I might wish he would continue to explore more broadly, this is his strength, and we're all better for the fact that he continues to shine a light into those funky corners, leaning into the keys with that enthusiastic grin.