Herbie Hancock

Also known as Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock, Herbert Jeffrey Hancock, Herbert Hancock

American jazz pianist and composer (born 1940)

OverviewAI-generated

Herbie Hancock is an American singer-songwriter, bandleader, conductor, and jazz musician born in Chicago on April 12, 1940. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been recognized in the Hollywood Walk of Fame collection. Hancock’s musical career spans genres including jazz, bebop, jazz fusion, and post-bop. He performs on the piano, keytar, electric piano, and flute. His education includes studies at Grinnell College and the Manhattan School of Music, where he was a student of Vittorio Giannini.

Hancock has recorded for record labels such as Blue Note, Columbia Records, Verve Records, and Mercury Records. His notable works include *Reaching Beyond*, *Watermelon Man*, and *Possibilities*. He has received an Academy Award for Best Original Score and multiple MTV Video Music Awards for Best Editing, Best Art Direction, and Best Visual Effects. Additionally, he has been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance and several other MTV Video Music Awards.

Synthesized by Vinony from 48 facts across 11 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, OpenAlex, TMDb, Europeana Sparql, Firecrawl, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works: 7

Top works

Reaching Beyond
Watermelon Man
Jamey Aebersold Jazz -- Herbie Hancock, Vol 11
Fazioli Grand Pianos
Possibilities

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Sound · Chicago, Illinois, USA

Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet", Hancock helped redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section, and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace synthesizers and funk. Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had…

Known for

Tuner — Herbie Hancock2026
Herbie — Self (Archives)2025
Don Lewis and The Live Electronic Orchestra — Self2024
Henry Mancini: 100 at the Hollywood Bowl — Self2024
Joni Mitchell - The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize For Popular Song — Self2023
They All Came Out to Montreux — Self2023
Jacob Collier: In the Room Where It Happens2022
Herbie Hancock - Live at SummerStage 2022 — Self2022
Hargrove — Self2022
Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes — Self2022

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Country: United States
Active from: 1940

Discography

Member of

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 1,564,962
Total plays: 23,684,249

Academic profile · OpenAlex

3h-index

Works: 51
Cited by: 22

Research areas

ArtGeographyHistoryComputer sciencePhysics

Most cited works

The Blue Note Years: The Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff1995 · 5 cit
On the corner2009 · 4 cit
The artistry of Bill Evans1989 · 3 cit
Herbie Hancock: Possibilities2014 · 2 cit
Filles de Kilimanjaro2009 · 2 cit

via OpenAlex · CC0

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

“I remember we were at some club in Detroit, and playing all kinds of crazy things behind George, while behind Miles we played really straight. And Miles said afterward, "Why don't you play like that behind me?" That's when Tony and I began playing our little musical game behind Miles. After only four days, it turned around and he was leading us. And Miles began playing different after that. It was the most uncannily rapid adaptation I could ever imagine.”
“I realized I could never be a genius in the class of Miles, Parker or Coltrane, so I might just as well forget about becoming a legend and just be satisfied to create some music to make people happy. I no longer wanted to write the Great American Masterpiece.”
“[B]y the time I actually heard , I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings – like the harmonies I used on – just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept... he and Bill Evans, and and , finally. You know, that's where it came from.”
“redefined swing for modern jazz pianists for the latter half of the 20th century up until today. I consider him to be the major influence that formed my roots in jazz piano playing. He mastered the balance between technique, hard blues grooving, and tenderness. You'll find Oscar Peterson's influence in the generations that come after him. No one will ever be able to take his place.”
“We all have natural human tendency to take the safe route—to do the thing we know will work—rather than taking a chance. But that's the antithesis of jazz, which is all about being in the present. Jazz is about being in the moment, at every moment. It's about trusting yourself to respond on the fly. If you can allow yourself to do that, you never stop exploring, you never stop learning, in music or in life.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Official website

Home - Herbie HancockHerbie Hancock

herbiehancock.com →

Link to the official site · 2,477 chars · not written by Vinony

Works in European collections

1 object attributed to Herbie Hancock, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana

"Galapagosleguan, on hold at cacti. : See series with photon. 3779-3822. "

~32 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, he experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles using a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this time that he released one of his best-known and most influential albums, Head Hunters.

Hancock's best-known compositions include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man", "Maiden Voyage", and "Chameleon", all of which are jazz standards. During the 1980s, he had a hit single with the electronic instrumental "Rockit", a collaboration with bassist/producer Bill Laswell. Hancock has won an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for his 2007 album River: The Joni Letters, a tribute to his friend Joni Mitchell. In 2024, Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph ranked Hancock as the greatest keyboard player of all time. In 2025, he received the Polar Music Prize.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Herbie Hancock” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.