Herbie Hancock has always traveled ahead of the pack. As an acoustic-jazz musician in the '60s, he played with one of the most forward-thinking and influential bands of the era, the Miles Davis Quintet. When Miles began incorporating rock and funk elements into his music, Hancock was an important contributor, and he continued the trend in his own projects. For more than 30 years, Hancock has made it his business to fuse musical styles and stay on top of the latest technology.
Hancock's Future 2 Future (Transparent, 2001), a reunion with the visionary producer Bill Laswell — who also produced Hancock's seminal '80s techno-jazz albums Future Shock (Columbia/Legacy, 1983), Sound-System (Columbia/Legacy, 1984), and Perfect Machine (Columbia, 1988) — extended that philosophy. Future 2 Future is a provocative mixture of electronica, funk, and fusion that exploits the very latest in music technology. Hancock's recent tour in support of the album pushed the envelope even further. Supported by a cast of hot players and ingenious techs, Hancock put together a multimedia/multigenre tour of impressive complexity and depth.
The tour made heavy use of computers (mostly Apple Macintosh Titanium PowerBook G4s) both onstage and off. Hancock's keyboard rig included virtual synthesizers, and the music itself triggered computer-generated graphics that were projected onto a large screen behind the drummer. Perhaps most interesting was the surround-sound P.A., which added dimension and space to the out-front mix.
Hancock's infatuation with electronic music is no mere affectation. As a student at Grinnell College in Iowa, he initially studied electronic engineering before becoming a full-fledged music major. His love of funk is just as deep-rooted: in the '60s, he was one of the first jazz musicians to meld jazz with pop forms such as funk and R&B.
Although Hancock played electric piano on many of Davis's late '60s records and on several of his own early '70s works, his electronic/funk breakthrough came in 1973 with the release of Head Hunters (Columbia/Legacy). The album was a milestone in the development of jazz fusion and became one of the best-selling records in jazz history.
Since then Hancock has created many variations on his genre-stretching theme, perhaps the most notable being Future Shock in 1983. The tune “Rockit” was the album's popular highlight; its video (featuring a break-dancing robot) was a hit on MTV. Albums like Head Hunters and Future Shock established Hancock as a master of electronic-based creative music, and over the years, his name has become synonymous with the use of synthesizers in jazz.
Yet despite the success and financial benefits of those popular recordings, Hancock embarks on such projects only sporadically. His most recent electric tour was for Dis Is da Drum (Mercury, 1993) in 1993. Hancock's primary musical activity is still as a mainstream jazz pianist — he continues to be one of the best in the world, constantly collaborating with the genre's top musicians. Most of his concert dates are as an acoustic-jazz player.
Being a jazz legend would be enough for most people, but as you've probably figured out by now, Hancock instinctively follows his impulses. The funk and techno jamming he does gives him a fun — and experimental — outlet. And while it's important to him that the technical aspects keep advancing, it's equally critical that the gizmos don't impede the music's human quality.
His current live band features drummer Terri Lynne Carrington, keyboardist Darrell Diaz, turntablist DJ Disk, bassist Matthew Garrison, and trumpeter Wallace Roney. “[The music is] electric and acoustic,” the bandleader points out. “I'm playing some synthesizers and acoustic piano. Also, Wallace's trumpet and the drums are acoustic.”
For Hancock, the Future 2 Future tour, with its multimedia and surround elements, was about more than just music. “It's really a new experience for the audiences,” he stresses. “At this point, I'm coming from the same place as I do for an acoustic show. But that place is much broader than in the past.”
Navigating the technological logistics of such a complex tour required a great deal of effort. “We've spent a lot of time figuring out how we can do more with less,” says Hancock's surround engineer, Dave Hampton, who was an integral player in putting together the systems for the tour. “We're dealing with jazz, so we don't have pop/mainstream budgets.”
Onstage caught up with Hancock as he prepared for the U.S. leg of the Future 2 Future tour.
Over the past 30 years, you've intermittently done electric projects and tours. Is there a plan for when you decide to do them, or do they just happen randomly?
I usually do what motivates me at the moment. It could be something that I hear from someone else. It could be a suggestion that I agree with — it could happen in any number of ways. If there is momentum in a certain direction, then I may continue to ride the crest of that wave. Unless I get a stronger impulse to change directions — then I will do something else.
What was your first electric project?
My very first electric project was a record called Crossings [Warner Brothers, 1971]. I had synthesizer on that. But I didn't play it; I had someone else [Patrick Gleeson] do it. Head Hunters was the first project I played synthesizer on.
Was playing synthesizers initially a big adjustment for you?
Yes and no. I've always been interested in science and music. They've been my two loves since I was a kid. And I continue to be a frustrated techie. I never thought when I was an electrical-engineering major in college — before I switched to musical composition — that there was a way of marrying the two. But then synthesizers came along. I gravitated to them very easily, and I wasn't afraid of the machines the way lots of other people are. But, of course, I had to learn a whole new technology.
The
Head Hunters
recordings were so successful that many people thought you were going to stay in that mode awhile.
I fooled them. [Laughs.] I'm a pack rat, and it's not easy for me to throw things away.
Do you have to get into a different mind-set to switch over to electric projects?
Not so much anymore. At this point, I actually try to use some approaches of one with the music of the other. I'm beginning to find ways of using some of the things I develop when I'm doing a more electric kind of music with the acoustic music. And vice versa. Actually it's one sensibility and I apply it to both. Before, I used to keep them separate.
What's most challenging about performing and touring in your electric format?
We had some problems presenting Future 2 Future on the road. The studio recording was very right-brain and intuitive as far as the material was concerned. We used the technology to kind of shape things and define the structure of the pieces. But the actual musical material was improvised rather than intellectual or analytical.
We could have just learned to play what was on the record for the tour. But then we would have lost the spirit of the record. So how could we keep the same spirit of improvisation and spontaneity — along with freedom, abandon, and adventure — and still be able to tell the difference between one tune and another? We decided to designate certain elements to define various numbers and be guideposts.
There's a big nonmusical element involved with the Future 2 Future tour.
To stay in keeping with the spirit of adventure, from Day 1 the tours for Europe, Japan, and Korea have been with surround sound. We're continuing that in the States as well. We have six channels of it, with two channels in the back and a left and right.
Does the fact that your show is mixed in surround affect how you perform?
We don't hear the surround sound onstage. But we're aware that's what's happening with the audience's experience of the music. We designed the output of the synthesizer sounds so that certain components can go to the surround engineer. We have two engineers; one guy just does the stereo, left and right front. The other one works the surround speakers. We split our outputs between the two of them to take advantage of the 6.1 system. So it winds up being a new experience for the audience. I wish I could be out in the audience and hear the sound. When we rehearse, we check it out and it's pretty amazing.
You have an additional ingredient to spice up your shows?
We have visual effects onscreen behind the drummer, which is another example of thinking outside of the box for music. Barco, a company that makes projectors, supports us and provides them for our tours.
How do you categorize the type of music you're doing now?
They say it's called “electronica.” I just call it music.
You use a DJ in your
Future 2 Future
band. What's his role?
He scratches but also has some effects pedals. They're for delays, different kinds of reverb, and some other ways to manipulate the sound. He also plays some percussion and does a lot of other things besides scratching such as reading poetry and using spoken word. So on one hand, he functions like a percussionist, and on the other hand like another synthesizer.
Do you use background tracks?
No, we have some samples that we use. Otherwise the stage would be too small to fit all the people we'd need to do it all live. Certain elements from the record, such as an African percussion section, are sampled. That plays while Terri Lynne Carrington works on regular trap drums.
You have vocalists on the
Future 2 Future
CD. Do use them on the tour?
There are only a couple of points when we use vocals, and Terri Lynne Carrington sings at those times. Also, Darrell Diaz, the other keyboard player, sings backup vocals.
Do you prefer in-ear monitors or wedges?
I use ear monitors. Sometimes they work better, but they're still being developed, and I'm basically encouraging them. Because eventually they'll be the better solution. I'm really looking forward to this next tour because I have the next level of in-ear monitors. So it should sound better than before.
Are you big on rehearsing for shows, or do you like to adjust to the moment?
I like to get a bead on the direction and clarify that in rehearsals, so that we're all on the same page. But I don't want to make everything perfect, because it defeats spontaneity. A lot of what brings us to the peak of what we can do happens in the first few concerts. We're establishing our identity and relationship with the audience initially. You can't do that when you're rehearsing.
How would you say your approach to electric music has evolved over the years?
In the past, I was thinking in terms of music and effects. Now I'm thinking of the creation of new doorways for the music of the new millennium. I'm encouraging other musicians and people in general to not be afraid to take risks. When starting out with Head Hunters, I was much more in the tunnel of being a musician. Now I'm outside of it; I'm a human being, and what I do is play music. There's a big difference. It does relate to the old fusion mentality, but it's not the same.
Is “balls-out” jamming a thing of the past for you?
No, there's still balls-out jamming, but it's coming from a different place. Fusion is almost just showing off your chops. This is definitely not that. Now it comes more from a desire to express compassion and to promote humanity for the human spirit. That's where it's coming from; it's a response to that, rather than how slick I can play.
Chris J. Walker is a Los Angeles-based music journalist.
Future 2 Future Gear
Herbie Hancock: keyboards, vocals (spoken)
acoustic piano (miked with AKG C 414
B-ULS mics [2; high and low], Shure SM57 [underneath and out of phase], and Barcus-Berry Planar Wave piano pickups [2])
Korg Karma Roland MK-80 Rhodes keyboard Apple Titanium G4 PowerBook Emagic Logic Platinum 5 software with Emagic EVP88 Vintage Piano plug-in and EVD6 Clavinet plug-in Emagic MT4 MIDI interface Emagic EMI 2|6 USB audio interface Custom Dunlop Crybaby wah (stereo) Shure Beta 87A wireless vocal mic Future Sonics in-ear monitors with Shure PSM700 hardware
Matthew Garrison: bass
Fodera custom electric bass Vektor hybrid acoustic/electric bass Line 6 FM-4 Line 6 DL-4 ProCo Ratt Morley A/B box Ernie Ball volume pedal Wedge monitor Rented bass amp: often an Ampeg Ampeg SVT or a Walter Woods model
Terri Lynne Carrington: drums, vocals
Akai MPC Studio 2000XL with custom FORAT modification Roland SPD-20 drum pad Yamaha acoustic drums:
14" × 5.5" snare drum
20" × 16× bass drum
8" × 8" and 10" × 9" rack toms
12" × 10", 14" × 12", and 16" × 14" floor toms
Zildjian cymbals:
14" New Beat hi-hats
14" A Custom crash
17" A Custom Medium crash
10" K Splash
20" K Custom Dry Ride
17" K Custom Dark Crash
18" Oriental China Trash
Kit mics:
Kick: Shure SM27
Snare: Shure SM57
Hi-hat: Shure KSM32
Toms: Shure SM52s
Overheads: Shure KSM44s
Shure SM87 vocal mic
Shure E5 in-ear monitors with Shure PSM700 hardware (also uses wedges)
Wallace Roney: trumpet
Martin Committee trumpet DigiTech Vocal 300 processor Shure SM58 (clean trumpet) Shure SM7 (processed trumpet) Wedge monitor
Darrell Diaz: keyboards, backup vocals
Kurzweil K2000 specially modified Korg Karma Apple Titanium G4 PowerBook Logic Platinum software with Emagic EVP88 synth plug-in Shure SM58 vocal mic Shure E5 in-ear monitors with Shure PSM700 hardware DJ Disk: turntable and percussion Technics SL1200 turntable with Shure cartridges Vestax PMC-07 PRO mixer Boss digital delay pedal Percussion instruments Shure E5 in-ear monitors with Shure PSM700 hardware
Thanks to David Hampton, David Mann, Gary Hirstius, and Noel White from Hancock's crew.
Surround the House
One unique aspect of Herbie Hancock's Future 2 Future tour was the sound system, a hybrid setup that married the stereo front-of-house (FOH) mix with four to six supplemental speakers (depending on the venue), through which selected stage elements were mixed in surround. The out-front mix was handled by two engineers: David Mann, who took care of the FOH mix, and Dave Hampton, who handled the surround mixing.
Because live surround mixing is in its infancy, there isn't much dedicated gear for doing it. Hancock, Hampton, and company had to improvise a system for the tour. What they came up with is simple, ingenious, and very effective.
Selected elements, such as the output from Hancock's Korg Karma, DJ Disk's turntable, and the processed mic line from Wallace Roney's trumpet, were taken from the FOH console, through direct outs, and patched into a Digidesign Pro Tools|24 Mixplus system (featuring a 192 audio interface) run on an Apple Titanium PowerBook G4 (see Fig. A). In a clever work-around, the Pro Tools system was used primarily as an audio interface and a surround mixing platform rather than as a recording system. Hampton mixed the surround elements on a ProControl control surface with the Edit Pack add-on, using the latter's joystick for surround panning. (For small venues, Hampton sometimes used a “small system” that features a CM Labs Motor Mix controller, an Apple iBook, and a Mark of the Unicorn 828 FireWire interface.)
Next, the surround outputs were each patched through a 31-band graphic EQ (“The rack of EQs allows me to pull out the unwanted frequencies,” says Hampton) and then on to the surround speakers, relatively small active models placed on stands at four points around the room. (Hampton preferred Meyer UPA-1P or UPA-2Ps but sometimes used other models, depending on what was available for rent in a given city.) Unlike a 5.1 system, Hancock's Future 2 Future surround P.A. had no added subwoofer. Hampton figured that most FOH systems they encountered on the tour could handle the low end well enough. “Most line array systems and concert systems adequately deal with the transmission of the bottom end and subwoofer issues,” he explains.
True to the spirit of jazz, Hampton's surround moves were often improvised, based on what was going on in a given piece of music. He says that although many of the mix moves were scripted in advance, many others were “just as spontaneous and random as the musical elements that are being played.” When you watched Hampton mixing, he frequently seemed to be “playing” the joystick as if it were another instrument.
Hampton and Mann had to coordinate in order to make the surround and FOH elements work cohesively. “Normally, a FOH engineer is like a painter,” says Mann, “they just do what they do. But you can't work like that [in this situation]; it's more of a sharing thing. Which has probably been the biggest challenge, going into a completely different mind-set.”
Hampton explains their strategy for the mix. “What Dave and I try and do is create zones. He's got the biggest thing in the room, which is the main house sound. The main [surround mix] moves that I have are zonal moves. Maybe during three portions of the show there are drastic things [moves] that help you define that you are surrounded. Other than that it's ambient things.”
Mann puts it like this: “The main thing is it's just a different way of thinking. You can't just think in terms of left and right. You have to think of the whole picture. It's trying to create a little extra ambience and a more three-dimensional sound.”
Technical satisfaction comes from being part of a cutting-edge tour, but working with a legend like Hancock is a thrill in itself. “I sit in my mix position,” says Hampton, “and I see the faces — all colors, all ages — that show up at the Future 2 Future concerts. It is at these moments that I realize I am in a special situation and I work with a very special man.”
—Mike Levine
For an interview with Dave Hampton about Hancock's gear and the surround system, go to
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