Yeah, agree on the support networks in music. Been exploring film/tv avenues lately and the industry/community support is really, really strong. Music, it seems, is still just raw survival of the fittest (luckiest?) with the result being that you don't get that double skill score from bouncing off other talented people.

I'd say also that Jazz can and does benefit from the fire of youth... listen to a 17 year old Tony Williams drumming with Miles Davis' 2nd great quintet in the '60s (that also featured Herbie Hancock).

Admittedly, by this point Williams had already been playing professionally for several years in other bands, an example of the kind of mentoring that just isn't possible without the critical mass of musical culture to surround young talent. And really Miles' place in the firmament of Jazz has as much to do with the legacy of the promising musicians he cherry-picked, who then helped him shift the direction of modern music, as his own relentless drive for exploration and change.

So in Herbie Hancock you have an ex-Miles-sideman who was hugely influential in exploring the possibilities of synthesized sound, and funk (and in my opinion helping to open the door for modern electronic music), innovating over the space of more than 40 years of professional playing.

And in a charitable interpretation, perhaps his goal in his first concert on these shores was to bring us up to date on the story so far, filling a large chunk of the programme with music from the era of Head Hunters - 'Vein Melter', 'Watermelon Man', and 'Chameleon' (the encore) as well as 'Actual Proof' from the followup album Thrust - all recorded when he was in his mid 30's and possibly at the balance point between the drive and innovation of youth, and the experience and skill to pull off something so genre shaking.

But maybe I expected more of a continuation of that innovation, and was hoping for something newer, great as his legacy and the music from that period is.

And there were moments where the band stretched the old tunes into new shapes, and the interaction and skill of the musicians took the band into interesting places.

However for me and at least some others the highlight of the concert was Herbie Hancock playing the master musician, distilling his years of experience into the haunting solo rendition and reharmonisation of Maiden Voyage. Very dense and harmonically rich treatment.

And having said all that, the newest material in the concert (off the Starbucks collaboration with various pop celebrities) left me cold. It felt a little like he was underestimating the audience and pandering, although everyone's got a right to a retirement plan. But what's the point of taking the pop vocalists "out of the box" if you put the Band in the Box to do it.

But the guitarist Lionel Loueke... his solo piece, and the following composition that I'm guessing was his, were unexpected gems.

Have I earned my jazz-geek propeller beanie yet?

you like sus chords.

Hancock is a product of an environment that needs Musicians.
he had options from a very early age.
Serious, Life options, not a selection of two shit gigs.
Talent will out, but avenues of pursuit were there for him.

It could also be argued that population base is immaterial, America is the dominant Popular Culture, hence their Musicians become the most acclaimed.

I myself would probably rate Hancock as one of the finest Musicians , in any idiom, ever.
The 2nd Quintet recordings rate as a high point in Western Popular Culture and are a major
plank for Jazz as Classical argument.

He's adventures too, there is a world of listening inside his tracks. Clearly this is a by-product of the Miles Davis years, an ability to let one chord become what seems every note, and every mood in the world.
the whole early '70s fusion/funk bag with the Headhunters remains perhaps the most tasteful heavy chops selections ever recorded.I would have really liked to have seen Paul Jackson come over.

I hear Chick Corea is up next, Wellington as Jazz Capital?

Yeah, jazz artists (and rock bands) tour Australia frequently but don't make it to New Zealand - I know Herbie Hancocks classic albums, and also a little about his career. Some of his post-Headhunters albums sound like faintly rediculous early-eighties cop shop music. Nonetheless, yeah he's a jazz legend - I also recommend recordings by Thelonius Monk and John Lewis. (ps: sorry if there are typos on this comment - you can't read the far left hand side of the page for some reason...)

Ruby
Blue Monk
S.N.C.

Thelonius Monk should be on everyone's too listen to list.
good call Casper
implies mood in everything he played
be nice to make Music that can do that