We start off by exploring the three phases of Herbie Hancock’s musical development, and then we are serenaded (and rocked out) by Maiysha, and close the week with innovative cover music from Vietnamese guitarist Nguyen Le.
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Black power Herbie Hancock may seem oxymoronic to those that have followed his long career because we can not see a race-first, upraised fist in the thinking and behavior of a Buddhist but that’s only because we are de-contextualizing Herbie’s development and looking at each piece as though it were totally separate from what preceded and what followed. Moreover, we are also probably reducing each phase to a stereotype and to media definitions thereby ensuring that we do not get an accurate asessment.
For young, intelligent Black people, the seventies was a time of unbridled creativity fueled by encouragement to explore and experiment, especially delve deeply into non-mainstream modes of expression and thought. Black power encouraged Black people to think for themselves even when, or should we say “especially” when the thoughts were not standard thoughts. In counter distinction to how the time period is often characterized and mis-represented, while natural hair was in vogue (hence Herbie’s hair-do), the thoughts inside those nappy heads, like the hairs on those heads, was streaming in all directions. Plus, Herbie was from Chicago, whose musical avant garde, the AACM, promoted out of the box thought and expression. Being black didn’t mean being like all other blacks, in that period the watch words were “do your thing.” And some people were running with some pretty wild things including a deep, deep use of electronics as an integral part of music making—remember that Sun Ra was the pioneer of electronic keyboards in music and Sun Ra had been based in Chicago for a major period. Yes, I am flat out saying that Sun Ra also influenced Herbie Hancock.
—kalamu ya salaam