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Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Re: Broken Fingers

Posted by on July 20 at 13:51 PM

Stranger columnist Christopher DeLaurenti contests an earlier post by Charles Mudede.
Charles, Herbie Hancock did not completely forsake the beauty of Empyrean Isles (or for that matter, 1968’s Speak Like a Child) for “that fusion/funky chicken nonsense of the 70s.” Despite such 70s albums as the hideously titled “Feets Don’t Fail Me Now,” Hancock did turn in some marvelous acoustic piano work in the 1970s with V.S.O.P., a reconstitution of four-fifths of Miles’ legendary mid/late 60s quartet.
Although the thwapping trumpet tone of Freddie Hubbard takes some getting used to -at the time Miles was in retirement after changing jazz for the fifth time with records like Agharta and Pangaea- Hancock turns in several fine solos and comps like the master he is on “V.S.O.P. Live Under the Sky.”
Additionally, the recently reissued solo disc, “The Piano” from 1978sparkles with probing, oblique (and unedited!) takes on “My Funny Valentine” and “Someday My Prince Will Come.”
May I make a sweeping statement of my own? Hancock’s music, like jazz itself, cannot be segmented into easily demarcated eras. In much of music, concurrent conservatism on the part of musicians (and the listeners who support them) is the rule, which is why so many styles co-exist within a (supposedly) single genre like jazz or rock or classical.