Herbie Hancock- Biography

The handsome, mustachioed and bespectacled Grammy-winner Herbie Hancock is a pioneer in the fusion of jazz techniques with electronic instrumentation--a combination which fueled several best-selling records as well as opening up a new film scoring idiom. The Chicago native began piano lessons at age seven and within four years was performing with the Chicago Symphony. Hancock's interest in jazz didn't take hold until his high school years. After graduating from college at age 20, he headed east to NYC and began an association with Blue Note Records which led to his working with several jazz greats, including Dexter Gordon and Miles Davis. Eventually, Hancock branched out to form his own sextet, through which he began to experiment with various types of sounds, combining funk, rock and jazz. By the mid-1970s, he returned to acoustic jazz with the group V.S.O.P.

In 1966, Hancock debuted as a film composer, providing the jazz-tinged score to Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-Up". After contributing songs to the soundtracks to a handful of films, he went on score a handful of other features, including "Colors" (1988) and "Harlem Nights" (1989). Appropriately, Hancock had a small role in and scored Bertrand Tavernier's "'Round Midnight" (1986), a tribute to 1950s jazz greats Bud Powell and Lester Young, which netted him an Oscar for Best Original Score. Although he has provided little original music for films in the 90s, Hancock has remained a respected and influential performer and recording artist.