Jazz icon Herbie Hancock to play at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk
Herbie Hancock is often overwhelmed with astonishment.
Underneath stage lights, he sits at a piano and watches audiences burst into applause upon hearing opening notes — to songs he composed nearly 50 years ago.
It shocks him every time. And it happens all the time.
“‘How do these young people know this record?'” he said he often asks himself. “‘How many of them weren’t even born when I made those records?’
“But I guess they’ve somehow stood the test of time.”
(Yes, Mr. Hancock, indeed they have.)
Hancock, considered one of the best jazz musicians to play and influence the genre, and his All-Star Band will perform next Sunday at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk.
Hancock has 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year in 2008 for “River: The Joni Letters” and a lifetime achievement award in 2016. Mentioning Hancock in his autobiography, Miles Davis wrote: “Herbie was the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and I haven’t heard anybody yet who has come after him.”
Hancock’s career began in childhood. As a child prodigy growing up in Chicago in the 1940s and ’50s, he performed a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 11. He took up jazz in high school, and, after double-majoring in music and electrical engineering at Grinnell College, he worked for two years as a session musician before signing as an artist with Blue Note Records.
His first album, “Takin’ Off,” produced what is now considered a jazz standard, “Watermelon Man.”
Shortly afterward, Hancock joined Davis’ Second Great Quintet and played with the group for about five years — with other jazz legends too, including tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams.
Hancock began composing scores and soundtracks for films such as the 1966 feature, “Blow Up.”
He left the quintet and formed the band The Headhunters. Their 1973 album, “Head Hunters,” was the first jazz album to go platinum — aided by the record’s hit single “Chameleon,” which will be featured in the Norfolk concert.
No two Hancock concerts are exactly alike, he said in a phone interview.
“It’s jazz,” he said. “It’s always improvisation.”
Still, there is a structure to the show, starting with what he calls “overture,” which incorporates melodies, bass lines, chords, and various parts and portions of songs he has composed. Riffing off the predetermined portions, the piece evolves differently every night.
A closing number features elements of “Chameleon.”
“And people — we’re lucky that — that, that they go crazy after hearing the beginning of that piece.”
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, [email protected]
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If you go
When: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 22
Where: Chrysler Hall, 215 St. Paul’s Blvd., Norfolk
Tickets: Start at $36.75
Details: vafest.org