Legacy recordings, a Sony Music imprint, will release “The Essential Herbie Hancock,” a two-disc compilation spanning Herbie’s recording career on seven labels over a four-decade period.
From the official press release:
Quite simply, Herbie Hancock is the most widely-imitated, globally-honored and commercially successful creator of true jazz since Bill Evans, whose pellucid sound and approach to rendering a ballad were important influences. But Hancock’s sound is slightly more crystalline than Evans’, and at up-tempos, his solos seem borne by a bracing breeze. Hancock could have forged a highly impressive career had he been content to concentrate solely on acoustic improvisation. But, like his mentor Miles Davis, he had farther-ranging ideas and a universe of tonalities, harmonies and rhythms in his head.
The Essential Herbie Hancock, drawing on his work for seven different labels, is the finest and most panoramic mini-retrospective ever assembled on this consummate artist. All of those sonorities, chord voicings, and rhythmic directions are in evidence over the course of the 21 tracks in this two-disc package.
Spanning the early-1960s to the late-1990s, Hancock is captured as sideman (with no less than Davis and the brilliant tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins) and leader, on grand piano or a battery of keyboards. Virtually every crucial item in his glittering discography as a bandleader — from the original “Watermelon Man” and “Maiden Voyage” to “Chameleon” and “Rockit” — is here, with a supporting cast that numbers Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell and, of course, the eternally astounding bass-drums team of Ron Carter and Tony Williams.
The Essential Herbie Hancock also features features one previously unreleased selection: a live version of Charles Mingus’ “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” featuring a vocal by Joni Mitchell.