Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer.^[2] Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd‘s group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, using a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, Head Hunters.^[3]

Hancock’s best-known compositions include «Cantaloupe Island«, «Watermelon Man«, «Maiden Voyage«, and «Chameleon«, all of which are jazz standards. During the 1980s, he enjoyed a hit single with the electronic instrumental «Rockit«, a collaboration with bassist/producer Bill Laswell. Hancock has won an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for his 2007 Joni Mitchell tribute album River: The Joni Letters, becoming only the second jazz album to win the award after Getz/Gilberto in 1965.

Since 2012, Hancock has served as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.^[4] He is also the chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz^[4] (known as the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz until 2019).