Hancock’s genius shines brightest in old favourites
Herbie Hancock Barbican
Herbie Hancock may be the king of Seventies jazz-funk, but his music-making has always been tinged with the mystical. Unearthly sounds float across the groovy bass licks, evoking cosmic horizons. It’s a potent mix, which seems to transcend fashion – at Monday night’s sold-out concert, the first of two at the Barbican given as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival, one saw grizzled older fans next to much younger ones.
The concert began in a mood of interstellar darkness, the four players of Hancock’s latest quartet sidling to their instruments, all dressed in near-black. One of them, the multi-talented Terrace Martin, unleashed strange swooping sounds from his three mini-keyboards, echoed by Hancock at his much larger synthesizer. Trevor Lawrence added a foam of cymbal and rumble of bass drum, while James Genus on bass added something low enough to make one’s rib-cage rattle.
Normally, this side of Hancock’s music gives way to something more familiar. A funky bass soon emerges, and those horny sideslipping harmonies. We heard these things, but they were a long time coming.
Of course, Hancock has never stood still creatively, and one has to admire the way a man of 77 continues to break new ground. But it was notable that his genius for spinning irresistibly logical improvisations shone out most brightly in old favourites, where there was a firm harmonic framework for him to push against.