7 Herbie Hancock

Gershwin’s World

VERVE, 1998

You say: “A deceptive, intelligent history lesson in jazz and race, but beautiful with it.” Clare Hobbs, via e-mail

Reluctant to venerate a white composer who appropriated black musical styles (the original idea came from his new label bosses at Verve), Hancock deconstructed and rebuilt songs like Fascinating Rhythm and It Ain’t Necessarily So, adding African rhythms, snatches of Ravel, and Ellington-style orchestral jazz. It’s a consistently engaging record, finding depth and complexity in tunes faded through history and overfamiliarity, and quietly but firmly reappropriates what Gershwin took from the African American community. Stevie Wonder and Chick Corea guest, but it’s the two exquisite covers with Joni Mitchell on vocals that most impress and point the way to 2007’s River: The Joni Letters.