Herbie Hancock

Biography

Herbert Jeffrey Hancock, known as Herbie Hancock (born April 12, 1940, in Chicago), is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist and composer. A central figure in jazz since the 1960s, he has also worked in film, both as a composer of soundtracks and as an actor, which makes him a name worth knowing for film enthusiasts.

He began playing the piano at seven and, at eleven, performed the first movement of a Mozart piano concerto as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He studied at Grinnell College, graduating with degrees in electrical engineering and music, and in 1961 he joined trumpeter Donald Byrd's group in New York. His first album as a leader, Takin' Off (1962), included 'Watermelon Man', a tune that found success in Mongo Santamaría's version. In 1963 he joined Miles Davis's quintet, staying for five years and absorbing Davis's ideas about silence, space and tempo, while bringing a broad, blues-rooted sound of his own.

His connection to cinema began early: in 1966 he composed the score for Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up, and over the following decades he wrote many more soundtracks. In the 1970s he explored fusion, funk and electronic music with synthesizers, and the album Head Hunters, recorded with The Headhunters, became the best-selling jazz record in history. He was also among the first jazz musicians to adopt the Fender Rhodes electric piano and the clavinet. In 1986 he acted in and composed the music for Bertrand Tavernier's Round Midnight, a film that earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Score.

In the 1980s his electronic single 'Rockit' became a hit on MTV, and in the decades that followed he moved between acoustic jazz, pop projects and wide-ranging collaborations. River: The Joni Letters (2007), a tribute to Joni Mitchell, won him a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Since 2012 he has taught at UCLA. His legacy lies in reshaping the role of the jazz rhythm section and in keeping experimentation alive without abandoning jazz tradition.

Key films

• Blow-Up (1966), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni: he composed the original score for one of the most influential films of its era.
• Round Midnight (1986), directed by Bertrand Tavernier: he acted and composed the music, earning an Academy Award for Best Original Score.
• Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), directed by Luc Besson: a credited acting role in a large-scale science fiction production.