Hancock gained national attention in the early 1960’s as a composer as well as an instrumentalist. Songs like “Watermelon Man” and “Cantaloupe Island” garnered him acclaim early in his career, as did his position in Miles Davis’s quintet. However, it was his adventurous streak that proved to be his legacy. He pioneered the use of chords seldom if ever used in jazz, guiding the genre out of the bebop era and into new territory.
His 1973 album Headhunters, which perfected a jazz-funk fusion sound that many people had tried and failed to make work, was the first jazz album to go platinum, with a fifteen-minute jam called “Chameleon” finding incredible popularity. Fans at the time accused Hancock of selling out, but the album turned out to be a landmark in the worlds of jazz and funk music alike, and due to frequent sampling is seen as integral to the origin of hip-hop.
After an incredibly prolific ten years, HH released Future Shock, whose lead single “Rockit” became a smash hit in the early days of MTV. Like Headhunters before it, Future Shock was astonishingly avant-garde, blending hip-hop influences with his typical jazz style, and featuring Grand Mixer DST on turntables in a performance that helped popularize turntablism as a legitimate form of instrumental expression.
After such an illustrious career, River seems on the surface to signify a slowing down or mellowing out for Hancock. However, while the album may not be as cutting-edge as some of his previous work, it is still a masterfully constructed piece of art.
As a tribute, the album works beautifully on many levels. Hancock and Mitchell have been friends since a 1979 collaboration with Charles Mingus, and their friendship lends River a decidedly personal touch. Hancock approaches the material not merely with one musician’s respect for another’s work, but with the care that one would take in handcrafting a gift to a friend. For instance, careful attention is paid to the context in which Mitchell’s lyrics are placed, with Hancock deliberately drawing attention to the them by placing them in unusual settings or framing them in new and unexpected ways. Everything about the album evokes Joni, from its loose, jazzy, interpretative approach, to the selection of other artists on the record, including noted Mitchell influence Leonard Cohen. Not just content to record an album of covers, Hancock also includes two songs that, while not notably recorded by Mitchell, are songs that she cites as crucial in her musical development. The album clearly is an earnest tribute in every possible respect.
Working with a number of outstanding artists from up-and-coming Corinne Bailey Rae to Mitchell herself, Hancock showcases a wide array of talents, but also illustrates his uncanny ability to match an artist to a song or style, and to coax the best out of every collaborator he approaches. Tina Turner’s turn on “Edith and the Kingpin” shows that at age 68, she’s still capable of giving one of the most soulful performances of her career, while “Court and Spark” intersperses Norah Jones’s smoky vocals with instrumental moments of abstract tension, for an unexpected but memorable re-imagining. Leonard Cohen delivers “The Jungle Line” like a poetry slam, drawing attention to Mitchell’s lyrics, singer-songwriter tendencies, and jazz roots simultaneously. The album also features numerous instrumental works, including a wildly divergent take on “Both Sides Now” that is really more of a meditation on the song than it is an interpretation thereof. Hancock’s keeps little from the original piece, instead fully exploring the possibilities presented by Mitchell’s framework.
River is a strong album for Hancock in a career full of them, but it’s also notable for the way in which it showcases its subject. Joni Mitchell may be a fixture in the world of singer/songwriter folk-pop, but she has always had jazz in and around her life. Her voice, her delivery, and her own musical tastes have always been firmly rooted in the jazz world. Aside from the fact that the music stands so well on its own, what makes River truly phenomenal is that it takes these tendencies in Mitchell and brings them to the fore. The result is an engaging experience in terms of the music and the goal of the album overall.
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03.12.2008 at 4:27 am |
Hey. I know that this is rough and it may be too focused on one album and it may be that HH doesn’t count as a “contemporary” artist. I plan on asking Donna these things in class. I had written this review for Rebecca McGill and the Vino, so if it doesn’t count for that reason, I understand, as well. However, I was planning on posting it here anyway, and I figured that I might as well post it when the assignment was more or less exactly what I had written.
You might just say that I wrote it early.
If I can post more or again, I will. At the very least, I’m a’ edit it. But, I’m in the middle of some craziness, as always, so I figured I’d at least ask Donna if this will work, and if not, that’ll be cool, too.
03.13.2008 at 2:40 pm |
I love Joni MItchell! And I’ve never had many fond feelings for jazz, but after hearing a snippet of the album on NPR and reading this review, I am very interested in it.
Perhaps this album is a good way to really introduce myself to good jazz.
Great job!
03.15.2008 at 10:34 pm |
You know, I’m starting to see a trend in this Jazz business. Artists like to redo songs. Take Micheal Buble for example. He has some of his own songs but he has many many songs that are just remakes of old jazz songs. Maybe Jazz is more of an art of interpretation rather than the creation of a song. That is really interesting and can really change the way we critisize an artist. I think I’ll start keeping that in mind more when I listen to jazz music.