Herbie Hancock. Aotea Centre, Auckland. May 8 2007

 |   |  2 min read

Herbie Hancock. Aotea Centre, Auckland. May 8 2007
Auckland jazz audiences go a long time between drinks, as they say. The number of legendary musicians who come here - as opposed to Wellington for the International Festival of the Arts - has been paltry in the past decade or so. Wynton Marsalis stands out, but few others. 


So there was high expectation and a large crowd for this concert by a genuine legend in the art. 

At a youthful 67, Herbie Hancock has a luminous award-winning career which spans more than four decades and ranges from acoustic jazz with Miles Davis, through electro-funk and much more. So there was speculation on just what Hancock might deliver with his band of drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, bassist Nathan East and guitarist Lionel Loueke

Opening with a persuasively seductive 20-minute passage of ambient electronics with African references (a reminder that Hancock once adopted the Swahili name Mwandishi) the band laid out a map of ideas which saw Hancock shift from electric piano to acoustic, and to selecting tones from a laptop. 

It was that musical canvas they explored in a generous concert which ran past the two-hour mark, and in which Hancock also reached across time from playing material like the funk-like Stitched Up off his latest album Possibilities, picking Actual Proof from the mid-70s Headhunters days for a staccato and driving attack where Colaiuta came into his own, and - more rewardingly - essaying classic material such as Watermelon Man explored as funk-fusion with Loueke on discreet wah-wah, his hit Cantaloupe Island, and a moving solo treatment of Maiden Voyage, the programme highlight. 

That magisterial yet intimate piece - which improbably began life as a cologne advertisement in the mid 60s - was exceptional: notes rippled like light on water, there was a tidal ebb and flow to its development, and Hancock allowed himself faint smiles of pleasure as he unfolded the piece. 

Elsewhere Loueke took a fine solo spot which linked to his Benin musical heritage and BB King while exploring kora-like tones and using loop tape to duet with himself. And East grimaced and grinned his way through some vocals on the more populist material. Hancock strapped on a portable keyboard to playfully duel with East and Loueke. 

Jazz can be an art and an entertainment. At this concert it was both but, without wishing to sound the purist, there was much here which erred towards the crowd-pleasing. 

The standing ovation and calls for encores were deserved, but that treatment of Maiden Voyage will last in the memory longer than their version, complete with harmonica affects from Hancock, of Stevie Wonder's I Just Called to Say I Love You.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Live reviews + concert photos articles index

ERSATZ ZEPPELINS IN CONCERTS (2017) The battle of . . . even more

ERSATZ ZEPPELINS IN CONCERTS (2017) The battle of . . . even more

Around the time of the launch of the first Beatles' Anthology collection in '95 – kicked off by the “new” song Free As a Bird – the lonely voices from the balcony became... > Read more

Larry Carlton. Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland. June 6 2014

Larry Carlton. Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland. June 6 2014

There's an old joke about jazz promotion: if you want to make a million bucks, start with two mill. The amorphous audience is the great unknown. As some promoters have found, you can... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

MILES DAVIS: BITCHES BREW, CONSIDERED (1970): The sorcerer in his laboratory

MILES DAVIS: BITCHES BREW, CONSIDERED (1970): The sorcerer in his laboratory

Carlos Santana, who says rarely a day goes by when he doesn't listen to some Miles Davis, believes you only have to listen to the Davis' album Live at the Plugged Nickel -- recorded in December... > Read more

Mick Jones of the Clash: Career Opportunities

Mick Jones of the Clash: Career Opportunities

Years later someone brought it to my attention: in Marcus Gray's book about the Clash, Last Gang in Town, there is mention of -- and a quote from -- my December 93 interview with Mick Jones. By... > Read more