BY WENDY ZHANG
Herbie Hancock
Vivid LIVE
Sydney Opera House, 10 June
Herbie Hancock? I’ve seen his music videos when I was growing up, and read about him in jazz standard books, but to see him playing live? I wouldn’t even imagine it was possible to compete with the sold-out halls he’d claim, but I somehow ended up at his concert at the Sydney Opera House and witnessed this jazz legend and his band performing. And it was a truly unique experience.
It was a full house – the venue was packed with a diverse crowd, with many members holding drinks and nodding excitedly to Herbie’s albums played at the background as they walked into the concert hall. When Herbie and his band emerged onto the stage, these musicians received rock-star treatment – clapping, cheering, and calling his name from a wild audience.
The performance was a physical demonstration of why Herbie’s music career spanned six decades and is still going strong. Herbie would constantly switch between the Fazioli grand piano and his keyboard, changing between the cool jazz music (played on the former), and flamboyant and loud electro music (played on the latter). His jazz technique was brilliant as he played fast glissandi with a sense of style and showmanship. However, the jazz was always juxtaposed with other elements of contemporary music – rock, pop, electro and funk – which made his music unique and unpredictable. He would play a soft and romantic melody on the grand – full of charm and vibe – and suddenly switch to fully synthesized electro music on the keyboard; and it was this element of surprise that kept the audience energised throughout. As a traditional jazz lover, I initially resisted the sound of synthesizers in jazz, and found it piercingly loud for my liking, but I understood why people liked it so much – it felt impulsive and exciting.
Herbie was not alone – his music was backed by some terrific players in his band. Vinnie Colaiuta played almost non-stop on the drums during the 90-minute show, keeping the beats (and everyone’s energy) up. Vinnie played some complex rhythms with Herbie – so complex that I got totally lost in counting (I started counting because I thought this would be a fun project and surely I can count, right? Wrong!). They also improvised on the spot, and Vinnie had never lost a beat as he gave strong support and backup to the band through these extremely rhythmic pieces.
Lionel Loueke was outstanding and a real surprise, not just on his guitar but also for his vocal skills. During the first song, he started mouth clicking, imitating the sound of a percussion instrument, and it was extremely fast. I initially thought he was doing it with the drummer, but then found out that he did all these by himself. When the tempo changed, he picked up his guitar without a break and played it like a percussion instrument (no melody and pure beats), and continued his mouth clicking at the same time – talking about multi-tasking! His music was rhythmic with strong African music influence; indeed, he was originally from the West African Republic of Benin.
James Genus on the bass provided some groovy tunes into the mix. He played a couple of long solos in the song Actual Proof – always with a sense of coolness that added an original feel to the performance.
During this concert and piece, I witnessed some extraordinary synthesizing techniques and instruments. In Actual Proof, Herbie began singing through a vocoder. His voice sounded more like a digital instrument than a real voice, which actually mixed well with the keyboard music he played. Lionel then joined him and sang the chorus, followed by his vocal percussion beats..
Towards the end of the song, Herbie came out onto the stage carrying a keytar (a guitar-looking synthesizer with a keyboard at the front), and as he hit the first note, the audience went wild. It was my first time seeing a keytar and I was excited to hear its electro sound. It was astounding to see Herbie playing the keytar without ever looking down at the keys. As Herbie played with his band, they looked at each other and couldn’t hide the smiles on their faces at the simple joy of sharing a stage, jamming, and playing live music to an audience. After all, this is why we still play and listen to live music, even though we can access any kind of music with a finger click, these days.
The band was called back onto the stage after their final song and played Herbie’s Grammy-award winning single Rockpit as an encore. After the intro, Herbie played the main melody on the keytar, and mouthed the keys of this melody to the audience and asked them to join him in singing. This audience was not at all shy, and sang the melody in unison, again and again, while Herbie played with his band.
The energy was high in the room, the band was playing, people were singing, and as they anticipated the ending of the song, Herbie jumped up high and played the last key on his keytar as he landed back down, ending the concert like a true star.
Images supplied. Credit: Prudence Upton.
