Key Moments

Spencer Patterson

Friday, Sept. 27, 2002 | 9:16 a.m.

Twenty-five years later, jazz great Herbie Hancock can still vividly recall the moment his musical career changed forever.

A member of Miles Davis' second classic quintet, with bassist Ron Carter, saxophonist Wayne Shorter and drummer Tony Williams, the pianist received a rather strange request from his mentor during a 1968 recording session. Davis asked Hancock, 24 years old at the time, to sit down at an electric piano, a Fender Rhodes.

"It was like, 'What, do you want me to play this toy?' At least that's what I felt like, though I didnt say that," Hancock said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. "But when I turned it on and I played a chord on it, I said, 'Oh, this sounds nice.' It was the first time I'd ever played one."

Hancock, who had majored in engineering for two years at Iowa's Grinnell College before switching to music composition, became even more intrigued by technology after discovering the wonders of the electric piano.

Since leaving Davis' full-time touring group in 1968, the 62-year-old Hancock has plugged in for many of his own projects, including his Mwandishi group recordings of the early 1970s, 1974's funk classic "Head Hunters" and 1983's "Future Shock," which spawned the crossover MTV hit "Rockit."

Hancock's most recent solo release, last year's "Future 2 Future," even featured elements of electronica, a genre relying on electronic instrumentation and often stressing danceable beats.

Yet through all those diverse efforts, Hancock has remained one of the world's most-respected acoustic pianists, regularly returning to the stripped-down form of the instrument for albums and tours.

Saturday night at 8, Hancock will perform at Artemus Ham Hall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, along with Gary Thomas on saxophone, Scott Colley on bass and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums. The quartet are expected to stick primarily to acoustic material, treating fans to a retrospective spanning Hancock's groundbreaking career.

Concert-goers shouldn't be surprised to see an electric synthesizer perched atop Hancock's piano, though he says he plans to use it primarily for "something from time to time, mostly just for some background."

However, technology plays far more than a background role in Hancock's life. In fact, the musician is so concerned with what he sees as inequities created by recent technological breakthroughs that he has founded a philanthropic organization called the Rhythm of Life Foundation to combat such disparities.

"It's not only making sure that people who are less fortunate have access to information, but also making sure that we have access to what those people have to offer," Hancock said. "It's not like hand-me-downs to people who have nothing to give. Here we have people that probably have plenty to give but don't have the means to provide it to us.

"The haves always assume that the haves have and that the have-nots don't have anything to offer. And that's a very arrogant position which I am trying to challenge whenever I have the opportunity."

Hancock is in the process of finding a site in the San Francisco Bay Area for a Rhythm of Life Foundation school, which would stress both technology and music. He and and producer/composer Quincy Jones have discussed the possibility of opening a second location in Los Angeles, and Hancock said that representatives from other countries, including India, Costa Rica and several in Africa and the Caribbean, have also expressed interest in the project.

"My original idea had to with training young people to program and to encourage them to develop the use of technology to address the issues of humanity," Hancock said. "In other words, creating programs that actually address the real kinds of issues that people have to deal with, civil rights and social problems, issues having to do with the generation gap and peer pressure.

As for the musical component of his school's curriculum, Hancock said he plans to continue challenging the common notion of "jazz," stretching the genre even beyond the instrumental and stylistic experimentation for which he has become famous.

"I'm looking at the re-examination of the conventions of jazz, paving the way and laying some of the groundwork toward music for the 21st century," Hancock said. "And sustaining the music we call jazz, because if we box it in the same kind of box, clothe it in the same kind of decor, then it's not going to grow.

"It doesn't necessarily involve electric instruments, or even a collaboration with genres that are presenting themselves, like the electronic scene. We're looking beyond that, too."

For the past two years, Hancock has also been looking at new ways of approaching some of jazz's most-respected institutions. Along with saxophonist Michael Brecker and trumpeter Roy Hargrove, Hancock spent parts of 2001 and this year performing "Directions in Music," a celebration of what would have been the 75th birthdays of jazz legends John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Rather than simply performing the two men's classics, however, Hancock and his mates discovered new ways of presenting the material, stretching the music and adding in new flavors. And that, Hancock says, is how Coltrane and Davis approached their own sound.

"Whatever they played, whether they were things they wrote themselves or tunes that were standards or written by other composers, they always put their own spin on those compositions," Hancock said. "And this was the idea that we tried to carry into the Directions in Music concept.

"When we played pieces that were associated with Miles Davis or John Coltrane, we didn't play the old arrangements that people are familiar with. We created new ones, a whole vision."

Hancock described Coltrane as a cutting-edge musician, one who influenced the pianist through his body of work.

"I never got a chance to play with 'Trane, and I only met him a couple of times, so I never got any advice from him or anything," Hancock said. "But what I got from him I got from seeing him live, in performance, and from his records. He was always a very daring musician in the selection of his music."

Davis, meanwhile, had an even greater impact on Hancock, having worked alongside the young pianist over the 5 1/2 years they played together in Davis' combos.

"He really encouraged the musicians to explore new territory and come up with new ideas and examine things," Hancock said. "Not just to play what you know, but to go beyond the comfort zone into the areas you're not familiar with. He encouaged us to develop the courage to do it, and this is something I've tried to keep throughout my career."

Next month Sony will issue a four-disc set, "The Herbie Hancock Box," covering 39 tracks from his years on Columbia Records. After stops in San Diego and Las Vegas this week, Hancock will take three weeks off before embarking on a five-week North American tour with his band.

Hancock will then continue exploring. Plans for upcoming projects include live performances with classical musicians, cellist Yo-Yo Ma possibly among them, as well as a blues-related album.

Hancock, who garnered an Academy Award for Best Original Score for 1986's " 'Round Midnight," will also serve as the musical director for "Hitters," a film due out late this year.

It's all part of a never-ending growth process for a musician who long ago cemented his place as one of jazz's true living legends, even if he chooses not to view his own career quite in those terms.

"That's not how I look at myself. But I did play with some of the world's greatest musicians, many of whom are not with us anymore," Hancock said. "And hopefully, their influence rubbed off on me in some positive way.""