Herbie Hancock: Grammy's Golden Surprise

The jazz legend mulls his unexpected Album of the Year win

By Fred Goodman
Special to MSN Music

When jazz pianist Herbie Hancock's pensive and ambitious interpretations of songs by Joni Mitchell, "River: The Joni Letters," won the top prize at this year's Grammy Awards by snagging Album of the Year, it was -- to say the least -- a surprise.

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While Hancock's album boasted no little star power with vocals by Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Corinne Bailey Rae, Leonard Cohen and Mitchell herself, longtime Grammy watchers had assumed the award would go to either rapper Kanye West's "Graduation" or British retro-soul chanteuse Amy Winehouse's "Look at Me, Will Ya? I'm a Freakin' Mess!" (Sorry. Actually, it's called "Back to Black.")

How big a surprise was it? Consider these numbers: While the 67-year-old Hancock, who has also won an Academy Award (for his soundtrack to 1986's "Round Midnight"), has now copped 12 Grammy Awards across a career that boasts 47 albums as a leader and countless appearances as a sideman, "River" is the first jazz recording in 43 years to win Album of the Year. The last was "Getz/Gilberto," the landmark collaboration between jazz saxophonist Stan Getz and bossa nova guitarist Joao Gilberto. But that album had a big hit single in "The Girl From Ipanema." "River" has no single and had garnered scant airplay. Indeed, on the night it won Album of the Year, it had sold just 60,000 copies.

"A lot of people never heard it," marvels Hancock, who was perhaps more surprised than anyone. "Beyond my usual fans, most people didn't even know it existed." Now, thanks to the Grammys, they do.

Defying expectations has been a staple of Hancock's career. He has been one of jazz's top pianists since the early 1960s, when he wrote and recorded such now historic jazz pieces as "Maiden Voyage" and "Cantaloupe Island." He was also a member of what many aficionados consider the finest small group in jazz history, the incredible Miles Davis quintet that also included saxophonist Wayne Shorter, drummer Tony Williams and bassist Ron Carter.

But Hancock has also repeatedly made his mark on the mainstream with big, influential hits like the Latin-tinged "Watermelon Man," funk touchstone "Chameleon" and the hip-hop anthem "Rockit." Still, the sumptuous "Rivers: The Joni Letters" is the musical equivalent of a seven-course feast, and the fact that it could triumph at the Grammy Awards -- which at its best tends to reward down-home cooking, and at its worst junk food -- is a pleasant surprise for both Hancock and music fans.

Here's what Mr. Hancock had to say shortly after his unexpected win.

MSN Music: Now that you've had a couple of weeks to live with your Grammy victory and let the surprise wear off, I'm wondering if you've come to see it as indicative of anything beyond a recognition of that album in and of itself.

Herbie Hancock: I hope that the record deserved to get Album of the Year on its own merits. I've read in the press that it functioned as a kind of lifetime achievement award. I hope it wasn't.

The members of the Academy come from a pretty wide generational spectrum. Perhaps many older members liked the record and, because it was the 50th anniversary of the Grammys, felt this was a record that really spoke to that by covering a wide area -- it's not just the current flavor. It's got a historic perspective because it's Joni Mitchell. And jazz is timeless.

Obviously, Joni Mitchell is a tremendous songwriter.

But I wasn't that familiar with the songs the way a lot of her fans are. My respect is based primarily on what she stands for. She's a renaissance woman, a poet, painter and graphic artist, and I knew she had directed a film and written a ballet. She's a fighter, the kind of person who stands up for what she believes in. Joni is a person who never backs down if it is something she believes in. But I really don't know the details of her songs. Lyrics aren't something I normally think of.

I understand you spent a lot of time thinking about what those lyrics meant when it came to crafting each song's arrangement. There are wonderful vocal performances on this album, but you've also come up with a very abstract instrumental version of what is probably Joni's most famous song, "Both Sides Now." How did that happen?

The words mean something. And I tried to be true to their meaning through my eyes because it is my record. "Both Sides Now" talks about three observations of life based on age/experience. To me, it said a reharmonization could work. And then, because it's so familiar to so many people, I thought, "Why don't we do a version without a vocalist?"

You first met Joni when you played on "Mingus," the tribute album she created by writing lyrics to many of that great jazz musician's compositions. How did that come about and were you surprised that she would do a project like that?

I was totally surprised. Jaco Pastorious was putting the band together and he called me. When he told me Wayne (Shorter) was on it I said, "I'll be there!" What surprised me most was that I expected to have to water things down for a pop singer -- and Joni didn't want us to do that at all. She sounded so comfortable in an atmosphere that was so loose and free. She wanted us to treat the music like we would if we were on our own.

You've done so many different things over the years -- recorded every kind of music imaginable. Were you always so eclectic or was that something you've come to?

I wasn't always open. I remember during the early '60s I only listened to jazz and classical music. That's all I felt was worth listening to. Then I joined Miles. He had LP jackets around his house of the Beatles, Cream, James Brown. Now, I thought Miles was the epitome of cool so I said, "Wow, this must be OK," and I changed my attitude. Personally, I was more attracted to James Brown than the rock stuff, although Jimi Hendrix would have fit in because blues is where he comes from and I could relate to that.

So what have you taken away from your surprising win at the Grammys?

As happy as I was, I went up onstage not just as a spokesman for myself but to represent jazz or any artist who strives for excellence and is not driven by celebrity or bling or solely by personal gain. I saw it as a great victory for jazz and the culture it represents.

Fred Goodman is the author of "The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce" (Vintage). A former editor of Rolling Stone and Billboard, his work has appeared in many major publications.