Review of Herbie Hancock concert May 4th 2011

Hebie Hancock Her Majestys Theatre Adelaide 4^th May 2011

Legendary jazz pianist and keyboard player Herbie Hancock returned to Adelaide on Wednesday night and gave us a fabulous concert. At 71 Hancock, a 13 time Grammy Award winner has nothing to prove. He has done it all! The man sitting next to me referred to him as `The Jimi Hendrix of the keyboard' and that certainly seems an appropriate title for him. He appeared with a trio consisting of James Genus on bass and Trevor Lawrence on drums with singer/violinist Kristina Train guesting on some numbers.

The first number which Hancock told us was a `warm up' for the band immediately demonstrated the virtuosity of all three members of the trio. Hancock moved from his Korg electronic keyboard to the Steinway piano and drummer Lawrence set a cracking pace laying down some heavy rhythms over which Hancock and Genus traded licks. Hancock loves his electronic effects and some very distorted sounds were produced including some brassy sounds from the bass guitar! 

Hancock introduced the band and chatted to the audience explaining that we would be hearing some tunes from his now not so new recording `The Imagine Project' which was released last June and saw Hancock collaborating with musicians from around the world to promote unity and harmony with our fellow human beings. Of course this had to include the song `Imagine' sung  with an interesting interpretation by Kristina Train.  Many of us remember Tinariwen, a band from Mali in West Africa who were the hit of Womadelaide a few years back with their hypnotic desert grooves. Singer Kristina Train with help from pre-recorded backing gave us the Tinariwen song Tamatant Tilay and segued into Exodus, a very powerful sound and groove. She sang and played violin on another song from `The Imagine Project, Bob Dylans' Times They Are A Changing' which was hardly recognisable from the original. Her last song with the band was Space Captain recently revived on the album by Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi but Train sang it very soulfully and the funky bass lines from Genus were a good substitute for Truck's guitar.

Hancock began his musical life as a classical performer and this legacy was reflected in a 15 minute improvisation on the Steinway Piano showing his more delicate and lyrical style of playing. This was interspersed with some great fusion from the 70's. The Korg and the Key Tar were put to good use in these tunes. Hancock played a very funky version of Watermelon Man based on the Headhunters one rather than the earlier piano version. This seemed to segue into Chameleon and some other riffs that sounded familiar but which I couldn't quite identify. This was high high energy! After 2 hours and 15 minutes the band left the stage but returned for an encore with his huge 1983 pop hit Rockit with Hancock showing his keyboard wizardry on his Keytar! As a finale to the finale the band danced to a recording of Rockit after they finished playing it! After 2 and a half hours we left the theatre feeling very satisfied having seen a jazz legend still at the top of his game!