JazzMatters: The Best New Jazz of Winter 2024
PopMatters presents the best new jazz recordings from the winter of 2024 and reflects on the relationship of the Grammys to jazz.
herbie hancock
The 20 Best Jazz Albums for Beginners
If you’ve always wanted to get interested in jazz, jump in. Don’t approach it with fear or a sense that you don’t know enough about it. It’s just a smorgasbord of stuff to enjoy.
Futureshock: Herbie Hancock and the Body Politics of Pop
A classically trained jazz pianist who spent five years with the Miles Davis Quintet, Herbie Hancock is also a practising Buddhist whose ideas about transcending the body are realized in his funky cyborg "Rockit" video.
The 25 Best Space Disco Songs of 1976-1986
With Star Trek: Picard and Space Force in the news, it's time to revisit the best space disco of the original era. These 25 songs feature outer space on the dance floor, from the avant-garde to Star Wars commercialism and beyond.
Herbie Hancock and Kamasi Washington Join Together to Take Berkeley Higher
Two generations of Jedi jazz masters join forces for a majestic co-headlining tour. Like Kamasi Washington, Herbie Hancock expresses sentiment for the good people of humanity coming together to transcend the chaos of modern times.
Pop, Hard Bop and the Jazz Vamp: Herbie Hancock’s ‘Head Hunters’ vs. Miles Davis’ ‘On the Corner’
Head Hunters, spanning one or two lifetimes since its release, remains utterly applicable to the contemporary soundscape, encompassing the sensuality of gutbucket funk as well as airy confines of so-called jazz.
An Alternative Christmas Playlist for the Coming Ice Age
If the idea is that earth, water, fire, air and space constitute the core elements of life, then these five songs might seem as their equivalents to surviving the complications that come from embracing the good and enduring the ugly of the Christmas season.
Joni Mitchell Biography ‘Reckless Daughter’ Is Lush and Complex
All sides of the mosaic, mercurial, brilliant music legend Joni Mitchell appear in David Yaffe's definitive biography.
Finding the Sublime in Jazz, an Argument for Abstraction
Jazz columnist Will Layman presents seven pieces of music as evidence of the beauty and urgency of pure sound in instrumental jazz.
Various Artists: Miles Ahead Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Don Cheadle, director and star of Miles Ahead, has assembled a mostly enticing soundtrack to his film, though still peppered with a few inessentials.
“Music Is More Than Just Notes”: An Interview with Mino Cinélu
How does Mino Cinélu tell stories with percussion? Just ask Sting, Kate Bush, or Herbie Hancock.
Buddhism Wins and Crack Loses in ‘Herbie Hancock: Possibilities’
Herbie Hancock's memoir shows us how possibilities in and of themselves can be fleeting, but their ripple effects can go on nearly forever.