Herbie Hancock

USA, 1960–now

American pianist and composer (b. 1940) who played a Mozart concerto with the Chicago Symphony at eleven and has been rebuilding his own music ever since. Maiden Voyage, the Miles Davis quintet, Head Hunters and the scratched-up 'Rockit' are four different musicians working under one name.

MusicRoots documents 7 artists who influenced Herbie Hancock and 0 artists Herbie Hancock influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Herbie Hancock?

• Clare Fischer — Hancock is blunt about it — 'I wouldn't be me without Clare Fischer.' The far-out voicings on Speak Like a Child came from Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's.
• Bill Evans — Named by Hancock in the same sentence as Fischer, and the other source of the rootless voicings under his ballads.
• Maurice Ravel — The French end of Hancock's harmony, and he puts Ravel in the same list as the jazz musicians rather than in a separate classical box.
• Gil Evans — The fourth name on the list — orchestral colour applied to jazz harmony, which is what Speak Like a Child is doing with three horns.
• Oscar Peterson — One of the two pianists Hancock transcribed off records in high school, which is where the ear came from.
• George Shearing — The other one. Shearing's block chords are the first harmony Hancock took apart by ear.
• Miles Davis — Davis recruited him for the Second Great Quintet in 1963 and taught him to leave space and trust the instinct — which is what made the Head Hunters turn possible ten years later.