Herbie Hancock: Possibilities

I began making this album,

and the idea came from my realizing

that so many musicians are putinto what we call a pigeonhole.

Whatever is the record that made them famous,

they were continually encouragedto do that same kind of thing

time and time again.

I'm looking for people from various genres

that I feel might be interestedin exploring the territory

that could possibly develop from a collaboration with me

and perhaps maybe somethingtotally different would happen.

Did you get a chance to listen to--

Of course. Yeah, I heard a few things.

Is it too high or too low?

I think it's right.

Can we go to the piano and just check it out?

The record is really a collaboration

between myself and a lot of different artists.

Right.

And the spirit of it is--

is that each artist brings what they bring to the table,

I bring what I bring to the table,

and then we see what happens when we get together.

Because, like, you know,

there's certain things that I bring to the table from my experience,

you know, coming from jazz,

and then there are things that you bring to the table:

your youth, your connections to the music of the era that you're born in.

- Okay. - And it's turning out to be really nice.

Good.

Can I have more reverb, please?

I can't hear myself. I need more reverb than we had.

Please.

Whoo!

Hot.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, no lie.

Great, man.

That's it. I better go back to the drawing board.

Do you want to listen to that?

Yeah, sure, let's go in.

I had to take off my sweater. I got too hot.

Yeah, right. I'm hot too.

I feel that many of our systems

that work to encourage creativity

are being challenged,

and there's more encouragement to stay where you are.

Don't make a wave.

I think the word that kind of captures

the spirit of what I believe in

and what I'm really about and what I hope to achieve

is the word "possibilities."

As children, we have that sensethat anything is possible

and we have that kind of openness; we're not jaded.

The older we get, the more closed-in we get,

the more frightened we get, the more set in our ways we get

because we're afraid of the unknown,

whereas as a child, everything is unknown.

What a beautiful place to reside in, you know,

in your own being,

you know, where you still have the wonder of a child.

That's cool for the middle of the tune.

But when Herbie starts to play, you go with it.

I got a phone call: "You want to record with Herbie Hancock?"

"Yeah, absolutely. What can I do for Herbie?"

The only thing I can imagine is that,

"Okay, he must want me to play in my own little way."

So I really didn't get that nervous comin' in because...

I knew that I must've been askedfor something I've already done,

which is definitely not playing jazz because I'd just butcher it.

So I'm just kind of trying to do my thing, whatever that might be,

and see what that turns out to.

On that bridge part, what did you say, there's that popish thing?

Yeah.

I'm wondering if we could, on that D chord,

if we could make it like a B-flat chord with the D on the bottom.

Okay.- You know like that B-flat too.

And then the G chord, put a B on the bottom.

I didn't know what to expect. I'd never met John Mayer before.

I had been told that John had an idea,

and I didn't know what that idea was.

I had written this groove on the guitar called "The Day Before."

So I started playing this groove.

We just started. He's got a groove goin'.

And then little by little a lot of fragments formed.

To this day, I don't know exactly what he had

before we started playing.

But somehow, right away, things started to happen.

Amazing.

I like that beginning

where we don't do the drum thing.

It's more like just vocal, and that's very nice.

Now, when you did that, you said--

I enjoy the process of collaborative effort.

Influence each other and share ideas,

pick off energy from the vibe of each other.

- Turn it up. - Give me that again.

Yeah. That's nice.

All right. Keep that. Write that down.

When the moment is right,

you just have to really channel

what that song is all about

and stay there for as long as possible

in that pinhole of focus

and just write as fast as you can

'cause, you know, you get out of that and it's gone.

It could be that. It could be that.

Or it could be...

Yeah, I wish I could bend the notes.

The chordal structure's starting to be built.

Rhythmic structure, rhythmic ideas,

and then he was making up a melody.

He probably had some melody ideas before,

but he didn't have lyrics,

so he just started making up some words as he went along.

Some of them were really good.

A friend of mine, Pino Paladino, a great bass player also.

Pino and I had lunch one day, and Pino says,

"Yeah, man. The last thing you need is a girl to stitch you up."

And I went, "What does that mean?"

"You know, stitch you up, like, you know, do you wrong."

And I went, "Wow, that's cool. Stitch me up."

Thank you.

No, no. Great lyrics.

He's out for a second. He'll be right back.

So when he comes back, let's have him and everybody meet.

There he is now. He's back. Hold on.

So we all know who's here.

Yeah, here I am.

- Great. - Hi.

- So here's Raul. - Hey, Greg.

Hey, Raul. How are you, man?

- Good. Excellent. - Hey, Raul?

- Hey. - Hey.

- Sounds real beautiful, man. - Oh, thank you.

In terms of, like, the phrasing,

is there room for--

Well, I'll just sing. Is there room for like going a little bit over?

It's very simple.

- Go ahead and try things. - Excellent.

We're doing a truly bicoastal session.

Herbie and Greg are in L.A., and we're here in New York.

And we're working together bicoastally in real time.

It's pretty amazing.

- There goes your solo. - Yeah, right.

- Whoa! - Tonguing and everything.

- Good thing Miles ain't here. - Yeah.

He'll have something to say about that.

Well, you know, Herbie doesn't haveto solo.

You just really kicked Herbie out of his own solo.

I hope you feel good about that.

I mean, you know, forget his name's on the record.

He didn't really have to solo.

That's just in case nothing else came up.

Don't worry about it. I get all the credit for it. It's okay.

Sorry.

Do not be sorry, okay?

Bingo on the first verse.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Bingo on the first verse.

Let me get that entrance too.

Just for "No April rain."

- The first phrase was cool. - That was sweet.