I’ve been tracking my music listening via a google spreadsheet this year. And kept a very irregular music journal with my thoughts. I’ve been intending to post more on here from it, but haven’t got around to it. So I’m going to do a monthly round up with a highlight and a few other thoughts.
Highlight: Herbie Hancock
Undoubtedly my musical highlight was seeing Herbie Hancock at the beginning of the month. Here’s what I wrote the day after
I saw Herbie Hancock last night. It is rare for me to see an artist live as my interest in them is piquing, the only other examples I can think of are My Disco in 2011, Frankie Cosmos in 2017, and Alex G last year. I’ve been tracking the music I listen to this year via a spreadsheet.
It is rare for an artist to come to New Zealand the same time my interest in them is peaking. But Herbie Hancock did. He is my current top artist of the year in my spreadsheet I keep, just edging out Alex G. I would now spend double that to see him again.
While Head Hunters has been a long time fave (discovered when I heard Watermelon Man soundtracking a child smoking weed in the Jonah Hill film Mid 90s), my recent interest in Herbie Hancock really stems from picking up a copy of Sextant at the end of last year. It is known for being the first jazz album to feature a synthesizer and that its commercial failure triggered a change in direction that lead to Head Hunters coming out later that same year.
Its a bit fucked up and I love it so much. While synth became a regular part of Herbie’s sound, jazz and popular music in general, it never sounded like this again,
Soon after I got a copy of Head Hunters from Elly for Christmas, then picked up a couple of his 80s albums in a bundle on Trademe.
What I have loved about listening to Herbie Hancock is how everything feels both so immediate
While I have listened exstensively I feel like I have only just scratched the surface of his discography, but from what I have heard, the performance touched on styles and moments from across his varied career, without ever sounding out of place.
There were moments of hip hop beats, like he was interested in in the 80s (there was not record scratching and gated 80s drum production, but I think that was good), african rhythms, more traditional jazz, the post bop style freak and lots of the jazz funk he is best known for.
While he was there to perform, he never pandered to the audience. It never felt like he was doing anything that he felt obligated to do, not even the full and relatively straight performance of Chameleon he ended on.
A good ten minutes of the nearly two hour performance was dedicated to a bhuddist sermon about us all being one family, an idea that came to him during Covid lockdowns.
In a keytar solo he moved so far up the pitch until it was the most obnoxious distorted broken digital screech, which he played while jumping side to side. An older woman in front of me stuck her fingers in her ears in some of the more abrasive synthesizer moments, then looked at garden beds on facebook marketplace on her phone.
But the crowd were there for it and went along every moment of the way. People are interested in experimental, weird and strange artwork if they are taken there by someone they trust. There’s an idea that has spread that art/media needs to be palatable to have mass appeal, but I think audiences just need to be assured that they’re in safe hands.
I am new to jazz. Before late last year Head Hunters was the only jazz album I listened to regularly, and have only gone to see it live a handful of times.
I understand like performance often involves solos of a certain length before coming back together for a refrain. Even knowing this, it felt like Herbie Hancock gave a spotlight to each member of his band. It did not feel like the performers in the band were doing Herbie Hancock style solos, they were fully themselves, and had Herbie’s full support to be themselves. Terrance Blanchard, the trumpet player, was a highlight.
I couldn’t help but think after leaving how much more fulfilling it must be to be able to perform your music in a way that allows flexibility and creativity and continued collaboration and invention than it must be for all the other artists touring off the back of their decades old careers.
It was the most expensive concert I have ever bought tickets for at $150 a ticket for the cheapest seats. The seats we got were right next to the sound desk, and while far from the stage were in an optimal sound position.
When I justified the cost to myself and others I have said that he is 84 years old, and that this will probably be the last time he will come to New Zealand. But I now take that back, after seeing him perform last night, I really believe he will not stop performing or touring as long as he lives, and he has a lot of life left in him. I reckon he’s probably going to be back and I’d happily pay double what I did to see him again.
Album of the month: David Kilgour and Sam Hunt – Falling Debris
I got this cd when I was doing the NZ music show at RDU, and it has always stayed floating around but I don’t think I’d played it for a couple of years at least. Since moving into my new house, I’ve started a system where most my cds are in a box in a cupboard and I pull 15-20 out a month to go into rotation. I mostly listen to cds in the morning getting ready for work and this is a very nice morning record. It’s got the psychy guitar work of David Kilgour’s later work and late era Clean. I haven’t read much Sam Hunt but the lyrics are really nice in an understated way. They don’t feel overly clever or like they want to draw too much attention to themselves which is what I worry about when a poet writes lyrics for a musician. I’m not actually sure if that ever happens though, I should give poets more credit. This was one of the pleasant surprises of something I forgot how good it was. I actually don’t think I have ever appreciated it as much as I do now.
Most Played Artists in October
- 1. Herbie Hancock
- 2= Cat Power
- 2= David Kilgour
- 2= Maxine Funke
- 2= Neil Young
October Songs Playlist
Other thoughts
I got a bunch of Neil Young albums this year, inherited from people getting rid of their record collections, and have listened to him more than I ever have before. I think I can say with certainty now what I’ve been saying as a joke for years. My favourite Neil Young album is Trans.
EAMONN MARRA 