Herbie Hancock über Miles Davis
Mr. Hancock recounted, for example, one extraordinary moment in Stockholm in 1967, during a performance by the quintet. „This night was magical,“ he remembered. „We were communicating almost telepathically, playing ‚So What'“—one of the group’s signature pieces. „Wayne [Shorter] had taken his solo. Miles was playing and building and building, and then I played the wrong chord. It was so, so wrong. In an instant, time stood still and I felt totally shattered. Miles took a breath. And then he played this phrase that made my chord right. It didn’t seem possible. I still don’t know how he did it. But Miles hadn’t heard it as a wrong chord—he took it as an unexpected chord. He didn’t judge what I played. To use a Buddhist turn of phrase, he turned poison into medicine.“
Other examples bolstered this point. While first auditioning to join the quintet, in the spring of 1963, Mr. Hancock was placed, along with another newcomer, drummer Tony Williams, and bassist Ron Carter, in the basement of Davis’s New York home; they were told to play together as the trumpeter wandered off to another part of the house. This went on for days. It turned out that Davis spent that time listening to them over an intercom. „He knew his presence would intimidate us,“ explains Mr. Hancock. He was fostering the group’s process of bonding by withdrawing from the scene.
And then there was the time when Mr. Hancock felt musically stuck. „Everything I played sounded the same,“ he confessed. Davis saw his frustration and offered some enigmatic advice. „Don’t play the butter notes,“ he said.
„Butter notes?“ thought Mr. Hancock. „What is that? Does ‚butter‘ mean ‚fat‘? Or does it mean ‚obvious‘? I had to think about it, and finally realized that if I left out the notes that most clearly define the chords it would allow the harmonies to open up to various views. It affected my playing for the rest of my life. And the audience responded—they felt my openness.“
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von hier:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304626804579362732405104134?KEYWORDS=hancock
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #164: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv, 10.6., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba