Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock studied classical piano in Chicago from age seven and was performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a teenager. When he moved to New York in 1961, he was already a fully formed musician — and his first Blue Note albums (Takin’ Off, 1962; My Point of View, 1963; Empyrean Isles, 1964) established him as the most gifted jazz pianist of his generation. “Watermelon Man” (from Takin’ Off) was an immediate commercial success; “Maiden Voyage” and “Cantaloupe Island” (from the 1964 albums) became instant standards.

From 1963 to 1968, Hancock played in Miles Davis’s second great quintet — alongside Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams — one of the most celebrated small groups in jazz history. The quintet’s recordings for Columbia (E.S.P., Miles Smiles, Nefertiti, Filles de Kilimanjaro) developed a new approach to jazz — sometimes called “time, no changes” — in which harmonic and rhythmic reference points were implied rather than stated, creating extraordinary freedom within sophisticated structures.

After leaving Davis, Hancock turned toward funk and popular music. Head Hunters (1973) — built around Sly Stone’s rhythmic innovations and Clyde Stubblefield’s break-beat drum patterns — became the best-selling jazz album at that point in history. “Rockit” (1983) brought him to MTV. His range — from post-bop to funk to electronic pop to classical recordings — is unmatched in jazz.