Herbie HANCOCK
Possibilities
(2005)
1. Stitched Up 5'28 Written by John Mayer and Herbie Hancock
2. Safiatou 5'26 Written by Harold Alexander
3. A Song For You 7'05 Written by Leon Russel
4. I Do It For Your Love 5'58 Written by Paul Simon
5. Hush, Hush, Hush 4'47 Written by Paula Cole
6. Sister Moon 6'54 Written by Sting
7. When Love Comes To Town 8'42 Written by Adam Clayton, David Evans, Paul Daivid Hewson and Laurence Mullen
8. Don't Explain 4'54 Written by Arthur Herzog and Billie Holiday
9. I Just Called To Say I Love You 5'27 Written by Stevie Wonder
10. Gelo No Montana - 1st Movement 3'50 Written by Trey Anastasio / Herbie Hancock
Total Time: 58:31
Executive Producers: Ken Levitan and Jack Ravner
Mastered by Ted Jensen for
Art Direction by 7s DESIGN
Photography by Doug Biro and Jon Fine
Production Coordinator - Melinda Murphy
A&R Management for "When Love Comes To Town' - Melinda Murphy
Additional Production Assistance - Jessica Hancock & Joanne Tominaga
GARAGE SALE STUDIO Coordinator - Brian McCullough
1. Stitched Up
John Mayer appears Courtesy of
2. Safiatou
Carlos Santana appears Courtesy of
3. A Song For You
Christina Aguilera appears Courtesy of the RCA RECORDS LABEL
4. I Do It For Your Love
Paul Simon performs Courtesy of
5. Hush, Hush, Hush
Annie Lennox appears Courtesy of
6. Sister Moon
Sting appears Courtesy of
7. When Love Comes To Town
Jonny Lang appears Courtesy of
Joss Stone appears Courtesy of EMI MUSIC N.A.
8. Don't Explain
Damien Rice appears Courtesy of
9. I Just Called To Say I Love You
Raul Midon appears Courtesy of
Stevie Wonder appears Courtesy of MOTOWN RECORDS, a division of UMG RECORDINGS Inc.
10. Gelo Na Montanha - 1st Movement
"Exactly how you hear it is exactly how it all went down ..."
That's what John Mayer confides right before the finger-snapping funk of "Stitched Up" kicks in. It's a great opening salvo in a playfully sexy tale of soon-to-be-requited ardor, but his words serve equally well as a motto for this entire album.
Possibilities is a series of inspired close encounters between a multi-genre master and some of the most gifted vocalists and songwriters of the last three decades ~ plus a few seriously talented folks who are still just getting started. Forget long distance digital alchemy or disembodied duets, this one's all about face to face, heart to heart, real to reel
Possibilities started out with Herbie Hancock asking "What if ...?" What if he made a short list of artists he admired, had crossed stages with while on tour, or simply been curious about and extended an open-ended invitation to join him in the studio? He had no overarching concept in mind, no absolute
agenda, no preset track listing, just the desire to find performers, who, like him, might bi& eager to step away from defined roles or familiar territory and make a creative leap of faith.
This is second nature to Herbie. Collaboration has been an essential part of his astonishingly wide-ranging career, ever since the piano prodigy from Chicago was invited, at the ripe old age of 23, to join the most celebrated group Miles Davis ever assembled. That 1963 quintet featured saxophonist Wayne Shorter, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams, players with whom Herbie would work in years to come, most notably in the VSOP quintet of the late seventies. Herbie segued effortlessly from jazz to R&B (with his chart-topping Head Hunters) to space-age funk, then back to brilliant, acoustic jazz. He was truly among the first to appreciate the artistic possibilities of hip hop, pioneering a high-tech yet street-sawy sound with the help of vinyl-scratching deejay Grandmaster D.S.T. on the 1983 platinum-selling Future Shock, which
featured the Grammy-winning "Rock-It." (The animated, MTV Video Award-winning clip for "Rock-It," directed by Kevin Godley and Lot Creme, was yet another smart, sophisticated - and just plain cool - collaboration.)
Hip hop producers and acid-jazz deejays subsequently acknowledged Herbie's influence by scours ing his sixties-era Blue Note solo catalogue for samples; Herbie's "Cantaloupe Island" was the basis for US3's 1993 hit, "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)" and "Watermelon Man" remains a staple of dance-ic compilations. Now jam-band acts are dis-ng Herbie's sound and sensibility. He was sd as the first official Artist in Residence at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee, where vformed with an updated version of his Head irs and - naturally - sat in with other acts.
Herbie went into his latest adventure like the veter-t man that he is, grabbing sessions with willing players for Possibilities wherever and whenever he
could, aiming for some on-the-spot magic, he invariably found. He^rove from home late one night when he got a call to meet up with Irish singers Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan at a Hollywood studio before Damien's run at the Troubadour. They immediately fashioned an arrangement of the gorgeously melancholy Bilfie Holiday number, "Don't Explain".
The recording went so well that Damien invited Herbte to sit in with him at his gig the following night. Herbte flew from a Paris date to a London studio to cut a version of Paula Cole's heartbreaking "Hush, Hush, Hush" with Annie Lennox. The two of them actually called Paula mid-session to dig deeper into the story behind the song, which describes the final encounter between a young man dying of AIDS and his only just comprehending father, and that resulted in an even more eloquent track.
Herbie traveled all over the map, geographically and stylistically. He hung out with former Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio in Burlington, Vermont, where
they engaged in some serious jamming, then pared it all down into a four-part instrumental suite, "Gelo Na Montanha". He hooked up with Sting in Toronto, where they were joined by prodigious young African guitarist, arranger and current Head Hunters band-mate Lionel loueke on a dramatically spare, percussive re-imagining of,Sting's own "Sister Moon".
("I never heard him sing like that before", Herbie says of Sting, still amazed by the experience. "His delivery was out of the park, a homerun").
Paul Simon and Herbie started out simply discussing new ways to approach Paul's "I Do It For Your Love" over dinner in LA, then wound up cutting an elegant, subtly sensual version of it in a West Side Manhattan studio. "Paul's not really an improviser, a jazz singer or a jazz player," explains Herbie, "but he's got this part of him thafs totally intrigued by taking chances, trying new things....He came up with one of the most jazz-like arrangements on the record."
The younger artists Herbie recruited were perhaps
the greatest revelation to him. He didnt know much about John Mayer before the two of them went into a New York studio - but, man, did they hit it off. Says Herbie, "He's a strong rhythm guitar player and a wonderful singer, a great voice. He's really smart and very self-assured, yet humble at the same time. He has strong convictions about things, which is rare at that age".
In their case, possibilities turned into new opportunities. John so dug working with Herbie that he signed on to play guitar alongside Loueke on the Head Hunters summer tour.
As for Christina Aguilera, who tackles Leon Russell's "A Song For You", Herbie recalls, "She did about six takes of the song and each one sounded like a final take. I was floored. She said, "I'm just trying different things,1 and I said, That doesnt sound like a try, that sounds like a done". Soulful English powerhouse Joss Stone and young American blues guitarist Jonny Lang also take no prisoners in a novel arrangement of U2's "When Love Comes To Town". It's "a bit of country, a bit of rock", Herbie says,
"then I come in and pretty much play a jazz solo on top of it".
Raul Midon is the newest find among the youthful crew. Herbie enlisted, another formidable singer (and songwriter) who. in Stevie Wonder-like fashion, tines R&B, Latin and jazz elements into his sound. He was a natural choice, then, to front a hi of "I Just Called To Say I Love You" that tie and producer-keyboardist Greg Phillinganes originally created for Stevie Wonder's appearance at the Kennedy Center Honors (Diana Schur sang it then, backed up by the vocal group Take 6). Stevie himself plays harmonica on the track, which Herbie and Greg cut in L.A.
Herbie knew exactly what to expect from old friend ¦¦¦"•"Hos Santana, who partners on "Safiatou" with ^_^riist - and veritable force of nature — Aftgelique Kidjo, who, like Loueke, was raised in Benin. Santana, says Herbie, "has an incredible and confident way of playing a melody and
improvising the grooves. more importantly he's a great and encouraging human being.
He stands for not just some profession in music, he stands for the beauty of the human spirit and what great potential a human being has to create beauty for the rest of the world".
Similarly, this collaborative undertaking represents a unique spirit of cooperation, communication and trust among a remarkable range of artists.
Those qualities are often tough to come by in the world ai large, much less in the music biz, but Herbie seems to foster them wherever he goes.
He gives us something to aspire to, not simply a handful of tunes to hear. Everyone's included in Herbie's magnanimous vision: his project wont be complete until you pop this disc into your stereo and start considering the possibilities with him.
- Michael Hill