Oggi Herbie Hancock compie 75 anni. Credo che il ritratto critico che esce dalle parole di Mattew Shipp sia un interessante contributo alla comprensione del ruolo e dell'importanza del pianista. Shipp scrisse questo articolo pochi mesi fa in occasione della uscita dell'autobiografia di Hancock, Possibilities, ma non si tratta affatto di una recensione del libro bensi' di una riflessione su una figura cardine del jazz degli ultimi decenni.The back of the book features a quotation from Miles Davis: “Herbie was the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and I haven’t heard anybody yet who has come after him.” That was from Miles: The Autobiography, co-written with Quincy Troupe and published in 1989, two years before Davis died. With those words, Miles locates Herbie in the pantheon of geniuses like Powell and Monk, as though he’d picked up their mantle. But it seems to be a disconnected and shallow comparison, seeing as this is a book by a tech geek who really seems not to want to be seen in the light that Miles Davis painted him in. Powell and Monk were willing to die for the webs that they spun on the piano. Hancock is not, that much is obvious from this book. As brilliant a pianist as he can be, his acoustic work has none of the ultimate existential angst that theirs had. They were the piano music they played, but Hancock is not; he isn’t willing to make that ultimate sacrifice.Leggi l'articolo completo:
http://thetalkhouse.com/music/talks/matthew-shipp-talks-herbie-hancocks-memoir-possibilities-and-not-dying-for-your-art/