Jean-Michel Serres, Composer-pianist (Apfel Café Music): Website

18 March 201524 August 2023

Timeline of Herbie Hancock

1940 On April 12, Herbert Jeffrey Hancock born in wealthy family, Illinois, Chicago, United States. His father was a government inspector and music lover, his mother played piano, his older brother and sister played music.

1947 – Herbie began classical piano lesson.

1950 – Proceed the advanced course and learned writing and read score by Mr. Jordan.

1951 – Co-stared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. (first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.26 in D Major)

1960 – Left Grinnell College, he studied electrical engineering.

Backed to Chicago and began working with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins.

1961 – On January, moved to New York, was called by Donald Byrd.

1962 – ‘Takin’ Off’, Hancock’s first leader album, includes ‘Watermelon Man’. (Hard Bop, Funky Jazz)

1963 – Provide ‘Watermelon Man’ to Mongo Santamaria, was hit.

1964 – Acquaintance with Miles Davis and he force Hancock to have an audition. Participated in Miles Davis’s ‘second great quintet’ with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams.

‘Empyrean Isles’ includes ‘Cantaloupe Island’ (Hard Bop, Soul Jazz, New Mainstream)

Sideman of ‘Speak No Evil’ by Wayne Shorter. (New Mainstream)

1965 – ‘Maiden Voyage’ Adopted expanded the mode approach with member of Miles Davis Quintet and Freddie Hubbard. A representative work of New Mainstream Jazz and Herbie Hancock. (New Mainstream)

1966 – ‘Blow-Up’ (Soundtrack)

1967 – ‘Miles Smiles’ by Miles Davis, the musical style declared in this album would be called ‘New Mainstream Jazz’ or ‘Modern Mainstream’. (New Mainstream)

1968 – ‘Speak Like a Child’ Adopted a not common sextet (alto flute, flugelhorn, bass trombone and rhythm section) and treat the horn section as a accompaniment part. (Hard Bop, Post-Bop)

‘Miles in the Sky’ by Miles Davis, in this album Miles force Hancock to play a electric piano. (Post-Bop, Electric Jazz)

Hancock left the Miles Davis’s band.

1969 – ‘Prisoner’ Use uncommon horn sections on the extension of ‘Speak Like a Child’ and practice of electronic piano. (Post-Bop, Electric Jazz, Fusion)

1973 – ‘Head Hunters’, Masterpiece and big hit of Jazz Funk. Boldly adopted Funk sound of James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone and Earth, Wind & Fire. Employ Funk musicians and some of synthesizers. Then Hancock created the music fusion groove of Funk and improvisations of Jazz. (Jazz Funk, Fusion)

1975 – Sideman of ‘Jaco Pastorius’ by Jaco Pastorius. (Fusion)

1976 – ‘VSOP’ A live album of the summing up of the career of Hancock. The VSOP Quintet was supposed to be a special band (but the quintet continued the activity). The member of the VSOP Quintet are Miles Davis quintet without Miles and Freddie Hubbard. This quintet played the music like a revival of New Mainstream Jazz. The second of the records recorded sextet (in ‘Speak Like a Child’) and Jazz Funk aspects of Hancock. Especially cutting guitar plays by Ray Parker Jr. and Wah Wah Watson in ’Hang Up Your Hang Ups’ would be called the ’bible of funk guitar (or cutting guitar)’.

1977 – ‘Herbie Hancock Trio’ Revival of authentic Jazz.

1978 – Sideman of ‘Mingus’ by Joni Mitchell (Folk Jazz, Vocal Jazz)

1982 – ‘Quartet’ Featured an up-and-coming trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Some of songs of the album were from repertoire of Miles’s the ‘second great quintet’ and the VSOP. (Resurgence of Traditionalism, New Mainstream)

1983 – ‘Future Shock’ was produced by Bill Laswell, and adopted Hip Hop sound and scratching by Grand Mixer DXT. The song of the album ‘Rockit’ made a big hit in worldwide. (Electro Funk, Instrumental Hip Hop)

1986 – ‘Round Midnight’ A soundtrack of Jazz movie. (Soundtrack)

1994 – ‘Dis is da Drum’ A reaction to Acid Jazz by Hancock. (Fusion, Jazz Funk, Instrumental Hip Hop)

1998 – ‘Gershwin’s World’ Featured the songs of George Gershwin. (Traditional Jazz, Orchestra Jazz)

2001 – ‘Future2Future’ Featured Bill Laswell, Carl Craig (Detroit Techno producer and DJ), A Guy Called Gerald (Drum ’n’ Bass and Techno producer), Rob Swift (Hip Hop DJ and turntablist) and Chaka Khan (Soul singer). (Fusion, Electronica)

2007 – ‘River: The Joni Letter’ A tribute album of songs written by Joni Mitchell. Guet vocalists include Lenard Cohen, Tina Turner, Norah Jones and Joni Mitchell. (Vocal Jazz, Folk Jazz, Pops)

References

‘Standard Text of Herbie Hancock’ Jazz Critic Editors, Matsuzaka, 2002

‘Herbie Hancock: Possibilities’ by Herbie Hancock and Lisa Dickey, Viking, 2014

‘Barthes (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Jonathan Culler

‘Barthes (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Jonathan Culler is a guide book about Roland Barthes. Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980) was a french ‘écrivain’ (writer), literary critic, literary theorist, semiologist (semiotician) and structuralism thinker. He made vast influences to humanities, social science, sociology, literary study, literary critic, philosophy and social thought.

In this small book, Culler summarises Barthes’s thoughts and pick out their essences.

Culler divided Barthes and his works into many various periods and aspects such as a Literary Historian, Mythologist, Semiologist, Hedonist and Writer. He don’t describe Barthes’s career as 4 periods usually mentioned (literary critic – semiologist or social mythologist – text theorist – romanesque author). And he describes clearly in each chapters but not surely chronologically.

A feature of this book is philosophical analysis of Barthes’s ‘pleasure’, in the French tradition, from Descartes to structuralism. The Cartesian consciousness to mind and subject is contrary to Barthes’s pleasure and emphasises of social codes and cultural skills. But ‘The notion of the body permits Barthes to avoid the problem of the subject: appealing to “the given that separates my body from other bodies and appropriates suffering or pleasure to it“, he emphasizes that he is not talking about subjectivity.’ Then Culler explains that ‘replacement of “mind” by “body” accords with Barthes’s emphasis on the materiality of the signifier as a source of pleasure. When listening to singing he prefers the corporeal “grain of voice” to expressiveness, meaning, or articulation’.

In this book Culler describes Barthes as a fixed figure or an intentionally thinker. Barthes wrote the society as the myth, in the same way Barthes and his works are myth constructed and consumed by people, society and Barthes himself.

This Culler’s introduction to Barthes, one of few english commentary book about Roland Barthes for beginners.

Barthes (A Very Short Introduction)
Jonathan Culler
Oxford University Press, Oxford, May 16 2002
152pp $11.95
ISBN: 978-0-19-280159-3
Contents:
Preface to This Edition
List of Illustrations
1. Man of Parts
2. Literary Historian
3. Mythologist
4. Critic
5. Polemicist
6. Semiologist
7. Structuralist
8. Hedonist
9. Writer
10. Man of Letters
11. Barthes after Barthes
Notes and References
Further Reading
Index

‘Roland Barthes (Routledge Critical Thinkers)’ by Graham Allen, Routledge

“Roland Barthes (Routledge Critical Thinkers)” by Graham Allen is an one of few english guide book about Roland Barthes. Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980) was a french ‘écrivain’ (writer), literary critic, literary theorist, semiologist (semiotician) and structuralism thinker. He made bold influences to humanities, social science, sociology, literary study, literary critic, philosophy and social thought.

This book is a introduction to Roland Barthes and his works. The chapters in this book, also register a certain chronology, and Barthes’s career is divided by four periods, moving from Barthes’ early phase of thought in Chapter 1 and 2, through his work on semiology and structuralism in Chapter 3 and 4, onto his poststructuralism phase in Chapter 5 and 6, and finally onto a set of issues emerging from his later writings (Barthes’ interest and writing about theoretical approaches to texts, music, photography and movie) from Chapter 7 to 9.

Allen traces Barthes’s transition of thought and life along with backgrounds from Marxism, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roman Jakobson to post-structuralism, Jaques Derrida, Mikhail Bakhtin, Julia Kristeva and so on. And Allen explains semiological terms and philosophical term by difference between Barthes’s and traditional means or other thinkers’. Also Graham Allen is a lecturer of text theory, so he describe Barthes as a literature critic and text theorist (the ‘texts’ includes language, literature, bourgeois society, music, photography and Roland Barthes himself) rather than an écrivain, structuralism philosopher, semiologist and sociologist.

The feature of this books is a concentrate on commentaries on Barthes’s text theory and literary analysis such as narrative analysis, zero degree writing, ‘myth’, intertextuality, neutral writing, hedonism, stadium/punctum and pheno-text/geno-text.

Another feature is a commentary on “Camera Lucida” of Barthes’s later life (Chapter 8 and 9), in which Barthes writing about music, photography and him life. Allen mentions Barthes’s last investigation reached the concept of ‘impossible’ practise of text. And Allen explains that ‘In “Camera Lucida” Barthes mixes theoretical writing with intense mourning for his mother in oder to present a text which exemplifies what is unrepeatable in his later writing. Barthes’s “Camera Lucida”, in pursuing an ‘impossible’ of practice of writing attempts to resist and defy the violence of language, which would turn his own mother into an archetype of the Mother. In performing such a personal act of writing, “Camera Lucida” offers to its readers many illuminating, if not immediately usable, insight into the nature of photography and representation generally’. Then Allen’s conclusion for Barthes’s activity is this. ’Writing for Barthes, is a meaning of perhaps, a meaning or perhaps, a disturbance of meaning rather than a production of meaning.’

This book is a basic, usual and total introduction to Roland Barthes and his theory, so it is the most useful book for beginners want to know about Roland Barthes especially his literally theory and text analysis.

Roland Barthes (Routledge Critical Thinkers)
Graham Allen
Routledge, Oxon, October 1 2003
192pp $24.95
ISBN: 0-415-26362-X
Contents:
Why Barthes?
Key Ideas
1. Writing and Literature
2. Critical Distance
3. Semiology
4. Structuralism
5. The Death of the Author
6. Texuality
7. Neutral Writing: Pleasure, Violence and the Novelistic
8. Music and Photography
9. Camera Lucida: the Impossible Text
After Barthes
Further Reading