Herbie Hancock’s residency at the Barbican included three completely different musical ensembles: his acoustic quartet, with Hancock himself on piano, a set with the London Symphony Orchestra, playing Hancock’s interpretations of the music from Gershwin’s era, and a dance-based electronica setting, complete with all the hi-tech gadgetry much loved by Hancock for the past 30 years. It was this latter environment which was the subject of this Exciting Venture!

From the outset, things appeared a little shambolic and even embarrassing. The first 15 minutes were taken up by a mock interview with Hancock, discussing the foundation of his sound experiments, stretching back to the hard-edge rhythm and blues he heard whilst growing up in Chicago. This may have been fine on some superficial radio show, but was completely out of place in a concert.

We were then treated to an hour of a rather strange Norwegian group called Kroyt. Their set, based around a female vocalist with a style not dissimilar to that of Björk, was pleasing and well-presented. However, it seemed to have no relevance to Herbie Hancock, eventually drawing heckling and jeering from sections of the audience.

Eventually, after a long interval whilst the stage instrumentation was completely rearranged, British band The Bays began. This four-piece (bass, drums, and two keyboard players) started a trance-like ambient backdrop. After a few minutes, to the relief of most of the audience, Hancock arrived on stage and took up residence at the Fender Rhodes. For the next hour and a half, we experienced the most amazing non-stop improvisation on dance music themes. The Bays moved from ambient to drum ’n bass and back again with consummate ease and startling musicianship. Sometimes they were delicate; sometimes thundering. All this was punctuated by trademark Hancock keyboard runs (somewhat muddied by over-reliance on reverb).

After about 90 minutes without a moment's pause, some of us were exhausted! However, what started out in a rather amateurish and tangential fashion, turned into a mind-blowing experience of gargantuan proportions.

©  Straight Words, 2005