Herbie Hancock Image supplied
NEWS
Headline artist announced,
Melbourne International Jazz Festival, May 31 to June 9, 2019
Herbie Hancock will be back in town once again, this time to close this year’s Melbourne International Jazz Festival in June.
Announcing this news today, festival artistic director Michael Tortoni said, “We are excited to make this early announcement and extremely honoured that Herbie Hancock is returning to Melbourne to close the festival. Our festival program will continue to offer a diversity of experiences that will showcase many outstanding Australian and international artists.”
Billed as the master of modern jazz, 78-year-old Herbie Hancock has had an illustrious career now in its sixth decade and has won 14 Grammy awards, influencing acoustic and electronic jazz, R&B and hip-hop.
The festival media release notes that Miles Davis said in his autobiography “Herbie was the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and I haven’t heard anybody yet who has come after him.”
The release lists among Hancock’s modern day standards Cantaloupe Island, Chameleon and Rockit. His significant partnerships include work with artists such as Wayne Shorter, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner and Annie Lennox, Snoop Dog, Flying Lotus and Pink.
It’s said that no one should miss an opportunity to see Herbie Hancock live. He will be joined on the Hamer Hall stage by a hand-picked band to close the Melbourne International Jazz Festival for 2019.
In 2010 Hancock released the critically-acclaimed CD, The Imagine Project, winner of two 2011 Grammy™ Awards for Best Pop Collaboration and Best Improvised Jazz Solo. With themes of peace and global responsibility, The Imagine Project was recorded around the world and features musicians including Jeff Beck, Seal,Pink, Dave Matthews, The Chieftains, Lionel Loueke, Oumou Sangare, Konono #l, Anoushka Shankar, Chaka Khan, Marcus Miller, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Tinariwen, and Ceu.
Hancock was named by the Los Angeles Philharmonic as Creative Chair For Jazz, and serves as Institute Chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. He is a founder of The International Committee of Artists for Peace, and was awarded the “Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres” by then French prime minister Francois Fillon.
In July 2011 Hancock was designated an honorary UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.
Dates:
Saturday, 8 June 2019
Sunday, 9 June 2019
Time 7.30pm
Venue: Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall, 100 St Kilda Road, Southbank
Tickets $79 – $149 (plus transaction fee) Bookings melbournejazz.com
ROGER MITCHELL
Ausjazz Blog 