Keddenként jelentkező sorozatomban azokról a külföldi jazz muzsikusról mesélek megtörtént eseteket, amelyek hozzám kapcsolódnak!
2004 őszén Herbie Hanco*ck menedzsmentje megkeresett annak kapcsán, hogy elég jónak tartom-e a Magyar Rádió Szimfonikus Zenekarát, hogy fellépjen a Herbie Hanco*ck Qurtet-tel, és közösen eljátsszák HH „Gershwin’s World” című CD-jének anyagát? Mert Herbie európai közszolgálati rádiók szimfonikus zenekaraival akarja előadni azt. Erre mit válaszolhattam… Persze, hogy jók, és Hanco*ck nem fogja megbánni, hogy Prága, Párizs és London mellé Budapestet választja helyszínül!
Az alábbi riport a 2005. május 26-i koncert előzeteseként készült. Természetesen ők hívtak Amerikából.
HH: Hello!
MR: Hello!
HH: Yes.
MR: May I speak to Mr. Herbie Hanco*ck?
HH: Yes, this is Herbie Hanco*ck.
MR: Hi Herbie. I'm Robert Maloschik the jazz editor-in-chief of The Hungarian Radio.
HH: Oh, hi! How are you, Robert?
MR: Thank you, fine. At first let me congratulate for your 65th birthday.
HH: Yes, it was my 65th.
MR: Let me introduce to you my collegue who is a jazz singer and will be the MC of your May 26th concert here in Budapest.
PK: Hi, I’m Kriszta Pocsai. If I remember well you would come to Hungary for fourth occasion. At first you were here in the 80’s and played a duo concert with the Hungarian bassist Aladar Pege. And then you came with the Miles Davis Tribute Band at the end of 1992. And thirdly you came with Michael Brecker, John Scofield, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette in 1997. But this is the first time to come to play with a Symphony Orchestra. And we are very proud that this Orchestra is the Hungarian Radio’s Symphony Orchestra. So what kind of impressions do you have about Hungary?
HH: Oh! Hungary is a very... culturally oriented country, you know. People very do support music and art. And they’re very enthusiastic about... and passionate about music and about jazz.
PK: Do you know or do you like any Hungarian composer?
HH: Like which ones for example?
PK: In classical music or in jazz? Do you know any of them?
HH: Yes, name some.
PK: Name some?
HH: Give me the name of some.
PK: Bartók Béla, Bela Bartok.
HH: Oh! Of course.
PK: For example.
HH: Of course a lot of Bela Bartok.
PK: Yeah, he is the most famous.
HH: Right.
PK: I think. Do you know his work?
HH: Yes, I played his work, you know, many times. I’m very much influenced by Bela Bartok’s music. And who are the other Hungarian composers?
PK: I know a pianist who is now your student, Cumó and I think he also compose.
HH: Oh, yes. He’s the greatest from Hungary. Right, right. He exactly very, very talented.
PK: Did you ever play with Hungarian jazz musicians beside Pege?
HH: I’m sorry but I don’t remember which ones.
PK: In your opinion is there any young man in the jazz life who would be a great musician in the near future?
HH: Oh yeah! In the matter of fact the guitarist I’m bringing with me. His name is Lionel Loueke. He’s extremly talented. He’s gonna be a major artist for jazz in the future.
PK: He’s a guitar player.
HH: Yes.
PK: And he also sing I heard it.
HH: And he sings, too. Yes. Very talented guy.
PK: What do you think what would be the next direction in jazz music in the 3rd millenium?
HH: Well, I can tell you that one person that’s leading the leading force for a new direction’s in the new millenium is Wayne Shorter. His music is very difficult to describe but it is powerful, very unexpected and he seems to be going into a musical territory that nobody else is exploring.
PK: OK, and now some questions about „Gershwin’s World”. I mean how did you choose Gershwin?
HH: Actually it was a suggestion from Bob Sadin who will be conducting the Orchestra and he’s also the producer of the record I did, called „Gershwin’s World”. We originally did that record to celebrate the birthday of Gershwin.
PK: And how did you meet him? It was a first occasion?
HH: With Bob Sadin?
PK: Yes, Bob Sadin.
HH: I met him... originally I met him in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center’s honours every years the president of the United States give an award five people from the performing arts. And I’m in the nominee committee. And Bob Sadin actually was involved with writing some arrangements of the music that was celebrating I think Stephen Sondheim. Who did the lyrics for „West Side Story”, you know. And of course Leonard Bernstein did the music. They did an arrangement of „Maria”. Very famous song from the „West Side Story”. And that Kathleen Battle sang. And it was so gorgeous I wanted to meet the person who did the arrangement. And it turned out that was Bob Sadin. Anyway after that I wanted to work with him. To do something with him and maybe a year later I received a letter from him suggesting that maybe we could work on a project celebrating George Gershwin’s music.
PK: And here it is. You told us about Lionel Loueke the guitar player but how did you choose Dave Carpenter and Richie Barshay?
HH: OK! I met Dave Carpenter at a recording session with a... with that drummer...
PK: Harvey Mason...
HH: Harvey Mason, exactly. How did you know that?
PK: I didn’t know but Robert did.
HH: Yeah, yeah.
PK: And he whispered.
HH: Yes, he’s exactly right, it was Harvey Mason’s recording session. Strangely I actually received a Grammy Award for the one song I did on Harvey Mason’s record. And that was the song Dave Carpanter was on. So I get the chance to hear him at the session. I liked his sound and I liked the way he approached the music. And there was an opportunity to use him on some concerts where I was performing with Symphony Orchestras in the past. And he did very well. He has an understanding the best way to involve himself in that situation. To involve himself musically in that situation. And so I’ve been continuing to use him on bass for the Symphony concerts.
Richie Barshay, I met him when he was 19 years old, thanks again to Bob Sadin who really discovered him. And when we were looking for a kind of drummer percussionist to work with the Orchestra. Because we thought that percussion instruments work better with an orchestral setting than regular jazz drums. The perfect combination we believed a drummer who has a strong sense on the colours and spices of percussion. And he came across with Richie Barshay who does that. And so he brings drums and also brings tablas and djambes and various percussion instruments and percussion sounds which works very well with the orchestra. He’s a very talented young musician. His proper time in his playing is a straight ahead drum, very clear, he has very good beat and very professional.
PK: Your carrier is a never ending success story. One Oscar and nine Grammy Awards. The latest in this February. What is the next challenge for you?
HH: Actually ten Grammy Awards now.
PK: Ten Grammy Awards. It’s a much bigger success story. And the next challenge for you?
HH: The next challenge for me?
PK: Ya.
HH: Is to wake up tomorrow morning.
PK: After your birthday party.
HH: You’re right.
PK: Your wife said that you are now very busy with your newest album. It would be a collection of original composition of yours or maybe the newest standards? What kind of album will it be?
HH: It called, the name of the album is „Possibilities”. And it’s a collaboration between myself and several artists from different genres. You know, some from the pop scenes, some from the rock scenes and some from the alternative rock and folk scenes. Some from latin, some younger artists and some more established artists. And many combinations. Some from the classical scene also.
PK: Can you tell us some names?
HH: Yes. One artist is John Meyer, he’s a young pop artist. Sting, he did a track. Paul Simon did a track. Carlos Santana did one along with Angélique Kidjo, she’s a singer. And Annie Lennox did one track. Trey Anastasio, he is the leader of the group Phish. They are a jam band, they improvise but in the rock genre. Some people compared them to Grateful Dead. I also did a track with the young Irish artist named Damien Rice. I call his music some kind of alternative rock. This is very special, there is improvise quality of him but far from jazz direction. He’s a singer and he plays guitar, and he has a female singer in his band, and a cello and drums and bass. It’s very interesting sound and the music is very passionate.
PK: So it would be a very colourful album. I’m wishing you the best.
HH: Oh, thank you. They were actually in the process of recording some new artists I mean for this record. Christina Aguilera we had to be on the recod.
PK: Really?
HH: Yeah, and Stevie Wonder agree. Peter Gabriel agreed to be on the record but then he were unable to do it. There are many more artists I didn’t mention like the Black Eyed Peas is gonna do it, Justin Timberlake wants to do it, Aretha Franklin wants to do it. It’s a very very big project.
MR: And it would be a double CD?
HH: Could be double CD but I think I’m gonna is to half. Some tracks would be downloadable from the internet. They may not on the CD but they would be the part of the same project. Because I’ve been trying to figure out how can we have one project that is not limited by the size of a CD. We put something’s online and we not limited. And as a matter of fact we’ve been thinking about if it has, you know, in the degree of success we don’t have to stop it. We can just make it an ongoing project. I continue to collaborate with different artists for years. I think it’s a really new idea.
PK: Thank you for the interview.
HH: Oh, you welcome.
PK: And I hope to meet you in Budapest.
HH: We intend to bring surround sound for the European tour and hopefully we could use this in Hungary, too. That would be very interesting a Symphony Orchestra with surround sound.
MR: So don't forget we will wait for your arrival at Budapest Airport on 25th of May.
HH: Right, exactly.
MR+PK: Thanks you very much.
HH: Thank you.
MR+PK: Bye-bye.
HH: Bye-bye.
