Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock came into town the other night, for a stop of their seemingly endless world tour. From what I gathered from my comfy mezzanine seat, Hill Auditorium was packed to the brim. As I looked around me, I could sense that the people in the audience were one of two things. The first being an eager college student/mid 20s stereotype who was super “into jazz,” not just doing it for the ladies, and went wide-eyed at the entrance of the alliteratively named pianists, having just brushed up on their discographies on wikipedia. The second being the older stereotypical jazz types, the ones who followed Hancock from his times in the Miles Davis Quintet and Corea from his times in the Miles Davis Quintet. Come to think of it, these people might just be into Miles Davis with no regard for the pianists. Anyways, these enthusiasts have a vinyl collection that fits a full wall of their suburban mancave. The third stereotypical group were the old old-timers of jazz. Slightly (by a few years) older than HH and CC, these fellows went on a different course through life. While HH and CC are on track to grab more Grammy’s this year, these folks are on track for senility. And, of course, you have the persons that are only there to please their significant others and those like me who had a computer programming assignment due at midnight worth 10% of their grade but “would probably kill [them]sel[ves] if [they] didn’t go.” Now, I realize I said that the audience members were one of two things, but you really can’t be so stereotypically binary when dealing with the categorization of persons, especially in this hedonic day and age, so I expanded it to four. Please send all complaints to dlmexico@umich.edu.
Being a jazz enthusiast myself, I was curious to know what HH and CC would be playing, and how they would be doing it. I thought, “well, they could either be sitting on the same piano stool playing four-handed jazz pieces, or they could take turns at the stool and kinda rotate after each piece. Or they may have brought a band with them and the night will just be a big jam session like they do at Cliff Bells sometimes. Or it could be that they have dueling pianos set up; that would be cool. Yeah.” Well it turns out that my shotgun approach of guessing was right, and the two had a comfy dueling piano setup. Two nice Steinways. At least I hope they were Steinways. Man, I hope they were Steinways. HH and CC entered the stage to ravenous applause and a standing ovation. I thought, “wow, wikipedia must have some good praise for these two to have a standing ovation without even playing anything.” Then I began to ponder the nature of the standing ovation, if it really was a ‘mob mentality’ thing or every single person in the audience genuinely thought highly enough of the duo to pay their respects. Chick took over the mic and said a few words of gratitude before sitting down at the Steinway. I was no less than a quarter through Herbie’s biography on wikipedia when a kind man behind me whispered “shut your fucking phone off, sir.” I reluctantly obliged him, knowing that I would have to wait to see if my earlier prediction was true.
Chick started off the festivities with a number called, “who the hell cares, it’s avant-garde.” In true sense of the title, CC started fooling around the Steinway, half-way caressing it up and down, half-way neurotically spazzing his bony fingers over the pristine ivory. He switched up to include the Db pentatonic scale in order to give some love to the ebony, which were slightly less pristine due to the fact that players don’t take as much care with them given they don’t take up as much space or have as much clout as the ivory. Across the pianos, Herbie came fully loaded with perfect harmonies and backup to Chick’s melodies. It was interesting to see and hear, as Chick’s playing in this first piece was wholly soloistic avant-garde-ism. He left nothing but scraps for Herbie to create a chord progression with, yet Hancock did as best he could. The result was an eclectic mezcla of superior tastes. I was only focused on my programming project, having invested 20 hours in three days on it, and fatigue was setting in quickly. I was literally DOZING off at a concert with HERBIE FRIECKIN HANCOCK AND ARMANDO ANTHONY CHICK FRUCKIN COREA. One vitamin C pill and 5-hour energy later, I was alert and noticing everything around me (actually that didn’t happen, I was still dozing off. Man, I was tired). I struggled to see Chick beat the living shit out of the timid Steinway for the next 20 minutes while Hancock faced his own battles in keeping up with the lunacy that was occurring in Hill Auditorium.
Their next piece was more to my vision of what Herbie’s sound is. It was full electronic, as both pianists had a keyboard/synthboard setup to their immediate right. For much of the night I was expecting that the pair would play a few standards, for the casual jazz fans in the audience. After the resounding ‘fuck you’ of the first tremoloed note that Herbie played, I could tell that “Chameleon” and “Watermelon Man” were totally not in the night’s playlist. I started thinking how conventionally unconventional the duo’s choice of music was. On the one hand, the two are certifiable geniuses globally famous for a few songs produced in the 60s and 70s. On the other hand, the two are certifiable geniuses with complete disregard for playing their own standard tunes. They had their battle for awhile until I woke up to see Chick introduce his wife, who was about to sing a number. Mrs. Corea sang extremely well for her age and received a few standing ovators.
I woke up again to another standing ovation, and I soon realized that it was the end. I checked my phone, immediately going to wikipedia to check the hype. It turns out that wikipedia does actually dish out a fair amount of praise. My prediction was right! I got up at once and shouted “bravo!” and “encore!” This wouldn’t have been awkward if the duo hadn’t already received their applause, left the stage, and came back to their Steinway stools by the time I got to cheering. From the first two notes that Chick played, my countless hours watching Jazz concerts on youtube told me that something epic was about to happen. A love note to the fair-weather listeners, Chick was piloting the auditorium to his favorite encore chart, “Spain.” As he is wont to do during his various renditions of “Spain,” Chick started out fiddling around softly, vaguely hinting at the melody for anyone who hadn’t caught on yet. Herbie soon stole the lead part, executing it as flawlessly as Chick does, while Chick took up the avant-garde “bass line.” And this is how it progressed for awhile, the two trading off melodic lines, each more complex than the last, until the build up of tension was too much. The chorus came bursting out of the stage like a cathartic squeezed pimple. If you have never heard this piece, I suggest you check out my favorite rendition here. I couldn’t help but ogle at the polytonal, polyrhythmic aural complexity emanating from the stage. It was pure bliss. The perfect conclusion to an interesting show, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea always find a way for everyone in the audience to enjoy the experience.
