Here’s a little vintage synth jamming from Herbie Hancock, on synth-heavy fusion classic, Chameleon.
Reader Danny Strickland reminded us about this performance, saying:
Found this vintage Herbie Hancock video from 1975 on Youtube. Not only is it a great showpiece of Herbie’s skill as a jazz keyboardist but at around the 6:00 minute mark he begins playing what looks like an ARP and he starts to twiddle the knobs and suddenly the synth goes crazy into this high pitch pulsing sound.
Herbie truly looks like he has lost control…..he twiddles some more…until he comes up with this oscillating wooshing wave sound. Then he steps back and like some wizard conjuring up something he “commands” the wave sound to come forth as it oscillates out.
Hancock’s such a badass that, even when it looks like he’s out of control, he’s in complete control!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBkoxR6eSQU
awesome
Genius at work, what else can you say…
Actually he does show some real skill, and I think badass is better suited to persons like this than skrillex to be honest. We have to remember some factors: it’s a live scenario and heavy improvisation is going down and that is a skill many do not possess and is a crucial element missing in much present day electronica.
Kind of spooky how he does those Taichi moves in exact time to the whooshes, poor bassist and drummer likely didn’t know what was going on! But it appears our mr Hancock did! Much respect to this guy and a very entertaining video, thanx
Check this one out too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6QsusDS_8A&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Can’t find an email address to send it to you though.
Fuck, this is so good!
Thanks for posting this. My discovery of this video was one of those “happy accidents” that occurs so much when searching about on the net. If memory serves me It started with me checking in on my homepage which just so happens to be Synthtopia.com and finding a post to the new Kebu album. Clicked on that and sometime later after further searching for synth performances saw this Herbie Hancock vid off to the right as a “suggestion” on Youtube. Clicked that….and when I picked myself off the floor I had to e-mail the link to Synthtopia.
And thanks also for the more recent rendition of Chameleon. The times may change…but genius is forever.
Headhunters is a killer album… Future 2 Future has some nice DnB in it as well.
Synth-Face MASTER!
The synth solo, complete with wooshes, is on an ARP Odyssey. There’s a 2600 to the right of the Rhodes and Clavinet, but he doesn’t play it in the video.
…ahh the magic of footpedals and CV filter control ! Nevertheless Herbie is a genius !!
Awesome band, awesome jazz!
For who may be curious, another video from the year before. Another awesome band, Return to Forever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNX9pTGvnSk
i thought i saw a theremin antenna above the ARP.