Herbie Hancock turned 85 last April and here he was, celebrating with his crack quintet, white keytar and pioneering catalogue, with the first in a three-night-residency at the Barbican. "Coming to London feels like coming home," he says, seated between a grand piano and a set of Korg Kronos keyboards and smiling from behind his black-rimmed specs.
A 14-time Grammy winner with a six-decade career as an innovator, collaborator and solo artist, Hancock revels in the freedom inherent in jazz, leaping boundaries in the hope his ideas will be caught, pursued, rerouted. Miles Davis loved the curve balls Hancock would throw him, back when the pianist, with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, was a member of Davis's Second Great Quintet. Just as his current band, which includes trumpeter Terence Blanchard and Benin-born guitarist Lionel Loueke, do now.
