Herbie Hancock, SextantĪs great as Blue Note’s assertive house style was, once he’d left the jazz label Hancock was able to impose more of his own ideas in collaboration with Robert Springett, an artist who was no doubt enamored with Mati Klarwein’s cover art for Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. The album cover shot from the lowdown perspective of the road with convergence lines increasing in size as they hove into view has become a genre in itself too, from Kraftwerk’s Autobahn to Bastille’s Bad Blood via the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Stoned and Dethroned. All of Reid’s covers for Herbie Hancock are works of art, though Inventions & Dimensions is interesting for its perspective: taken from the road with a New York City backdrop by Blue Note acolyte Francis Wolff, it was almost certainly a nod to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, a bluesy folk album released the year previous that transcended its categorization to become a cultural milestone. ![]() Some of the label’s greatest hits were his greatest hits too: Freddie Hubbard’s Hub-Tones, Lee Morgan’s Lee-Way, and John Coltrane’s Blue Train. As with his work for Inventions & Dimensions, he usually worked with just two or three colors to give that unmistakable look that has come to define the record company’s aesthetic. Miles needs no introduction to Blue Note aficionados, having worked on more than 500 sleeves for the legendary jazz label between 19. The front cover of Herbie Hancock’s third album was created by the man who was responsible for his first two: Chicago-born graphic designer Reid Miles. Herbie Hancock, Inventions and Dimensions His artwork, similarly, projects that ebullience and sense of fun. But it’s his unpredictability and adventurousness that make him such an alluring figure, along with his sense of humility (despite winning 17 Grammys). Herbie Hancock’s discography is anything but a coherent body of work - neither visually nor musically. He also has an uncanny knack for choosing the right people to work with. That sense of curiosity became heightened by his meditation practice in the 1970s, and whilst he’s not involved in the graphic design process of his work, the openness with which he approaches each project leaves room for the designers he chooses to surprise him. ![]() “I think risk-taking is a great adventure,” he once said, “and life should be full of adventures.” His path as a classical pianist was already mapped out before him, though he chose jazz instead. 26 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when he was just 11. Born in Chicago in 1940, he was a child prodigy, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. Like his contemporary Stevie Wonder, he developed a taste for synthesizers and electronics long before they were widespread, and he has fearlessly explored new genres like hip hop, funk, and electronica since leaving the Miles Davis Quintet in 1968 to go solo. Herbert Jeffrey Hancock has been at the cutting edge of technology for many of his 82 years.
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