The kora is a stringed instrument used extensively in West Africa. A kora typically has 21 strings, which are played by plucking with the fingers. It combines features of the lute and harp.
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer, and occasional actor. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd’s group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, utilizing a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, Head Hunters.
William Otis Laswell is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, world music, jazz, dub, and ambient styles.
The music of the Gambia is closely linked musically with that of its neighbor, Senegal, which surrounds its inland frontiers completely. Among its prominent musicians is Foday Musa Suso. Mbalax is a widely known popular dance music of the Gambia and neighbouring Senegal. It fuses popular Western music and dance, with sabar, the traditional drumming and dance music of the Wolof and Serer people.
The Gravikord is a 24 string electric double bridge-harp invented by Robert Grawi in 1984, which is closely related to both the West African kora and the mbira. It was designed to employ a separated double tonal array structure making it possible to easily play cross-rhythms in a polyrhythmic musical style in a modern electro-acoustic instrument. The Gravi-kora is a similar instrument, also developed by Grawi, which is tuned identically to a traditional 21 string kora.
Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist.
Foday Musa Suso is a Gambian musician and composer. He is a member of the Mandinka ethnic group, and is a griot. Griots are the oral historians and musicians of the Mandingo people who live in several west African nations. Griots are a living library for the community providing history, entertainment, and wisdom while playing and singing their songs. It is an extensive verbal and musical heritage that can only be passed down within a griot family.
An Evening with Herbie Hancock & Chick Corea: In Concert is a live album recorded over the course of several live performances in February 1978 and released that same year as a double LP. The album features just Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea each playing acoustic piano. The use of only acoustic piano comes as a marked departure from both men's favoring of electric keyboards and a more jazz fusion style at the time. Herbie Hancock was credited with this album, while Chick Corea was credited with the album CoreaHancock, another recording from the concert tour with the two artists, released by Polydor.
Sound-System is the thirty-sixth album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock and the second of three albums with the Rockit Band.
Horses & Trees is an album by English drummer Ginger Baker, released in 1986. The album is entirely instrumental and contains six dance-oriented songs.
V.S.O.P : Live Under the Sky is a 1979 live album by the V.S.O.P. Quintet, a record of a performance at the 1979 Live Under the Sky Festival as it was performed live in Japan over two days. The first day, which took place during a furious rainstorm, was broadcast live on national television. The original release featured the first day, while the 2004 re-master/re-release also featured the second concert. This, the fourth VSOP release, once again featured Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Ron Carter, and Freddie Hubbard.
Village Life is an album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock and Mandinka griot Foday Musa Suso, recorded live in studio in Japan and released in 1985.
V.S.O.P. is a 1977 double live album by pianist and keyboard player Herbie Hancock, featuring acoustic jazz performances by the V.S.O.P. Quintet, and jazz fusion and jazz-funk performances by the Mwandishi band and The Headhunters. The concert was advertised as a "Herbie Hancock Retrospective," and Miles Davis, who was several months into his temporary retirement, was advertised as playing with the Shorter-Carter-Williams band, thereby reconstituting the Davis "Second Quintet" for the first time since 1969. However, on the night of the show, a handwritten sign was posted on the door to the lobby, announcing that Davis would not be playing, but that Freddie Hubbard would be appearing in his place. [Source: Russ Gershon, concert attendee]
Flood is the second live album, and sixteenth album overall, by American jazz pianist and keyboardist Herbie Hancock. Recorded live in Tokyo, the album was originally released exclusively in Japan in 1975 as a double LP 洪水, reads kōzui meaning flood. It features the Headhunters Band performing selections from the albums Maiden Voyage, Head Hunters, Thrust, and Man-Child –– with the latter still two months away from release at the time of these concerts.
Adam Rudolph is a jazz composer and percussionist performing in the post-bop and world fusion media.
Live in Japan is a 1993 live album by the New York based No Wave music group Material.
The Imagine Project is the forty-sixth and latest studio album by American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock released on June 22, 2010.
Jazzvisions: Made in America was a series of jazz concerts held in December 1986 at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles.
International Jazz Day is an International Day declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2011 "to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe." It is celebrated annually on April 30. The idea came from jazz pianist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock. Jazz Day is chaired by Hancock and the UNESCO Director-General. The celebration is recognized on the calendars of both UNESCO and the United Nations.
Off World One is an album by American composer Bill Laswell, issued under the moniker Possession. It was released on January 30, 1996, by Sub Meta.
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