HERBiE HANDCOCk

Watch the full episode. See more Tavis Smiley.

The award-winning musician and legend discusses his first-ever solo tour and reflects on the key to a great performance.

A modern music icon, Herbie Hancock played with the jazz greats and went on to become an Oscar- and Grammy-winning musician-composer and he's funky too.  If you haven't heard The Headhunters albums - it's a must have!  The Chicago native took up piano at age 7 and, classically trained, was performing Mozart with symphony orchestras by age 11. He's scored a number of films and is involved in several educational endeavors, including the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. Hancock is the L.A. Philharmonic's creative chair for jazz and UNESCO's Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of Intercultural Dialogue.
This fall, he embarks on his first ever solo tour.



From the 1973 album "Headhunters" here's Herbie Hancock with "Watermelon Man".


Sampled by:
Super Cat - "Dolly My Baby", LL Cool J - "1-900-LL Cool J", Shaquille O'Neal - "I Hate To Brag", Born Jamericans - "State Of Shock IV", Madonna - "Sanctuary", UNLV - "Pocket Full Of Furl".



From the 1975 album, "Survival of the Fittest". Here are The Headhunters with "God Make Me Funky". The drum pattern in this song has been sampled so many times...

Sampled by:
Fugees - "Ready Or Not", Slum Village - "Go Ladies", Eric B & Rakim - "Beats for the Listeners", Marky Mark - "Wildside", Biz Markie - "Albee Square Mall",NWA - "Approach to Danger", Mystikal - "Yall Aint Ready Yet",, Nas - "Hip-Hop Is Dead".

YES

Musiq Soulchild's new song "Yes" is dedicated to the fighters and survivors of Breast Cancer.

Musiq's message is clear. He will love his woman now and forever. Nothing has changed in his eyes and in his heart has nothing but love. Musiq wants to make sure his girl understands, if she ever begins to question if he still loves her...the answer is yes. From great times to bad times to good times again, the answer is yes.

Musiq Soulchild - Yes - Official Music Video (2011)

Let me get this out of the way

So there ain’t no complications

Later on for us

I know things don’t stay the same

People grow and seasons change

But when it comes to love

Don’t you feel like

You never gotta worry about my

Feelings changing for you *over* time

'Cause when I say I care girl I mean it

So when the world and the odds are against us

You won’t have to question

The answer is yes

When two or three years from now

You start having some doubts ‘bout if this love will last

The answer is yes

I’ll still think you’re beautiful

‘Cause I am more attracted to what’s inside of you

You don’t have to guess

The answer is yes

‘Cause I love you

All I care is about your happiness

So the answer is yes

People just don’t stick around

Build you up then let you down

But I am not one of those, no

I understand that you have been burned

Honesty is what you deserve

Yeah, and so that’s what I am giving you girl

So when the world and the odds are against us

You won’t have to question

The answer is yes

Now if you ask will I go

When you need me most

The answer is no

I’m dedicated to what we have

But will I be here

The way that I promised

I’ll say with no fear

The answer is yes

AUDiO: UNRELEASED tRACk by LL COOL J (circa 1994)

Year Of The Hip Hop (Unreleased Vocal) - K-Def ft. LL Cool J by Slice-of-Spice

This unreleased gem was actually found behind the radiator at Marley Marl's House of Hits studio. Slice of Spice is putting out a previously unheard track recorded in 1994 by LL Cool J and producer K-Def as a limited edition vinyl pressing.

Here is the what they say about it:

Back in 1994 K-Def was working on some beats out of the B Room in Marley Marl’s House Of Hits when LL Cool J walked in on his session and said “let’s make some tracks together”. Uncle L had always wanted to rhyme on a track using the famous ESG breakbeat ‘UFO’, so he had K-Def lay it down with some scratches and then went to town with the mic. Both thought they had a sure fire hit on their hands but unfortunately it was never used and found recently.

PURPLE HAZE - PURPLE RAiN

 Time Magazine

Monday, Aug. 06, 1984

Purple house, Purple Rain:
Prince scores across the spectrum

Stumped. For a long minute, anyhow.
When Apollonia asked Prince - and yes, those are their real names, approximately - "Is there anything you can't do?" There was a lingering silence. A tough question to put to such a tyro. More silence. A fast career review was clearly in order. There would be no question of just skipping to the highlights: since 1978, when Warner Bros. Records released his first album when he was 17, for Prince it has been highlights all the way. For You was not the hottest seller in the stores, but the fact that Prince had written, produced and played all the instruments on his first effort got the press making comparisons to Stevie Wonder. There were four more albums and a wonderful grab bag of singles like When You Were Mine and Little Red Corvette. Now there is Purple Rain, a No. 1 sound-track album with a No. 1 single, When Doves Cry, that is the first song since Billie Jean to reach the top slots simultaneously on the pop, black and dance charts. Purple Rain had already sold nearly 2.5 million copies before the movie was released last Friday. This is serious business. So is the movie, a short-circuited psychodrama that grafts snazzy performance footage onto the fictive fever chart of an angst-ridden musician called The Kid and played by Prince himself. The movie has been pulling down real tub-thumper reviews, the sort of hot-seat hype that gives some indication of the way Prince can generate fever and keep the temperature high.
He does it with a peculiar combination of ambisexual eroticism and self-mythologizing. Until Purple Rain, Prince played at being a prisoner of sex who craved a life sentence. Some of his song titles sounded like cuts on a Pigmeat Markham party record (Head, Soft and Wet). If there was a unifying theme to his lyrics—indeed, a governing obsession—it was that carnal knowledge is the ultimate wisdom. Party till you drop, make-out till you molder: self-realization through rutting.


Prince's performing entourage still includes young women attired in flash-happy lingerie. But Prince has dispensed with performing in his leopardskin skivvies, and for the movie camera, dresses up in high-heeled boots, ruffled shirts, brocaded jackets. If anyone notices the similarly suited ghost of Jimi Hendrix floating about, so much the better. Hendrix's classic Purple Haze has left all sorts of echoes around Prince's neighborhood, and not just in the music. Prince has both mastered the Hendrix style and contemporized it; he has become something of a past master at haze in general.


The plot of Purple Rain, which Scenarist William Blinn (Roots, Fame) and first-time Feature Director Albert Magnoli both deny is specifically biographical, nevertheless hews roughly to the broad outlines of Prince's life. (Prince declines all interviews.) Shot entirely in Minneapolis, where Prince Rogers Nelson was born and grew up, and where he became a regent of the local music scene even before that first album came out in 1978, the movie uses everyone's real name for characters - "We've all called Prince 'The K id' for a long time," says Band Member Lisa Coleman and a lot of real locations in and around Minneapolis Prince frequents.


The Kid has also been provided, like his real-life doppelgānger, with a black father and a Mediterranean mother. In the movie, Dad cuffs Mom around a good deal: he is a frustrated musician, which explains these bouts of violent temper; she shrieks and screams a lot, which presumably demonstrates her ethnicity. If women are sexual baubles in Prince's songs, in his movie they are tarnished angels who love to have their wings clipped. Apollonia (the "baptismal name" of Newcomer Patricia Kotero, 22) strips down and jumps into an icy lake to win The Kid's approval. The Kid, arrogant, sensitive, injured and defensively sadistic, realizes he has been thoroughly psyched by his parents. He salves the wounds by dedicating a song to his father, performing a tune written by the young women of the band and fetching Apollonia on his motorcycle for a last, cathartic concert.


On stage is where part Prince really comes out wailing, part Hendrix, part Screamin' Jay Hawkins. If music alone could make a movie masterpiece, then Purple Rain might have a shot. Its score is ecumenical rock, echoing everyone from Hendrix and Sly Stone to Brian Wilson and Earth, Wind and Fire, yet remaining entirely original overall. It may have the best original rock music ever written for a movie.

"He's like Mozart," enthuses Apollonia. "I visited his house on a lake 20 miles outside of Minneapolis. It is purple. It's pretty. He has a recording studio in there. He lives in that studio." Apollonia shares a number of things with Prince, including "pretty much the same measurements. I'm 36-24-36 and he's got a well-developed upper torso"; We also share some articles of clothing, such as his suits and her lace tank tops. 
"He's a ladies' man! Not homosexual. He does love his women!"  And a certain phone number - "The hot line." Apollonia says. "That's right by his bed. No one else has the number." 


But it was in person that Apollonia popped the question. 
The toughie, the one that provoked lingering silence.
Finally Prince had an answer for her...
"Anything I can't do? Yeah. I can't cook."



Reported By: JAY COCKS + DENISE WORRELL

"I am music." - PRiNCE

If you want to learn about music then you must study the history of music from the artists and musicians who did it first and did it the best. These artists have created music that will last for generations when we are long gone. The classics from the “Masters” as I call them. Prince is one such Master.  Prince is the musicians musician.  His gift is admired by leaders in all aspects of music; jazz, rock, the blues, pop, hip-hop, funk, soul, funk, metal, or country music.  They all agree - The man is a genius and he can pretty much do it all.
A true original in a musical landscape full of clones and wanna-be's.  Prince's music catalog, career, and art will be studied, admired, and celebrated forever. 

Prince is now our generations last great one left (since Michael Jacksons passing).
He has set the bar so high that his only true competition is himself.  If you haven't introduced or familiarized yourself to his work yet, then this video is a good start/introduction. It is impossible to put one label on him.
To focus only on 1 or 2 aspects of his legacy thus far is blasphemy and should be criminal.
Prince is not just a singer.
He is not just a guitar player.
He is not just an entertainer or dancer.


Prince is music.

A music innovator and true original through and through.
  Prince is the last true band leader since James Brown calling out changes on a whim either by hand signals, looks, nods, or by voice.  Prince consistantly if not always has the tightest band in show business,  he is the best live act today, the rightful heir to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone.
Watching this video it's a wonder to lean about his way of making music from folks that were there.
The show features respected music critics, writers, studio engineers, former employees, and past band members talking about his assent to musical fame.

Having grown up during the 80′s I witnessed a lot of the crazy musical experiments during that era and Prince is one artist whose music I supported frequently. The film is good at what I think documentaries should do;  to tell a story using images and live commentary from people who shared that space and time with the person who is at the center of the picture. Check it out and if you like it pass it around!!!

Alicia Keys and Outkast (Andre 3000 & Big Boi)

Induct Prince into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

1985 American Music Awards

Madonna presents award to Prince And The Revolution

The late great jazz legend Miles Davis on Prince

Prince Tribute featuring testimonies from:

Sheryl Crow, Alicia Keys, Robert Plant, Ozzy Ozbourne, Moby, No Doubt, Gwen Stefani and more..

Beyonce inducts Prince into the UK Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
Featuring testimonies from:
Pharrell Williams, Randy Jackson, Wendy & Lisa, Maceo Parker, Salma Hayek, and Joni Mitchell

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