Herbie Hancock is a true icon of modern music. His explorations have transcended limitations and genres, and at the same time he has maintained his unmistakable voice. Hancock's success at expanding the possibilities of musical thought has placed him in the annals of this century's visionaries. What's more, he continues to amaze and expand the public's vision of what music is all about today.

Herbie Hancock's creative path has moved fluidly between almost every development in acoustic and electronic jazz and R&B since 1960. He has attained an enviable balance of commercial and artistic success, arriving at the point in his career where he ventures into every new project motivated purely by the desire to expand the boundaries of his creativity.

No stranger to career accolades, Herbie won the 1987 Academy Award for his soundtrack to the film Round Midnight. He has won eight Grammy Awards in the past two decades. Underlying these and countless other awards is the fact that there are few artists in the entire music industry who have gained more respect and cast more influence than Herbie Hancock. As the immortal Miles Davis said in his autobiography: "Herbie was the step after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and I haven't heard anybody yet who has come after him."

Born in Chicago in 1940, Hancock was a child piano prodigy who performed a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the tender age of 11. He began playing jazz in high school, initially influenced by Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. Also at this time, an additional passion for electronic science began to develop. As a result, he took a double major in music and electrical engineering at Grinnell College.

In 1960, at age 20, Herbie was discovered by trumpeter Donald Byrd, who asked him to join his group. Byrd also introduced Hancock to Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records; and after two years of session work with the likes of Phil Woods and Oliver Nelson, he signed to the legendary label as a solo artist. His 1963 debut album, Takin' Off, was an immediate success, producing "Watermelon Man," an instant hit at jazz and R&B radio.

Also in 1963, Hancock received the call that was to change his life and fix his place in jazz history. He was invited to join the Miles Davis Quintet. During his five years, with Davis, Hancock and his colleagues thrilled audiences and recorded classic after classic, including albums like ESP, Nefertiti, and Sorcerer. Most jazz critics and fans regard this group, which also included Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums) as the greatest small jazz group of the 1960s. Even after he left, Miles' group, Herbie continued to appear on Davis' groundbreaking recordings In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, which heralded the birth of jazz-fusion.

Simultaneously with his work for Miles, Hancock's own solo career blossomed on Blue Note with even more classics like Maiden Voyage, Empyrean Isles, and Speak Like A Child. 1n 1966, he composed the score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film, Blow Up. This led to a successful career in feature film and television music, including Bill Cosby's Emmy-winning Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert, and later, Death Wish, Colors, Jo Jo Dancer Your Life Is Calling, Action Jackson, Harlem Nights, and his Oscar-winning Round Midnight.

After leaving Miles Davis in 1968, Hancock stepped full-time into the new electronic jazz-funk that was sweeping the world. In 1973, Headhunters, the second LP in his new deal with Columbia Records, became jazz's first platinum album. With its Sly Stone-influenced hit single "Chameleon," this album (and its follow-up Thrust) signaled, once and for all, that Herbie Hancock would not be pigeonholed or categorized. By mid-decade, Hancock was playing to stadium-sized crowds all over the world, and had no fewer than four albums in the pop charts at once. In total, Herbie had eleven albums in the pop charts during the 1970s.

What's even more remarkable about Herbie's 70s output is the inspiration and inexhaustible supply of samples he provided for the generations of hip hop and dance music artists to follow, almost twenty years after these recordings were at their peak popularity. But it would not be the only time in his career that his work would have such an influence.

Not content to travel one creative path, Hancock also stayed close to his acoustic jazz heart in the 70s. He recorded and performed with VSOP (a reunification of the 60s Miles Davis Quintet, substituting the great Freddie Hubbard for Davis), with various trios and quartets under his own name, and in duet settings with fellow pianists Chick Corea and Oscar Peterson. In 1980, Hancock introduced the young Wynton Marsalis to the world as a solo artist, producing the trumpeter's debut album as a leader.

In 1983, a new pull to the alternative side led Herbie to a series of collaborations with the notorious musical architect Bill Laswell. The first, Future Shock, again struck platinum, as the single "Rockit" rocked the dance and R&B charts, winning a Grammy for Best R&B Instrumental and five MTV awards. Sound System, the follow-up to Future Shock, also received a Grammy in the R&B instrumental category. Once again, Herbie Hancock had blazed a new path for younger musicians to follow.

After an adventurous 1994 pop-oriented project for Mercury Records, Dis Is Da Drum, he moved on to form an all-star band to record 1996's Grammy-winning The New Standard. This album, another landmark, adapted rock and R&B tunes from recent times to a straightahead jazz format. In 1997, an eloquent and daring album of duets with Wayne Shorter, 1+1, was released.

In 1998 he released Gerswhin's World. This masterwork brought artists from all over the musical spectrum including Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Kathleen Battle, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Wayne Shorter and Chick Corea. Gershwin's World won three Grammies in 1999, including Best Traditional Jazz Album and Best R&B Vocal Performance for Stevie Wonder's "St. Louis Blues."

The latest two releases; future 2 future and Directions in Music, chronicle the contemporary statement of this extraordinary musician. Future 2 future is a marriage of jazz and underground electronica. A collaboration with underground icon, Bill Laswell, who together produced Rockit and world with some of the young hip-hop and techno artists who have drawn on Hancock's massive influence to create their own music of the future.

Directions in Music brings Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker, Roy Hargrove, John Patitucci and Brian Blade together to celebrate the influence of Miles Davis and John Coltrane on modern acoustic jazz. Standard bearers of the 50's and 60's are paid tribute by the standard setters of today.

As he enters his fifth decade of professional life, Herbie Hancock remains where he has always been: in the forefront of world culture, technology, business and music. Though one can't track exactly where he will go next, you may be sure that he'll leave his own inimitable creative style and imprint wherever he lands.

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