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Rating: "Herbie was the evolution after Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and I still haven't heard anyone who has gone further than him."
Miles Davis
I present myself before His Majesty Herbie Hancock like a young virgin ready to be sacrificed to the creative furies of the King of Fusion. Accompanied by my faithful companion Rix, we find a particularly lively and bustling Corzo Zanardelli near the Teatro Grande. A small crowd is lined up at the ticket booth (concert sold-out) while, slowly, a human serpent climbs the grand staircase leading to the theater's foyer. We settle in the audience seats reserved at least a month in advance, awaiting the event (because it really is an event; it's not every day that a big name like Herbie comes to Brescia). The theater's aesthetic is magnificent: in the boxes, there are more young people than old, those young ones with a bit of a confident look, with their well-groomed beards and trendy glasses, with hair styled in fake chaos, commonly referred to as radical-chic, those with money. And I believe it! Shelling out at least fifty euros for a concert is not for everyone!
At nine-thirty, the lights dim, and the show begins. And what a show, for crying out loud! One by one, they come on stage: James Genus on electric bass, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, Lionel Loueke on guitar, and finally to stadium-like cheers, Herbie Hancock on the grand piano. Rapture, utmost joy, pure pleasure. Two hours of total immersion in the complex, layered, extended, and imaginative world of jazz fusion, two hours of fugues and counter-fugues, solos, and various virtuosity, two hours of a trip in the continuous sound flow that the four forge on stage. A tasty and creamy setlist, a rollercoaster of emotions between "Cantaloupe Island" and "Rock It," between "Chameleon" and "Watermelon Man," between solo pieces (the piece for guitar and voice by Beninese artist Lionel Loueke, which should also be explored in his solo works, was remarkable) and standing ovations for Herbie, a respectable and handsome gentleman of 74 years who delights in touring the world with a class that would make thousands of artists envious. Not everyone can wield an '80s keyboard with dignity and receive a flood of applause.
Everything perfect, almost too much so. A marvelous centrifugal spin where every spectator is thrown in and let go for minutes of artistic apnea, a musical wash that our ears deserve at least once a year like an auto service at the end of 30,000 kilometers. Like being inside a shaker, we are furiously tossed around, finding ourselves unable to understand a damn thing, only at times managing to latch onto a known note, but it's just a moment, a breathless gasp in a stormy sea, a very hot tropical storm.
The two hours pass in a flash. Encores and re-encores follow. Applause flows, choruses rise from the audience and the boxes. It's over. The lights come back on, reality returns, a reality still suspended and dreamlike. A great concert, one we will remember for a long time, the kind difficult to put on paper because the emotions have taken too much of the upper hand.
Great Herbie, forever in our hearts.
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