Herbie Hancock - Future2Future Live

Starring:Herbie Hancock
Studio: Sony
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Keyboardist Herbie Hancock's foray into a fusion of jazz, funk, electronics, and hip-hop, begun in the early '70s, continues with this 104-minute concert, recorded in 2002 in Los Angeles. While there are occasional echoes of Weather Report and of Miles Davis's music from Bitches Brew onward (especially with trumpeter Wallace Roney now part of the Hancock ensemble), this is a distinctive, original sound, with the innovations put in service of the music, rather than vice versa; there's plenty of room for these musicians to simply play with the improvisational spirit that's at the heart of jazz. The six-piece group plays "Rockit," Hancock's hit from the '80s (the original video is among the extras), "Chameleon" (the best-known track from the Headhunters album), and eight others; multi-angle shots provide different viewing options, and the sound is uniformly superb. Other bonus features include a Hancock interview and bios (including solo excerpts) for each band member. --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews:

Anyone else get a copy with poor image quality?.......2006-11-06

The only reason I gave this three stars is because of the good quality of the music and the opportunity to see the original "Rockit" video. Based on the quality of the DVD imagery I would give it a one. Is there anyone else who finds this DVD to be low-quality and grainy (especially the "Rockit" video), or did I get some kind of bootleg?

What's it all about?.......2006-09-20

Being a big fan of jazz and Herbie I looked forward to my first viewing of future2future. However I was unpleasantly surprised. I agree with what's already been said that the DJ was entirely unnecessary. He persisted with irritating hues and shrieks that only took away from the music. It was like watching the twilight zone while listening to a jazz solo. Furthermore Herbie's little speeches only inspired impatience: "Knowledge is the future"- ok man thanks for that. I appreciate the search for a new sound etc but not when its dragging good musicians behind the cart. If you like "weird", this might be for you but it wasnt for me. If you want to hear/see Herbie on a great set check out Dejohnette, Hancock, Holland, Metheny in concert live at the mellon jazz festival. Or listen to Directions in Music one of Herbie's more recent collaborations.

Herbie is the master of jazz piano.......2006-03-27

I picked this up initially to check out Matt Garrison the young bass player on this DVD. I was blown away by the whole band and especially Terri Lynne Carrington dam she is a monster on the drums. Wallace Roney is fantastic. I invited friends over to check it out and they are ordering copies now.

Herbie is continues the Mile Davis tradition of always experimenting and discovering great young talent like Matt Garrision. Great music, excellent audio and video even multiple camera angles. In the extra they include the original 1982 video of Rockit then the 2002 version.

Definately a DVD musicians and Jazz fans need in their collection.

Sounds Good To Me.......2005-11-03

Hmmm... lukewarm reviews posted here notwithstanding, I find this DVD very good. I've owned this for about a year and have watched it dozens of times and still get a lot of enjoyment from it. The DTS and Dolby 5.1 audio sound excellent as far as I'm concerned, and the performance is great too. I dunno, I like the funkified sound this lineup presents myself so I guess it's a matter of personal taste rather than an issue of musical absolutes. Yeah, there's a few weak moments but overall these guys (and gal) shine. The drummer by the way is Teri Lyne Carrington, not whoever was mentioned in one of these reviews. The drums sound crisp and tight, choice of kit rather than any sound mixing bias.
The video editing is pretty good. At least you get to see whoever is soloing for the most part rather than having to watch extended close-ups of a performers face or other non relevant item. The light show going on in the background is interesting too.

The extras include the original 'Rockit' video (remember that from the early MTV days?) and an interview with Herbie that's somewhat unmemorable.

I'm glad this is in my collection and hope potential viewers won't be turned away from this DVD because of the critical remarks of my fellow reviewers though I respect their opinions.
IMO this DVD is well worth getting.

lacks the taste and ingenuity necessary for such an experiment.......2005-07-20

Maybe Future 2 Future is a good record, i haven't heard it, but i do know that this dvd is pretty weak. This was a rare un-researched purchase for me, i had not heard of the DVD or even listened to the album, i depended on my adoration of older Hancock records and the promise of "herbie hancock returning to the era-defining funk of headhunters!" that was on the label. Unfortunately, all i see on this dvd is another group of undeniably virtuosic modern jazz musicians blunderously mashing together uninspired hip hop elements and modern electronics with your typical jazz noodling. Great playing or not, the members of this band do not have what it takes to put it all together into a tasteful whole.

Don't get me wrong, the soloing is great, but the music as a whole is tasteless and at times painful to listen to. I will point to, in no particular order, a few specific aspects of the music that almost completely ruin it for me. First off, the rhythm section seems to lack any sense of nuance, which subsequently renders the songs boring and one-dimensional. They are of course skilled and tight, and completely predictable and uninteresting. The grooves they concoct are the lowest common denominator of funk rhythm, channeling the tasteless 4/4 banging-away that the inexperienced routinely refer to as a "hip hop style". There is more to a funky groove than shuffled sixteenths and more to hip-hop than a persistent snare drum on every other beat. Guitarist Wayne Krantz plays a style of jazz that uses similar straight-forward, funk/rock derived 4/4 meter as its framework, yet his bands, especially when Keith Carlock is on the drums, know rhythm and how to follow one another in order to produce a mind-bendingly dynamic musical entity. This band plays pretty much like a studio band on backup for a pop record.

next item on the gripe list is the terrible sound of the electronics. Playing jazz on a synth is not an inherently good idea, as everyone seems to have assumed since Headhunters came out. In the 70s, Herbie was coaxing all sort of freakish psychadelic sounds out of his gear, and the analog keyboards sounded fat enough to hold up to the rest of the band. There are worthy modern emulations of those old analog beasts, but the synth patches used in this show are thin and lack character. Herbie keeps pulling out some godawful string sound, the sort of tingly noise that should be quarantined in its place of origin, that being easy-listening and Celine Dion ballads. On Headhunters the synths are fat, punchy, and sometimes unexpectedly wild. Here they are cheesy and thin and further push the music into the realm of background smooth jazz for restaurants.

Another smaller gripe is the presence of DJ Disk. He is completely unnecessary. When Linkin Park unleashed their noise on the world, we should have realized that arbitrarily throwing a DJ into the mix doesn't accomplish anything without a lot of talent and experimentation done beforehand. Hip-hop/jazz with turntabled and laptops has been pulled off, but this band does not know what to do with their turntablist. He makes some fun noises, but ultimately brings very little to the music. I think that the idea was to bring together some imagined "next generation" jazz band that used all these disparate elements, without really thinking about how they would come together. Look up "Optometry" by DJ Spooky for some more interesting and worthwhile experimentation with hip-hop and jazz.

One reviewer said something about Herbie Hancock once again being ahead of his time, but sadly I don't see or hear anything new in this concert, besides the old songs I love being abused by musicians who don't understand all the elements they are attempting to work with. The problem is that nothing comes together as it would seem it is supposed to. Proof once again that great ideas and ambition cannot accomplish much when faced with a simple lack of taste. I'm sure that many fans of Herbie Hancock will love this stuff, as it is definitely a bold step, but as a fan of electronic music, fusion, jazz, and hip-hop, i can say that this music does not succeed on any of those levels, rather it flounders in an awkward middle ground. The grit, soul, and fearlessness of the 70s funk records is lost, the intrigue that electronics are capable of is hardly tapped into, the dynamism of jazz/fusion is absent, and the rhythm of hip-hop is far from achieved. Its not that these particular musical alchemy experiments are bad ideas. Hancock obviously nailed the funk-jazz connection in the 70s, DJ Spooky and his compatriots pulled something unique together on Optometry, and Wayne Krantz and his stooges consistently crank out killer improvisational rhythmic mayhem. This dvd, however, is not the place to find such things.

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