november-2010

got better with time. “I was probably gifted when
I was younger, but I’ve worked very hard and
improved a lot,” he says. “I hope so, at least. I had
some feeling about improvisation in music, but
I didn’t have this direction or technique yet. All
of this came with years of practice.”
American pianist-composer and post-bebopfunkster
Herbie Hancock, who turned 70 this
year, seconds that motion, suggesting his abilities
have ripened with age and experience. “I don’t
think so much now. My playing is a lot more
intuitive. I trust myself more, I feel a lot freer.
I don’t feel bound any more by any technical
viewpoint. What I do now is a summation of
everything I’ve experienced in the past.”
The young Hancock spent the 1960s playing
with Miles Davis in one of the most revered
ensembles ever assembled – an early education
in pushing boundaries. “The music was
demanding, because the level of musicianship
was so high. You need complete focus to play
with a band like that. It wasn’t just Miles – all the
guys in the band were superior musicians. I was
23 when I joined Miles Davis’s band. I was a
newcomer to avant-garde jazz. The great thing
about Miles is he encouraged us to explore, to go
past what you know into the unknown. He had
a very open mind.”
Hancock has kept exploring ever since,
moving beyond jazz into funk, soul, hip-hop and
electronic music, and working with musicians
from Stevie Wonder to Leonard Cohen. Entering
his eighth decade, he’s still excited to push his
own limits. “Actually, I’m even more excited
now,” he cackles. “It’s good to evolve.”
French actress and singer Juliette Gréco, 83,
knew Davis too, though their relationship was
very different. “I met Miles Davis after a concert
at the Salle Pleyel in Paris,” she tells me. “I didn’t
have a penny to pay for a seat so I was backstage,
watching from the wings, and there
I caught a glimpse of Miles, in profi le: a real
Giacometti, with a face of great beauty. There
was such an unusual harmony between the
man, the instrument and the sound – it was
pretty shattering. Miles was a spectacle in
himself. We were together a few months and
kept in touch throughout his whole life.” She
later became involved with another 20thcentury
luminary, Serge Gainsbourg.
Gréco’s early years were turbulent. During
the war, her mother, an active member of the
Resistance, was arrested by Gestapo offi cers.
Juliette and her older sister fl ed but were also
caught and imprisoned. Her mother and sister
were sent to a prison camp (they were released in
1945) but Juliette, only 16, was put out on to the
92 METROPOLITAN
streets of Paris. Alone and destitute, she was
taken in by her French teacher who encouraged
her to take up dance, drama and singing.
She later attended Young Communists
meetings and became part of the bohemian
intellectual scene, spending time with the
philosophers Sartre and Camus and the artists
and musicians in the smoky clubs, cafés and
cabarets of the Latin Quarter.
It was out of this scene that she emerged, fi rst
as an actress and a face on magazines, then as a
singer. “I fell in love with jazz after the war,” she
says. “And suddenly I had the opportunity to meet
the greatest ones. I didn’t know they were ‘greats’:
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Martial Solal, the
Modern Jazz Quartet, Miles Davis… The most
beautiful jazz music.
“I was probably
gifted when I was
younger, but I’ve
improved a lot”
I’ve been so spoiled.”
This era saw a
cross-pollination
of ideas, of music
and art mixing
with politics and
philosophy. Gréco,
for example,
introduced John-Paul Sartre to Davis. “It was a
very exciting time,” she adds. “It was very simple,
very direct, very strong. You can call that ‘youth’.”
Sixty years on, she has the same attitude as back
then. “While I’m alive, I live – that’s all.”
In her career, Dame Cleo Laine has collaborated
with some 20th-century giants. The only woman
to receive Grammy nominations in jazz, pop and
classical categories, Laine’s career took off when
she had a top 10 hit with You’ll Answer to Me
in 1961, at the same time as she was appearing in
Brecht and Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins at the
Edinburgh Festival. She has worked with everyone
from Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra to James
Galway, Nigel Kennedy and John Williams.
Her closest and most enduring collaboration
was with her husband, musician and composer
Above:
Herbie
Hancock.
Below:
Juliette Gréco
Ci-dessus :
Herbie
Hancock.
Ci-dessous :
Juliette Gréco
Photography: Getty Images