Yes, the tickets were expensive as hell and yes, the venue is not the most convenient in the world, but it's Herbie Hancock for cryin' out loud. They came, they saw, they killed. Those who made the effort to head over to The Birchmere on Sunday night got their $75 worth and then some as the the jazz icon, along with his most recent band, took the audience on a journey around the world and through a career that has spanned five decades.

To simply label Hancock a musician would not do justice to an explorer whose career is characterized by a stubborn refusal to stand still. Not only has he been on the scene since the early 60s, but he has always been on its cutting edge, always willing to appropriate the latest in technology and global influences. Playing with Miles Davis, the pianist helped codify the post-bop vocabulary and then went on to pioneer other genres including jazz-rock fusion, with his Headhunters outfit, and electronic music, with his Rockit band in the 1980s. The night's concert showcased this never-ending search as his stage setup incorporated a traditional grand piano along with all sorts of electronic gadgetry, including a keytar (yes, a keytar!).

Photo from Herbie Hancock's MySpace page

The show began with the Hancock standing at the front of the stage engaging in some back-and-forth jokes with the audience as he introduced the first few tunes and the members of his band, and oh, what a band. For decades, bassist/vocalist Nathan East and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, a freight train of a rhythm section, have been first-call session musicians in L.A.'s recording scene. East is also a founding member of the smooth jazz super group, Fourplay, and has spent the past 20 years touring with Eric Clapton. Colaiuta made his name playing with the great Frank Zappa and has since recorded or toured with acts as diverse as Joni Mitchell, Chick Corea, Sting, Madonna, and Megadeth. The relative unknown of the group was guitarist Lionel Loueke. A native of Benin who has spent time in Paris and now resides in New York, Loueke lent an international flavor throughout the evening's performance.

After opening with a medley of the esoteric "Butterfly," and the aggressive "Actual Proof," the first highlight of the set arrived with an imaginative re-working of the Hancock classic, "Watermelon Man." The meter shifted between counts of six and seventeen before settling into a weighty funk groove. Donning his keytar, Hancock traded phrases with each member of the band just before he, East, and Loueke all started creating music with a trio of beer bottles. It is rare to see musicians of this caliber embrace showmanship and it was refreshing to see a jazz show where the audience was not only hearing superb music, but they were also visibly having fun.

Each member of the band got a chance to shine individually, with the revelation being East's fantastically soulful vocal talents. The band delivered charged renditions of "Stiched Up," recorded as a collaboration between Hancock and John Mayer, Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You," and U2's B.B. King vehicle, "When Love Comes to Town." Guitarist Loueke was given a lengthy solo feature in which his guitar became a percussion instrument while he augmented his fine singing with voice processors and looping effects. Hancock himself played a lengthy solo rendition of his classic, "Maiden Voyage," which finished the international gumbo that Loueke started. Starting the solo by evoking from his keyboards nature sounds, South Asian rhythmic vocalese, and Tuvan throat singers, Hancock shifted to the piano to play the oceanic theme of the tune during which the audience was in such rapt attention that there was pindrop silence amongst the crowd.

Other highlights of the set included the "Cantaloupe Island," best known for the famous trumpet sample that became the basis for Us3's hit, "Cantaloop." The night's encore was a 25-minute version of the Headhunter's classic, "Chameleon," during which the band shifted through a number of moods and tempos, each signaled by a false ending. By the end of the night, the groove was so hard that a number of people in the table filled hall began dancing in the aisles.