I would never have thought it, but being at the right time in the right city, I had the oppor­tun­ity last Fri­day to see Herbie Han­cock live and dir­ect here in Ber­lin.

Although the tick­ets were fairly pricy (the cheapest star­ted at 38 EUR), in my book, it was worth every cent. Even if this guy is 66 years old, you couldn’t tell neither by his looks, the energy he radi­ated, the humour he showed nor the music itself. (By the way, that’s him on the cen­ter of the stage with the gui­tar like key­board I for­got the name of).

In a single word: it was as massive. No com­par­ison in qual­ity to any­thing I’ve ever heard, when it comes to a jazz combo. Of course, this was also due to the other musi­cians he played with: Vin­nie Colei­uta (a par­tic­u­lar­ily fam­ous drum­mer), Nathan East (an impress­ive bassist and singer) and Lionel Loueke (I didn’t know him, but geez, he was a geni­ous too).

Among the pieces they played were clas­sics like Can­ta­loupe Island, Water­melon Man or Chameleon as well as more recent songs.

Being good at being stu­pid doesn’t count.