Recorded at The Shed, NY and Stagg Street Studios, Van Nuys, CA
Herbie Hancock - piano
John Mayer - vocals, guitar
Michael Bearden - keyboards
Willie Weeks - bass
Steve Jordan - drums
2. “Safiatou” featuring Santana and Angelique Kidjo
Written by Harold Alexander
Engineered by Jim Gaines and Dave Luke
Recorded at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, CA
Herbie Hancock - piano
Carlos Santana - guitars
Angelique Kidjo - vocals
Michael Bearden - keyboards
Chester Thompson - organ
Dennis Chambers - drums
Raul Rekow - percussion
Karl Perazzo - percussion
Benny Rietveld - bass
3. “A Song For You” featuring Christina Aguilera
Written by Leon Russell
Arranged by Michael Bearden
Engineered by Khaliq Glover and Tal Herzberg
Additional production services by Greg Phillinganes and Rob Lucas
Recorded at Hancock Studios, West Hollywood, The Record Plant, West
Hollywood, Ocean Way Studios, Hollywood, and Henson Studios, West Hollywood, CA
Herbie Hancock - piano
Christina Aguilera - vocals
Michael Bearden - keyboards
Bashiri Johnson - percussion
Nathan East - bass
Teddy Campbell - drums
4. “I Do It For Your Love” featuring Paul Simon
Written by Paul Simon
Co-produced by John Alagia
Engineered by Andy Smith
Recorded at Clinton Recording Studios, NY, NY
Herbie Hancock - piano
Paul Simon - vocals, guitar
_________ - keyboards
Pino Paladino - bass
Steve Jordan - drums
Cyro Baptista - percussion
Jamey Haddad - percussion
Gina Gershon - jew’s harp
5. “Hush, Hush, Hush” featuring Annie Lennox
Written by Paula Cole
Engineered by John Wilson
Recorded at Mayfair Studios, London, England
Herbie Hancock - piano, keyboards
Annie Lennox - vocals
Steve Lewinson - bass
Pete Lewinson - drums
Tony Remy - guitar
6. “Sister Moon” featuring Sting
Written by Sting
Engineered by Niko Bolas
Recorded at Phase One Studios, Toronto, Canada
Herbie Hancock - piano
Sting - vocals
Michael Bearden - keyboards
Lionel Loueke - guitar
John Patitucci - bass
Cyro Baptista - percussion
Steve Jordan - drums
7. “When Love Comes To Town” featuring Jonny Lang and Joss Stone
Written by U2
Produced by Greg Phillinganes
Engineered by Steve Churchyard, Andy Ackland and Dave O’Donnell
Recorded at The Village, West Los Angeles, CA and Glenwood Place, Burbank, CA, and Town House Studios, London, England
Herbie Hancock - piano
Jonny Lang - vocals, electric guitar
Joss Stone - vocals
Greg Phillinganes - keyboards
John Robinson - drums
James Harrah - acoustic guitar
Reggie McBride - bass
8. “Don’t Explain” featuring Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan
Written by Arthur Birdsong
Engineered by Jaime Sickora
Recorded at Henson Studios, Hollywood, CA
Herbie Hancock - piano
Damien Rice - vocals
Lisa Hannigan - vocals
Tomo - drums
Vyvienne Long - cello
Shane Fitzsimons – bass
Damien Rice appears by arrangement with Vector Recordings, LLC/Warner Bros. Records Inc. and 14th Floor Records
9. “Gelo No Montana” featuring Trey Anastasio
Written by Trey Anastasio/Herbie Hancock/Cyro Baptista
Co-produced by Bryce Goggins, Bob Brockman and Yaron Fuchs
Engineered by Pete Carini and Eric Gorman
Recorded at The Barn, Burlington, Vermont and Numedia Studios, NY, NY
Herbie Hancock - piano, keyboards, organ
Trey Anastasio - guitar, vocals
John Patitucci - bass
Cyro Baptista - percussion
Steve Jordan - drums
Jennifer Hartswick - vocals, trumpet
“Bassy” Bob Brockman - trumpet/flugel horn
Paul Shapiro - tenor sax/flute
10. “I Just Called To Say I Love You” featuring Raul Midón
Written by Stevie Wonder
Produced by Greg Phillinganes and Herbie Hancock
Arranged by Herbie Hancock and Greg Phillinganes
Engineered by Khaliq Glover and Dave O’Donnell
Recorded at Hancock Studios, West Hollywood, CA, Right Track Studios, NY, and Capitol Studios, Hollywood, CA
Herbie Hancock - piano, keyboards
Raul Midón - vocal, guitar
Stevie Wonder - harmonica
Greg Phillinganes - keyboards
LINER NOTES
“Exactly how you hear it is exactly how it all went down….”
That’s what John Mayer confides right before the finger-snapping funk of “Stitch Me Up” kicks in. It’s a great opening salvo in a playfully sexy tale of soon-to-be-requited ardor, but his words serve equally well as a motto for this entire album. Possibilities is a series of inspired close encounters between a multi-genre master and some of the most gifted vocalists and songwriters of the last three decades -- plus a few seriously talented folks who are still just getting started. Forget long distance digital alchemy or disembodied duets, this one’s all about face to face, heart to heart, real to reel.
Possibilities started out with Herbie Hancock asking “What if…?” What if he made a short list of artists he admired, had crossed stages with while on tour, or simply been curious about and extended an open-ended invitation to join him in the studio? He had no overarching concept in mind, no absolute agenda, no preset track listing, just the desire to find performers, who, like him, might be eager to step away from defined roles or familiar territory and make a creative leap of faith.
This is second nature to Herbie. Collaboration has been an essential part of his astonishingly wide-ranging career, ever since the piano prodigy from Chicago was invited, at the ripe old age of 23, to join the most celebrated group Miles Davis ever assembled. That 1963 quintet featured saxophonist Wayne Shorter, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams, players with whom Herbie would work in years to come, most notably in the VSOP quintet of the late seventies. Herbie segued effortlessly from jazz to R&B (with his chart-topping
Head Hunters) to space-age funk, then back to brilliant, acoustic jazz. He was truly among the first to appreciate the artistic possibilities of hip hop, pioneering a high-tech yet street-savvy sound with the help of vinyl-scratching deejay Grandmaster D.S.T. on the 1983 platinum-selling Future Shock, which featured the Grammy-winning “Rock-It.” (The animated, MTV Video Award-winning clip for “Rock-It,” directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Crème, was yet another smart, sophisticated – and just plain cool – collaboration.)
Hip hop producers and acid-jazz deejays subsequently acknowledged Herbie’s influence by scouring his sixties-era Blue Note solo catalogue for samples; Herbie’s “Cantaloupe Island” was the basis for US3’s 1993 hit, “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)” and “Watermelon Man” remains a staple of dance-music compilations. Now jam-band acts are discovering Herbie’s sound and sensibility. He was selected as the first official Artist in Residence at the 2005 Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee, where he performed with an updated version of his Head Hunters and – naturally – sat in with other acts.
Herbie went into his latest adventure like the veteran jazz man that he is, grabbing sessions with willing players for Possibilities wherever and whenever he could, aiming for some on-the-spot magic. Which he invariably found. He drove from home late one night when he got a call to meet up with Irish singers Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan at a Hollywood studio before Damien’s run at the Troubadour. They immediately fashioned an arrangement of the gorgeously melancholy Billie Holiday number, “Don’t Explain.” The recording went so well that Damien invited Herbie to sit in with him at his gig the following night. Herbie flew from a Paris date to a London studio to cut a version of Paula Cole’s heartbreaking “Hush Hush Hush” with Annie Lennox. The two of them actually called Paula mid-session to dig deeper into the story behind the song, which describes the final encounter between a young man dying of AIDS and his only just comprehending father, and that resulted in an even more eloquent track.
Herbie traveled all over the map, geographically and stylistically. He hung out with former Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio in Burlington, Vermont, where they engaged in some serious jamming, then pared it all down into a four-part instrumental suite, “Gelo No Montana.” He hooked up with Sting in Toronto, where they were joined by prodigious young African guitarist, arranger and current Head Hunters band-mate Lionel Loueke on a dramatically spare, percussive re-imagining of Sting’s own “Sister Moon.” (“I never heard him sing like that before,” Herbie says of Sting, still amazed by the experience. “His delivery was out of the park, a homerun.”)
Paul Simon and Herbie started out simply discussing new ways to approach Paul’s “I Do It For Your Love” over dinner in L.A., then wound up cutting an elegant, subtly sensual version of it in a West Side Manhattan studio. “Paul’s not really an improviser, a jazz singer or a jazz player,” explains Herbie, “but he’s got this part of him that’s totally intrigued by taking chances, trying new things….He came up with one of the most jazz-like arrangements on the record.”
The younger artists Herbie recruited were perhaps the greatest revelation to him. He didn’t know much about John Mayer before the two of them went into a New York studio – but, man, did they hit it off. Says Herbie, “He’s a strong rhythm guitar player and a wonderful singer, a great voice. He’s really smart and very self-assured, yet humble at the same time. He has strong convictions about things, which is rare at that age.” In their case, possibilities turned into new opportunities. John so dug working with Herbie that he signed on to play guitar alongside Loueke on the Head Hunters summer tour.
As for Christina Aguilera, who tackles Leon Russell’s “A Song For You,” Herbie recalls, “She did about six takes of the song and each one sounded like a final take. I was floored. She said, ‘I’m just trying different things,’ and I said, ‘That doesn’t sound like a try, that sounds like a done.’” Soulful English powerhouse Joss Stone and young American blues guitarist Jonny Lang also take no prisoners in a novel arrangement of U2’s “When Love Comes To Town.” It’s “a bit of country, a bit of rock,” Herbie says, “then I come in and pretty much play a jazz solo on top of it.”
Raul Midón is the newest find among the youthful crew Herbie enlisted, another formidable singer (and songwriter) who, in Stevie Wonder-like fashion, combines R&B, Latin and jazz elements into his sound. He was a natural choice, then, to front a version of “I Just Called To Say I Love You” that Herbie and producer-keyboardist Greg Phillinganes had originally created for Stevie Wonder’s appearance at the Kennedy Center Honors (Diana Schur sang it then, backed up by the vocal group Take 6). Stevie himself plays harmonica on the track, which Herbie and Greg cut in L.A.
Herbie knew exactly what to expect from old friend Carlos Santana, who partners on “Safiatou” with vocalist – and veritable force of nature -- Angelique Kidjo, who, like Loueke, was raised in Benin. Santana, says Herbie, “has an incredible and confident way of playing a melody and improvising the grooves. More importantly, he’s a great and encouraging human being. He stands for not just some profession in music, he stands for the beauty of the human spirit and what great potential a human being has to create beauty for the rest of the world.”
Similarly, this collaborative undertaking represents a unique spirit of cooperation, communication and trust among a remarkable range of artists. Those qualities are often tough to come by in the world at large, much less in the music biz, but Herbie seems to foster them wherever he goes. He gives us something to aspire to, not simply a handful of tunes to hear. Everyone’s included in Herbie’s magnanimous vision: his project won’t be complete until you pop this disc into your stereo and start considering the possibilities with him.
