Herbie Hancock, The Blue Note Years
October 8, 2025
A fateful snowstorm led to a last-minute opportunity to play with Donald Byrd – Blue Note’s biggest artist at the time. The seven-year marriage of jazz’s brightest young star and its iconic record label produced some of the most popular jazz of the 1960s. It also chronicled the journey of a kid who wrote music about his childhood neighborhood in Chicago to a man who would write about his more worldly view of life during the Civil Rights era.
Each program is roughly 90 minutes, with the goal of bringing the casual jazz listener inside the minds and music of the most influential and interesting American musicians of all time. The life and music of the artist/composer is entertainingly narrated by the drummer, Mr. Justin Varnes, and seminal jazz pieces are played to illuminate the narration. These are NOT tribute concerts in the sense that the musicians are trying to recreate the original performances, but instead to celebrate the essence and accomplishments of the artist.