Duo’s Keyboard Artistry: The Same, but Different

It’s road time again for two of the foremost names on the pop-and-jazz keyboard scene: Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea are in the midst of a 23-day concert tour that lands Wednesday at the Greek Theater.

Though their paths have coincided off and on over the years, the current tour, which began last Thursday in Seattle, is their first major joint venture since 1978, when an album on Columbia preserved their collaboration.

Both are basking in the successes of their new albums. Corea’s Elektric Band is making rapid strides with “Eye of the Beholder” (GRP Records, GR 1053). Hancock’s “Perfect Machine” (Columbia FC 40025), one of his most ambitious pop ventures, has generated a hit single and a video, both entitled “Vibe Alive.”

“We’re doing our own separate sets,” Corea said just before the tour got under way, “but you know we’re not going to finish a concert without improvising something together.”

Asked what he thinks are the differences between his keyboard style and Hancock’s, Corea said: “I guess you could say Herbie has more of an inclination toward a blues feeling, while I have a little more of a Latin edge.”

Responding to the same question, Hancock said: “Our touch is different. I rarely use the soft pedal; Chick does, which means he’s using two strings instead of three on each note. It sounds warmer to me not to use it. I hear a lot of playfulness in Chick, a whimsical quality that I like a lot; but when we play together it’s really hard to tell us apart, so the differences can’t be all that great.”

How either musician deals with the traditional piano is only one aspect of a Hancock or Corea performance. In “Perfect Machine,” Hancock displays his virtuosity on more than a dozen instruments, among them several Yamahas, a Vocoder, a Rhodes, an Oberheim. He will be using at least four of these on the concert Wednesday, among them a hand-held portable keyboard.

Corea, despite the Elektric Band name, has taken to doubling on acoustic keyboard. His band at present is so strong in sideman-power that each musician is now represented by an individual project. Frank Gambale wrote, arranged and produced his own “Brave New Guitar” album. John Patitucci, voted “Best New Talent” in a recent Jazziz magazine poll, and saxophonist Eric Marienthal, the group’s newest member, both have their own albums, and drummer Dave Weckl, voted “Best Electric Jazz Drummer” in a Modern Drummer magazine poll, is represented by his own instructional video.

A bonus member of the tour is Michael Brecker, who will be on board as a featured soloist with Hancock’s Headhunters.

“I’ve admired Michael for years,” said Hancock, “and he’s no stranger; last summer in Japan we did some concerts with Ron Carter and Tony Williams; and I was on his own recent album. He’s very flexible--he can be funky or far out, whatever fits.”

Coincidentally, Brecker also toured Japan at one time with Corea, in a quartet with Eddie Gomez and Roy Hayes. “In fact,” Corea adds. “not many people remember this, but Michael played soprano and tenor sax for a couple of months in my first Return to Forever band, along with Flora Purim and Airto. Unfortunately we never got that group on tape.”

Hancock’s sidemen for the tour differ from those heard on the new album. “My drummer, Charlie Drayton, comes from a great musical family. I’ve known him since he was about 5 years old; he’s a nephew of Leslie Drayton, the trumpeter. He’s worked with David Sanborn, the Rolling Stones, Chaka Khan, and had his own band, the Raging Hormones. He’s not a jazz drummer at all, but he’s great for pop or R & B. My bass player, Darryl ‘Munch’ Jones, was with Miles Davis from 1983-85, and that’s where I first heard him; but after that he was with Sting, and I was impressed with him when I sat in with Sting a couple of times in Paris.

“Steve Thornton, who’s playing percussion with me, has also worked with Miles. I first heard him with Jon Lucien. It’s funny--I just found out that he was inspired to make a career out of music after hearing my original record of ‘Watermelon Man’ when he was 7 years old.”

What will happen when the Hancock-Corea tour ends July 1 in Tampa, Fla., is anybody’s guess, since both men are juggling multiple lives. Corea will return to his own Mad Hatter Studio in Los Angeles, where countless albums have been produced both by him and many outsiders since the first session in 1981.

Hancock continues to consider movie offers. Though he had written several film scores before “ ‘Round Midnight,” his Oscar victory for that assignment has led to intensified interest. Among his recent ventures are “Action Jackson” and “Colors.”

Adaptability, no less than natural talent, seems to be the name of the game for both men. It is perhaps symbolic that one of the cuts in “Perfect Machine” is a new, experimental version, heavy on percussion and electronically altered voices, of “Maiden Voyage,” the composition that helped establish Hancock as a world-class name when he wrote and recorded it in 1965.