New Hancock Quintet Pays Homage

Herbie Hancock is revisiting the Miles Davis musical gold mine again, this time via “Directions in Music,” a celebration of the 75th anniversaries of the births of Davis and John Coltrane.

Obviously, it is familiar territory. Hancock was a member of Davis’ seminal quintet of the ‘60s, and he has continued his Davis-related pursuits with the various incarnations of the group V.S.O.P. and the Miles Davis Tribute Band.

On Thursday night at USC’s Bovard Auditorium, however, Hancock showed up with a different group and a different perspective. Joining him in the quintet was the all-star lineup of Michael Brecker, tenor saxophone; Roy Hargrove, trumpet and fluegelhorn; John Patitucci, bass; and Brian Blade, drums. And Hancock couldn’t have asked for a better ensemble to offer a new-millennium slant on the Davis-Coltrane legacy.

Even so, it took a few numbers before the group got fully up to speed. Hancock’s “Sorcerer,” opening the set, seemed a bit tepid in contrast to the galvanized original. But by the time the music spun into a Hargrove original, “The Poet,” the unique capacities of this particular group of players had begun to blossom.

Brecker and Hargrove took most of the solo space, with Brecker tending to stretch out his choruses, and Hargrove somewhat more circumspect.

Brecker’s highlight came at the start of the second set, when he came out alone, reminisced about his first exposure to the music of John Coltrane, then rendered a solo embrace of Coltrane’s classic “Naima.” It was, by any estimation, an extraordinary excursion, resonating with echoes of Coltrane, but even more so a portrait of the seamless integration of virtuosity and layered emotion that is beginning to characterize Brecker’s music.

Hargrove, making do with less, also seemed to take his improvising up a level, playing choruses arching across the far reaches of his horn, adding bits of mood-lightening whimsy to his phrases--Davis influenced, but not Davis dominated.

What did all this have to do with a different Davis perspective? Primarily this: as a recollection of how extraordinary he was as a leader, and how, without his presence, the music associated with him is missing a crucial element. But also, conversely, the program revealed that when the pieces linked to Davis and Coltrane are cast in a light that avoids simulation--as in the playing of Brecker and Hargrove, and as in Hancock’s rendering of “Stella by Starlight”--they continue to reveal new lodes of musical richness.