the hum / By Bob Doran

Generation to Generation

Ritchie Havens, Herbie Hancock and a world of music

(Nov. 8, 2007) 

Ritchie Havens may not be the best songwriter out there. In fact, he’s quick to defer to his peers, and he’ll tell you it took him years to get past singing other people’s songs. And he’s not the greatest guitar player — he has an idiosyncratic style that’s mostly rhythmic strumming. But he knows how to deliver a song like he means it, like it means something, and that’s what’s kept music lovers interested in him all these years.

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He called me yesterday morning, a day before he left his New Jersey home for California on a tour that brings him to the Van Duzer Sunday, Nov. 11. We had a long, rambling conversation (he’s hard to keep on topic) touching on a new album he’s finishing up, his role in the new Bob Dylan biopic, I’m Not There (he plays a grandfather figure who jams with a young, black version of Dylan), and the cover of “Tombstone Blues” he did for the soundtrack.

We ended up talking about the record label he’s run for more than 30 years and about the paradigm shift in the music business.

“It’s crazy,” he told me. “But I think what’s good about it is that young musicians who could never get the ear of a record executive, because they live in Osh Kosh or someplace like that, now they get the opportunity to be their own middleman. They can post their own music, upload their songs. In the end the system becomes more sophisticated. It may be that there will eventually only be web links left … The interesting part is we’re preserving the history of music, and the music of today. Whatever it is, we have a better opportunity to learn about it and hold onto it.”

He sees this creating a multigenerational audience. “Every year the movie Woodstock plays, an entire generation of teenagers discover it for the first time,” he says excitedly. “And that’s very cool. Our generation didn’t buy our parents records, but you see that now. We started something and we have to keep it going.”

(Note: For the rest of the Ritchie Havens interview go to humblog.wordpress.com .)

The legendary jazz pianist Herbie Hancock returns to the Van Duzer Friday, Nov. 9. He comes with a just-released album, River: the joni letters, in hand, and an impressive quartet including guitarist Lionel Loueke and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta , both of whom appear on the new disc. River is a collection of songs by Joni Mitchell or relating to her work in some way; it’s a marvelous record, with Herbie in fine form on acoustic piano taking off on Joni’s fusion of jazz with folk forms. Wayne Shorter shows up as do guest vocalists, including the likes of Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae, Tina Turner, Leonard Cohen, even Mitchell herself. None of those singers will be with him here, nor will Shorter, but he is bringing a vocalist, and my guess is people who see this show will be blown away by the young jazz/folk artist Sonya Kitchell. She actually recorded one of Joni’s tunes, “All I Want,” for this record, but it’s a bonus track only available if you buy the album online via Amazon. Sonya called from Los Angeles where she was about to begin rehearsals for the tour, and we talked about how she ended up in this position at the age of 18, why her song is not on my copy of the CD and more, but there’s so much other stuff going on this week I have no room for the interview here, so again I’m going to refer you to humblog.wordpress.com.

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