Watch Herbie Hancock wow London’s Barbican with live version of Chameleon

By Natasha Scharf
( Prog )
published

Jazz fusion legend Herbie Hancock warmed up his Glastonbury Festival 2022 set with a special London show at the Barbican - watch one of the highlights below!

Herbie Hancock live onstage with a keytar in 2022
(Image credit: Press)

Fourteen-time Grammy award-winner Herbie Hancock has wowed fans in London with a blistering rendition of Chameleon at the Barbican Centre ahead of his Glastonbury Festival performance in June 2022. Watch it below!

The clip, filmed at the London venue on June 22, sees the pioneering fusion pianist on keytar. He's accompanied by guitarist Lionel Loueke, bassist James Genus, drummer Justin Tyson and trumpeter Terence Blanchard.

The original version appeared on the Chicago musician’s 1973 album Head Hunters, released five years after he was dismissed from the Miles Davis Quintet. Several years later, he would team up with his Quartet replacement, Return To Forever's Chick Corea for a series of live shows released as An Evening with Herbie Hancock & Chick Corea: In Concert and CoreaHancock.

Hancock is currently working on a new studio album – his first since 2010's The Imagine Project – and is in the UK for a series of live shows celebrating his 60-plus-year career. His live schedule also includes his debut appearance at Edinburgh International Festival – his first gig in Scotland in over 17 years – where he’ll make a very special one-off performance at the Edinburgh Playhouse on August 7. 

Natasha Scharf
Natasha Scharf
Deputy Editor, Prog

Contributing to Prog since the very first issue, writer and broadcaster Natasha Scharf was the magazine’s News Editor before she took up her current role of Deputy Editor, and has interviewed some of the best-known acts in the progressive music world from ELP, Yes and Marillion to Nightwish, Dream Theater and TesseracT. Starting young, she set up her first music fanzine in the late 80s and became a regular contributor to local newspapers and magazines over the next decade. The 00s would see her running the dark music magazine, Meltdown, as well as contributing to Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Terrorizer and Artrocker. Author of music subculture books The Art Of Gothic and Worldwide Gothic, she’s since written album sleeve notes for Cherry Red, and also co-wrote Tarja Turunen’s memoirs, Singing In My Blood. Beyond the written word, Natasha has spent several decades as a club DJ, spinning tunes at aftershow parties for Metallica, Motörhead and Nine Inch Nails. She’s currently the only member of the Prog team to have appeared on the magazine’s cover.