“The Truth is just Truth you can’t have opinions about the Truth.” – Herbie Hancock

A quote that we sampled for the production of Metamorphisis on the Ambition Bureau album from 2015. An instrumentalist that Paul Skogerbo and Dallan J Kilcommons turned to a track for a local hip hop album and performance in 2015 before Dallan left for Asia. Without much planning involved, my travels took me many places, including the birthplace of the Buddha.

“It really took my practice of Buddhism, to help me realize that those lessons taught to me about music, were really about life. These lessons, really apply to life, really apply to the human spirit.” – Herbie Hancock

Herbie’s inspiration personally continues to inspire. An accomplished musician, intellectual, celebrated in pop culture and a practicing Buddhist.

What I’ve learned is, in order for something to have value it has to in some way work towards serving humanity, otherwise it’s self-serving and shallow and disruptive.” Hancock came to Buddhism nearly 38 years ago, via his old bass player, Buster Williams. Significantly, it was Williams’s brilliant playing, inspiring an amazing show “with a kind of spiritual overtone” that had patrons “in tears”. – From Tricycle JUL 02, 2010

“Isn’t that beautiful? It makes me think about the differences between intellectually understanding Buddhist truths and experiencing them. This is the first time I’ve heard of someone experiencing Buddhism first through the listening of jazz music. It also makes me wonder about what effect, if any, Hancock’s practice of Nichiren Buddhism has had on this ability to improvise in his music. It’s always seemed to me like a heightened ability to experience the present moment would be especially powerful for jazz musicians, who need to be able to creatively and spontaneously respond to the people playing around them.” – From Tricycle JUL 02, 2010

Buddhism has been influential to my life as an individual since I was young, seemingly ebbing and flowing from my focus, and auspiciously so. The experience and level of understanding of what the Dharma teaches, and of what I was capable of understanding at the time is the journey of Truth. Music, Language and Speech are all communications about reality, but the most real is formless, unspeakable, without concept, an emptiness.

The process of creation, the creation of objects and formations is a raft, the object or creative work is the result of the process. The process serves the individual, survival, growth, learning and change. The process serves the group similarly. Fame, accomplishment and acclaim is not the goal, it is the result of doing well, of creating something that serves the earth and humanity.

That which is labeled “I” is not always an individual’s identity, just like formations of “I”, like a book that an individual authored, is not actually them, although is bares there name and has content of personal experience. Did they write it devoid of Annata, devoid of non-self, devoid of influence upon the mind-body? Probably not but there seems to be a reason that an author puts there individual name on there work. Ontological confusion arises that may lead to suffering if “I” and “We” and “They” and “Them” get overly entangled in the mind. They are after all words, concept of experience and not the experience itself.

That is what the Buddhist philosophers point out.

It’s been said that words are a battle ground. This makes sense in accordance with Buddhist philosophy. The words, spoken or written, are a formation of a concept. They touch upon constructs of mind that allow for communication and understanding of conventional reality (Sammuti), ultimate reality (Paramattha) transcends formations and concept.

Buddhist Monks use written language for teaching and spoken language in debate, the practice of meditation is still and silent. The world of hip hop communicates with language, the contest of linguist prowess in the urban domain elevates and reveals truths about individuals and together exploring Truth.

The instrumental music, jazz, improvisation, composition, music without the context of speech allows sound to be vibration. All sound is vibration, but the conceptual nature of speech effects the mind differently, a duality often seems to arise in speech. It’s nature is real but not most real, as it is seldom devoid of context.

Sound itself, simple vibrations. Arrangements of frequencies and sound can illuminate universal understanding, and inspire awe and beauty.

Nature and the cosmos, awe, beauty, and sound. Without awe, without beauty what is purpose?

Sound has been a most beautiful experience of awe, of wonder, of knowledge, of nature, and of the great cycles.

“It was specifically about the elements of the music or the technique of the music. And now — and this actually began as an epiphany, again from my practice of Buddhism — about 30 years ago I started to think a little different about things. I started to think about purpose. What is my purpose for making a record? What is it I want to transmit to the public, through the music, from my humanity, not just from that part of me which is a musician?’

“Like Davis before him, the proudly eclectic keyboardist has embraced jazz, while refusing to be confined by it.”

Playing the keys with the Buddhas many arms, a veteran musician, he has worked with DJ’s and Hip Hop Artists to illuminate and inspire multiple generations.

“Herbie’s music has truly changed and inspired my life,” Common said.

“It changed me directly, because we sampled him and his music influenced the late great J Dilla, who was one of the greatest producers I worked with. The fact that he loved Herbie, and used a lot of Herbie’s music as samples, introduced us to even more of Herbie’s sound, including ‘Sunlight,’ ‘Thrust’ and all those albums. Herbie being one of the greatest jazz musicians and being from my hometown, Chicago, I’m proud and inspired just to even have met him. I’m hoping when you talk to him that you tell him I’m hoping to participate on his new project — at least, we’ve been talking about it and we performed some of it at the (2017 Monterrey Jazz Festival).”

Hip Hop and Buddhism have both greatly influenced my mind. In walking the dirt trails, I’ve been opening my mind and expanding awareness to natures realm and to native american influence and the land I was born to.

‘But, now, I think about purpose. And what I chant for, or pray for, is for that kind of spirit to be in the music I produce and the music that flows from my heart. And the heart is the most important thing.”

“We all have various aspects of who we are and these aspects are all recognized in different parts of the day and our lives. But the thing that combines all of them is the fact that we are human beings. And the ways we’re all connected are the unity of humanity. And that is a lesson I want to get across today, that this is of the utmost importance. We may manifest ourselves at different times, whether it’s as a doctor, a dancer, a brick layer, a bus driver, whatever skill or job we may have. I used to be a mailman!”

Technology and the digital world has changed how people communicate across time and space. All artists are finding new ways to release and perform.

“But we’ll release it in a different way than I ever have,” he vowed. “So much has changed in this technological age. One of those changes is not having to worry about the mindset that is kind of limited by CDs or LPs, which has to do with time and with releasing (completed) albums. So we’re not doing that. We’ll release maybe one song at a time, with a few months between them, for the first few pieces on the new record. And then, later on, we’ll release more. This is all from a general concept I have for a lot of new things I want to embrace, starting with this new record.

“Herbie Hancock has nothing left to prove to anyone, as befits a veteran international music star who has inspired several generations of jazz, funk, techno and hip-hop artists, sold millions of records, and earned an Oscar, a Kennedy Center Honor, 14 Grammy Awards, six honorary doctorates and five MTV Video Music Awards.”

Much love to Herbie Hancock

– George Varga’s – San Diego Union Tribune – Aug. 11, 2019