By Cordillia Marvine
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd‘s group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, he experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles using a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this time that he released one of his best-known and most influential albums, Head Hunters.
Hancock’s best-known compositions include “Cantaloupe Island“, “Watermelon Man“, “Maiden Voyage“, and “Chameleon“, all of which are jazz standards. During the 1980s, he had a hit single with the electronic instrumental “Rockit“, a collaboration with bassist/producer Bill Laswell. Hancock has won an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for his 2007 Joni Mitchell tribute album River: The Joni Letters. In 2024, Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph ranked Hancock as the greatest keyboard player of all time.
Since 2012, Hancock has served as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He is also the chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz (known as the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz until 2019).
Throughout his teens, Herbie Hancock never had a jazz teacher; he developed his ear and sense of harmony by listening to the records of jazz pianists including George Shearing, Erroll Garner, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson. Hancock was also influenced by records of the vocal group the Hi-Lo’s.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Passover begins at sundown on this day. Passover, or Pesach, is an annual weeklong festival commemorating the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt and slavery. The holiday, which begins on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan, derives its name from the passing over of the homes of the Israelite slaves during the tenth plague. Family and friends gather together on the first and second nights of the holiday for the high point of the festival observance, the Seder. During the Seder, which means “order” in Hebrew, the experience of the Exodus is told in story, song, prayer, and the tasting of symbolic foods. Perhaps the most well-known of these foods is the matzoh (flat, crackerlike unleavened bread), which is a reminder of the haste with which the slaves—who had no time to wait for the bread to rise—left Egypt. Read more about Passover here.
This full Moon heralded the appearance of the moss pink, or wild ground phlox (one of the first spring flowers). It is also known as the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and the Fish Moon. Historically, Native Americans living in what is now the northern and eastern United States kept track of the seasons by giving a distinctive name to each full Moon. This name was used to refer to the entire month in which the Moon occurred. With some variations, the same Moon names were used throughout the Algonquian tribes from New England to Lake Superior. Learn more about the Full Moon for April.
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- John George Lambdon (governor-general of British North America) –
- Beverly Cleary (author) –
- Dr. Peter Safar (originator of CPR) –
- Montserrat Caballe (opera singer) –
- Herbie Hancock (musician) –
- David Letterman (talk show host) –
- Tom Clancy (author) –
- David Cassidy (singer and actor) –
- Andy García (actor) –
- Vince Gill (musician) –
- Shannen Doherty (actress) –
- Jennifer Morrison (actress) –
- Claire Danes (actress) –
- Stubbs the Cat (honorary mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska) –
Died
- Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross) –
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd U.S. president) –
- Sugar Ray Robinson (boxer) –
- Abbie Hoffman (social and political activist) –
- Georgia Engel (actress, best known as Georgette Franklin on The Mary Tyler Moore Show) –
Events
- Charles A. Gayler received a patent for a fireproof safe –
- Charles Gayler received a patent for a fireproof iron chest –
- First U.S. championship billiards game –
- The US Civil War began –
- Women granted the right to vote in Ontario –
- Nova Scotia’s Moose River gold mine collapsed, trapping 3 people –
- Bill Haley and His Comets recorded Rock Around the Clock –
- The polio vaccine developed by Dr. Salk was found to be successful after subjection to a year of clinical trials –
- Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by the 5th Dimension topped the charts for 6 weeks –
- Terry Fox began his Marathon of Hope across Canada in St. John’s, Newfoundland, by dipping his artificial leg into the Atlantic Ocean –
- Space shuttle Columbia first launched –
- Harold Washington was elected the first African-American mayor of Chicago –
- Texaco Inc. became the largest U.S. company in history to file bankruptcy after it is ordered to pay Pennzoil $8.53 billion in damages for unfair business practices –
- Golfer Fred Couples won the Masters tournament –
Weather
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was hit by a tornado; 150 houses lost their roofs –
- Fourteen inches of snow at Bloomfield, Vermont –
- 231-mph wind gust on Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, second highest wind speed in the world –
- 21 inches of snow fell in Selby, South Dakota –
- Ice out, Lake Winnipesaukee, NH –
COURTESY www.almanac.com
