Herbie Hancock Label Launch Party Features Star-Studded Jam

05/17/2000 4:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(5/17/00, 4 p.m. ET) - Keyboardist Herbie Hancock launched his new Transparent Music label with a party Tuesday night (May 16) at the New York City club Shine.

The new label will present a wide range of artists in a variety of musical genres, and its first release will be by the group Soul Conversation, which features top guitarists JK and Mark Whitfield. Their debut album, Soul Conversation Featuring Mark Whitfield And JK, is due out June 6. Soul Conversation provided the entertainment at the launch party; the group performed a dynamic and very funky set, and towards the end, saxophonist-flutist Najee -- who is also signed to Transparent Music -- and Hancock joined them onstage for a jam session. Spotted in the crowd grooving to the music was actor Leon, who recently portrayed Little Richard in a TV biopic.

Hancock will head up Transparent Music with former Verve Records president Chuck Mitchell and top producer-manager Robert Passick.

At the party, Hancock told LAUNCH why he decided to launch a label. "I've been wanting to be on the other side of the music industry for a number of years now. I wanted to be able to have a little more control over my own product and kind of have a hand in moving things in directions. . . according to my own conception of how I would like to see things go. And the whole concept of Transparent Music is really about quality music and that's the way I would like to see things go. Also, expanding the palette of music that's being exposed to the public."

Hancock explained that while Transparent Music is designed to appeal to music fans of all ages, the label will focus on putting out music that will appeal to an older audience. "What we want to do is to not only appeal to the small demographic age of people in their teens and early twenties, but there are a lot of people that are in their late twenties and thirties and older -- the baby boomers -- that love music now just as much as they did back in the '60s and '70s and nobody's really appealing to them. Nobody's considering them a viable market," he said. "Nobody's considering that here's a group of people that are not being served what they deserve to be served, as far as American culture is concerned -- the musical aspect of American culture."

Also in June, Transparent Music will release Beckley-Lamm-Wilson: Like A Brother by the supergroup Beckley-Lamm-Wilson, which comprises Jerry Beckley of the classic rock group America, Robert Lamm of Chicago, and the late Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys.

-- Lucy Tauss, New York

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