April 30 is International Jazz Day. To celebrate, Melbourne pianist and composer Adam Rudegeair will lead a tribute to Herbie Hancock at the Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts’ dedicated jazz venue, The Count’s.
With its indoor and outdoor dining areas, cosy interior (there’s not a bad seat in the house) and upscale Italian-inspired eatery and bar, The Count’s is the perfect setting for these intimate events.
The show, titled Herbie’s World, will include selections from Hancock’s six-decade back catalogue, and a new composition inspired by Hancock’s fearless, harmonically complex and genre-defying legacy. It’s a bit of a high-concept show, says Rudegeair, who’ll be playing piano, synthesiser and keytar.
Herbie’s World – International Jazz Day
- Adam Rudegeair pays tribute to Herbie Hancock
- The Count’s, The Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts
- Wednesday April 30, 7:30pm
- Tickets here
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“I thought, rather than just paying tribute to [Hancock], we could pay tribute to his artistry and what he’s actually contributed to the cultural discourse and the philosophies that he’s trying to promote.”
Rudegeair looked to Hancock’s 1998 LP Gershwin’s World – dedicated to the career of 20th century US composer George Gershwin – as a guide. “That album’s not just about George Gershwin’s music, but it’s about the milieu that George existed in,” he says.
The album finds Hancock and guests like Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder taking on several of George and his older brother Ira Gershwin’s compositions, as well as pieces by jazz and swing great Duke Ellington, French impressionist Maurice Ravel, and blues musician W.C. Handy.
“It’s really trying to paint a picture of the world that Gershwin lived in,” says Rudegeair. “And I thought, ‘Why don’t we do that with Herbie? Why don’t we explore, Where did Herbie come from and who were his friends and who were the people that influenced him [who were working] at the same time as him?’”
The first half of the concert will include some of Hancock’s best-known work, as well as material from Hancock’s close friends and collaborators, Wayne Shorter and Miles Davis. Rudegeair will be joined onstage by Yael Zamir on flute, Hadyn Murtagh on electric and upright bass, Thomas Mitchell on drums, and Aaron Searle on tenor sax.
They’ll dedicate the second half of the show to a work of “brand new original Australian jazz that considers the question, ‘What have we learned from Herbie and how can we put his ideas into practice in 2025?’”
International Jazz Day is a big occasion for Rudegeair, who grew up listening to jazz standards before latching onto the funk-influenced jazz records of Harry Connick Jr. as a teenager. “He released a couple of really good funk albums in the 90s and that really caught my ear,” Rudegeair says.
He’s admired jazz artists who’ve been able to work across a variety of different styles ever since. And there aren’t many musicians who’ve done this more successfully than Hancock.
“I discovered Herbie Hancock when I was about 20 and I got right into his Headhunters era,” Rudegeair says.
The Headhunters band included multireedist Bennie Maupin, bassist Paul Jackson, percussionist Bill Summers, and drummer Harvey Mason. Hancock’s one studio album with this ensemble, 1973’s Head Hunters, featured two of his signature songs: the funky Chameleon and a flute-laden update of Watermelon Man, which originally appeared on Hancock’s 1962 debut Takin’ Off.
Rudegeair describes it as “psychedelic funk jazz.” “It had Afrofuturist imagery,” he says, “and I found that really exciting.”
Head Hunters and later Herbie Hancock albums like Man-Child and Secrets were heavily influenced by funk and rock music, with Chameleon owing a large debt to Sly & the Family Stone’s Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).
“What I like about when jazz artists do funk is that they bring a level of harmonic adventurousness that you don’t find in, like, a James Brown song,” Rudegeair says.
There’s plenty of other jazz at The Count’s in April. Locally based samba, bossa nova, and Brazilian jazz outfit Panorama Brasil will perform on Wednesday 2 April. On 9 April, powerhouse vocalist Elly Poletti will lead the Amy Winehouse tribute We May Never Meet Again, with new arrangements of Back To Black, In My Bed and more from musical director Joe McEvilly.
The Pearly Shells with Michelle Nicolle are performing on 16 April, bringing their novel arrangements of 40s and 50s big band music from the likes of Louie Jordan, Count Basie and Billie Holiday. Veteran jazz, swing, blues and boogie ensemble The Shuffle Club with Nina Ferro will put on a sax-heavy show on 23 April.
It was Herbie Hancock who conceived International Jazz Day, which he did not long after being named a UNESCO goodwill ambassador in 2011. “His idea was that jazz promotes communication across different cultures,” says Rudegeair. “It was a very humanitarian philosophy.”
Adam Rudegeair pays tribute to Herbie Hancock at The Count’s on Wednesday April 30, 7:30pm. Tickets here. Find the full Live at The Count’s lineup here.
This article was made in partnership with The Count’s.
