i ask because George Duke has done tried and done almost everything you can think of musically and not to mention as a Producer, etc.. and yet i get the sense that only his fan base takes his work beyond what the general public thinks and feels. now Herbie Hancock has done so many incredible things in music, however looking at George Duke and combining the sounds and versatility and changes in technilogy over the years do you feel George Duke has been as important as Herbie Hancock Why or why not?

they have worked with quite a few of the same folks as well.

mistermaxxx R.Kelly, Michael Jackson,Stevie wonder,Rick James,Marvin Gaye,El Debarge, Barry WHite Lionel RIchie,Isleys EWF,Lady T.,Kid creole and coconuts,the crusaders,kc sunshine band,bee gees,jW,sd,NE,JB

Miami Heat, New York Yankees,buffalo bills

it does seem that duke is somewhat underrated, but i think hancock has him beat.

they both have had long and varied careers. i think duke's best is up with herbie's - brazilian love affair is as good as anything in hancock's catalog.

but hancock has a lot more. i mean, hancock has written jazz standards. where's george duke's 'cantaloupe island' or 'watermelon man'? and then the headhunters were hard to beat.

and then herbie with miles is a helluva lot better than george duke with miles.

but still, george duke has some killer r&b stuff and did great work with zappa.

i'll be interested in seeing how this post goes.

>i ask because George Duke has done tried and done almost
>everything you can think of musically and not to mention as a
>Producer, etc.. and yet i get the sense that only his fan base
>takes his work beyond what the general public thinks and
>feels. now Herbie Hancock has done so many incredible things
>in music, however looking at George Duke and combining the
>sounds and versatility and changes in technilogy over the
>years do you feel George Duke has been as important as Herbie
>Hancock Why or why not?
>
>they have worked with quite a few of the same folks as well.

because Dukey (particularly in his MPS, fresh-outta-Zappaville era) did a lot of things with synthesizer voices Herbie and Chick were not doing, and making some real HARD and challenging music. I keep thinking about his FEEL album and that song "Rashid"; growing up, I knew the "R&B" George Duke. so hearing those records later on opened my ears wide.

George Duke comparatively is "unsung" despite his resume. He's well-known in the music industry, but he doesn't have too many albums like HEADHUNTERS or even FUTURE SHOCK that were such commercial and critical successes w/crossover appeal. if you said the name "Herbie Hancock" someone would probably know who he is even if they couldn't name a song. They'd mention his appearance on Sesame Street, or working with Christina Aguilera, or something like that. George Duke on the other hand not so much. And since Dukey came of particular import in the fusion era, he isn't much known in jazz circles for his acoustic pieces. Herbie's association with some of the GOATs (Miles especially) as a sideman in some very key periods, and his standards will most likely forever set him apart.

and speaking of the two, I think George Duke was much, much better at going outside of the "jazz" box w/r/t making catchy, accessible tunes (which is why he worked so well as a producer). Though I think he went a little too far in sounding like Bootsy and friends on some of his late '70s records, you take a song that is unmistakably Duke like "Searching Again", "Someday", or "Sweet Baby" (w/Stanley Clarke)... and they have all the hallmarks of a pop or R&B standard.

They both took a lot of flak for going outside the box, but I'll say for Duke he was committed once he found his groove. Herbie, for his uncanny ability to stay @ the bleeding edge of popular music at various points in his career, I will say had some stumbling points if he didn't retreat when the critics came closing in w/r/t his R&B period. Though I can't remember if he's ever admitted it (and ?uest once said here that he was shocked that anyone would want to hear a SUNLIGHT revisiting along the lines of what he did with the Headhunters idea in the mid 2000s), I get the idea that he really had visions of going the Quincy Jones route and producing. LITE ME UP is proof of that.

i guess i'm gonna have to check out some more george duke.

i might catch some flack for this, but a lot of what i've heard feels kind of contrived to me - even though technically brilliant.

like he'll hammer one note over and over once he knows he's hit gold. Not that Herbie wasn't guilty of doing the same.

I forgot to mention that I've owned keyboards that either have preset patches named after them (Duke) or have a "demo" sequence that mimic one of their songs (Herbie -- the Yamaha SHS-10 keytar, given to me as a birthday gift years ago played a knockoff of "Chameleon" as well as Wham!'s "Last Christmas" as "demo" songs).

I'm not enough of a Jazz aficionado to get into where each one fits, so to me George vs Herbie comes down to two things.... R&B & Funk. Now I'm not saying both couldn't do both genres well but I feel one dominates the other in each of those categories. For the most part Herbie needed a helping hand when it came to R&B and George's funk was a little too mimicy at times (totally agree with the Bootsy biting) Back then Herbie seemed more authentic in a street sense... which was why rocket worked. George on the other hand was much more radio savvy and could move outside his own zone if it meant making a hit record. My hunch is Herbie is a much better musician but I think George is an all around better artist.
_________________________________
Reunion Radio Podcasts
Bringing Together Five Decades of R&B/Funk/Soul/Dance

http://reunionradio.blogspot.com/

prior to Herbie and Rod Temperton doing LITE ME UP

Herbie and Ray Parker Jr should have done a straight up R&B album, under Herbie's name, but with the both of them writing the lion's share of the music.

Because everything the two of them touched:

"Tonight's The Night"
"Ready Or Not"
and especially "Stars In Your Eyes"

was fire. I think that Herbie's "singing" voice would have worked well on some of that Ray Parker Jr. early '80s production. It did with Rod Temperton (though, he pulled a Chaka Khan w/Quincy Jones on himself, putting himself way down in the mix). Problem w/that gimmick is that you have to be careful, if not simple with the lyrics. For as much flak as Ray gets, when he worked with others, he understood the limits.

Also, as it pertains to Herbie's "streetwise"-ness, when he had the Rockit Band, they would do "Stars In Your Eyes" and it would sound just like a Cameo (post-Alligator Woman) song. I wish they had re-recorded it that way.

>I'm not enough of a Jazz aficionado to get into where each
>one fits, so to me George vs Herbie comes down to two
>things.... R&B & Funk. Now I'm not saying both couldn't do
>both genres well but I feel one dominates the other in each of
>those categories. For the most part Herbie needed a helping
>hand when it came to R&B and George's funk was a little too
>mimicy at times (totally agree with the Bootsy biting) Back
>then Herbie seemed more authentic in a street sense... which
>was why rocket worked. George on the other hand was much more
>radio savvy and could move outside his own zone if it meant
>making a hit record. My hunch is Herbie is a much better
>musician but I think George is an all around better artist.

Yeah. George Duke to me, is the guy who could make the banal palatable. Which is a skill all in its own. Hearing him talk about Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It For The Boy" in her Unsung profile, it was hilarious. He hated that song as it was presented to him, and yet, he put that "Duke" wavekit all over it. Working with Michael Sembello and the like I think brought him closer to that crossover love he got on the low. Cause hell if he didn't yap "Maniac" for one of his songs on the Clarke/Duke Project II...

and I love that Detroit Lion bad boy image.

Lies run sprints.
Truths run marathons.

and Delmas fit the bill

I'm hoping the Lions become the "Zeke-era Pistons" of the NFL

To be honest, they don't really compare. Hancock would slaughter Duke if this was based on jazz compositions whereas I feel Duke's R&B jazz fusion work is simply better than Herbie's catalogue.

Herbs is where I go if I want to listen JAZZ fusion not soft but not really hard, more introspective. Duke has more of a mellow fun-timey vibe that I feel Hancock never really captured.

As far as cultural impact, it takes a real fan to know George outside of "Sweet Baby" or "Reach It," but any jazz aficionado should be able to school you on Headhunters and In A Silent Way. Herbie worked on classics, records any jazz fan could appreciate as they stand as the pinnacle of output of legends careers. Duke just made gems: those pretty things (amazing albums) you find when digging through your moms jewelry box (old records). You're not going to find anybody debating about them because if they've gone through the trouble of tracking them down they're probably already fans.

Duke's Zappa period is cool but nobody listens to Zappa trying to mimic George, but I'll always attempt to play a Hancock standard or even not-so-standard like "Tell Me A Bedtime Story" or "Butterfly Dreams."

TLDR No. Duke has no standards. Nobody wants to imitate him. He has amazing songs in his repertoire but he never made an essential like Hancock has many times over.

herbie hancock - wiggle waggle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHnSh3amu8o

George Duke strikes me as a hack by comparison and I actually got into him before Hancock due to his work with Zappa and Jean Luc Ponty...

as far his overall capabilities..

I had no idea how much talent this man has until I started listening to Real Jazz on Sirus/XM.

Lies run sprints.
Truths run marathons.

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