By Cameron Lee
December 15, 2025
Herbie Hancock, the legendary jazz pianist and innovator credited with shaping the sound of post-bop and pioneering the use of electronic instruments in jazz, will perform in Charlotte on Wednesday, May 6 at Belk Theater.
A 14-time Grammy Award winner, including Album of the Year in 2008 for his tribute to Joni Mitchell, River: The Joni Letters, Hancock also earned an Academy Award for Best Original Score (Round Midnight, 1986), received Kennedy Center Honors in 2013, and was recently awarded the prestigious Polar Music Prize for his lifetime of achievement.
Hancock began his illustrious career under the mentorship of legendary trumpeters Donald Byrd and Miles Davis in the ’60s and has since released over 40 studio albums, revolutionizing jazz-funk while fusing elements of hip-hop and electronic music, creating a unique bridge between jazz and popular culture.
Perhaps his most universally recognized work is the 1983 hit “Rockit” from the album Future Shock, a groundbreaking fusion of jazz, hip-hop, and electronic. The avant-garde music video — featuring themes of futurism and surreal visuals — became an early MTV hit and cemented Hancock’s reputation as a forward-thinking innovator in jazz.
Tickets for Herbie Hancock at Belk Theater on May 6 are now on sale at BlumenthalArts.org.
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