After Takin' Off (may 1962), a hard-bop effort that featured Dexter Gordon on sax and Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and included his Watermelon Man and Empty Pockets, and My Point of View (march 1963), a more original take on hard-bop (Blind Man Blind Man) for a septet with trumpeter Donald Byrd, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, trombonist Grachan Moncur, guitarist Grant Green, bassist Chuck Israels and drummer Tony Williams, Hancock was hired by Miles Davis. In the trumpeter's quintet, Hancock developed an "orchestral" style of accompaniment and a passion for labyrinthine variations on a melodic theme.

Hancock's more experimental side and his passion for Latin jazz came out on Inventions and Dimensions (august 1963), an improvised jam with bassist Paul Chambers and two Latin percussionists (Succotash, Mimosa). A more traditional trumpet-based quartet (Hubbard, Williams, Ron Carter on bass) sculpted the four lengthy tracks of Empyrean Isles (june 1964), including his signature funky theme Cantaloupe Island and the 14-minute bustling jam The Egg. By magnifying the point where hard-bop meets modal jazz and free jazz, Hancock had coined his own language: impressionistic, cerebral, sophisticated and sometimes even danceable.

Adding saxophonist George Coleman to the quartet, the elaborate pieces of Maiden Voyage (may 1965), Eye of the Hurricane, the eight-minute Maiden Voyage, the nine-minute Little One and the nine-minute Dolphin Dance, turned that language into an archetype, one that somehow resonated with the zeitgeist, expressing a sort of fantastic and graceful neurosis, almost an antidote to psychedelic ecstasy. While the atmosphere was mostly mellow and soothing, the ten-minute Survival Of The Fittest added a sense of poignancy. Hancock also composed the score for Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow Up(november 1966), another figment of the zeitgeist, employing a large band (including Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Phil Woods on alto, Joe Henderson on tenor, Jim Hall on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums) and playing organ. But in those years he was mostly busy with Miles Davis.

Despite boasting three horns (flugelhorn, bass trombone and alto flute), Speak Like A Child (march 1968) focused on the "uneventful" (mellow) component of Hancock's new style and on his piano playing (the other instruments acting like mere wallpaper).

After ending his five-year tenure with Davis in 1968, Hancock penned a mournful tribute to Martin Luther King, The Prisoner (april 1969), through five lengthy pieces scored for a nonet (basically, the previous sextet plus three more winds, tenor sax, bass clarinet and trombone), as well as a soundtrack for the cartoon show Fat Albert Rotunda (december 1969), notable as his first venture into lively rhythm'n'blues and funk music.

Now based in California and converted to Buddhism, Hancock formed a sextet with trumpeter Eddie Henderson, trombonist Julian Priester, reed player Bennie Maupin, drummer Billy Hart and bassist Buster Williams, that allowed him to vent his secret passions: flirting with rhythm'n'blues and rock music, toying with electronic keyboards. Mwandishi (december 1970) the funky 13-minute Ostinato and the laid-back ten-minute You'll Know When You Get There By comparison, Julian Priester's 21-minute Wandering Spirit Song was a wild beast, spanning both free jazz and fusion jazz. Hancock's attention to tone and texture resulted in his musicians alternating between different instruments.

Crossings (november 1972) featured a full-time synthesizer player, Patrick Gleeson (in addition to some electronic keyboards played by Hancock himself), an experiment already tried by Paul Bley. Hancock's haunting 25-minute five-movement suite Sleeping Giant was influenced by progressive and psychedelic rock, but added danceable, funky overtones. Bennie Maupin contributed two abstract, ethereal pieces, Quasar and Water Torture, that exploited the textural qualities of the keyboards and of the trumpet in the opposite direction, not narrative but atmospheric. Hancock's blend of modal jazz, free jazz and fusion jazz was far more versatile than any of the three styles by itself, as each the three styles of the three tracks of Sextant (february 1973) proved: the twenty-minute Hornets was another dense, dynamic narrative juggernaut, while Hidden Shadows showcased the funk element (in a 19/4 meter) and Rain Dance indulged in pure ambience. Roughly the same sextet recorded two albums credited to (and mostly composed by) Henderson, Realization (february 1973) and Inside Out (october 1973).

Hancock's funk alter-ego eventually won: Headhunters (october 1973), inspired by Sly Stone's psychedelic funk music but heavily electronic in nature, and performed by a new quintet with Maupin (playing several woodwinds), a bassist and two percussionists, created a sensation with its unabashed dance rhythm and front-stage synthesizers. It became the biggest selling jazz record yet, thanks mainly to the 16-minute Chameleon. On Thrust (august 1974) Hancock seemed more interested in exploring the latest technological innovations than in playing music, but, besides three stereotyped electronic funk tracks, he also penned the eleven-minute Butterfly, one of his most romantic themes. Hancock soon dissolved that band (although keeping Maupin) but continued to mine his electronic funk-jazz on Man-Child (july 1975), with Hang Up Your Hang Ups, Secrets (june 1976), Sunlight (may 1978), his first venture into pop singing, with I Thought It Was You, Feets Don't Fail Me Now (february 1978), a purely disco album, Monster (1980), Mr Hands (november 1979), with Textures (on which he played all the instruments), Magic Windows (1981) and Lite Me Up (1982), with Getting' to the Good Part and Give It All Your Heart. With few exceptions, these were collections of vocal disco music and soul ballads, and not always composed by Hancock himself.

Despite his commercial sell-out, Hancock was eager to participate in nostalgic operations such as V.S.O.P. (1977), the Miles Davis Quintet (Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Tony Williams) minus Davis himself, replaced by Freddie Hubbard, and Quartet (july 1981), i.e. the Miles Davis rhythm section (Hancock, Carter, Williams) plus Wynton Marsalis on trumpet. Their retro albums of acoustic jazz set the trend for the 1990s. Ironically, Hancock, who had pioneered electronic fusion (and was still cashing in on his invention), ended up also pioneering the neo-traditionalist movement.

Bill Laswell employed Hancock on three electronic albums the industrial-tinged Future Shock (august 1983), the African-tinged Sound-System (1984) and the digital funky Perfect Machine (1988). The first one was notable for the single Rockit, that featured scratching and de facto introduced hip hop to jazz and viceversa.

Among his movie soundtracks, perhaps the best was Round Midnight (august 1985).

The best project of the decade was probably the least publicized, Village Life (august 1984), a duet between Hancock on electronic machines and Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso, particularly the twenty-minute Kanatente. Other jazz musicians had mixed jazz and West-African music, but Hancock added his electronic and funk background, i.e. the temporal contrast of ancient and modern.

Dis Is Da Drum (1994) was an explicit jazz-rap fusion, combining samplers and drum machines with jazz solos by Hubert Laws (flute), Wallace Roney (trumpet) and Bennie Maupin (saxophone).

The New Standard (june 1995) and Gershwin's World (june 1998) were personal interpretations of pop classics.

Future 2 Future (september 2001) was a collaboration with ambient electronic guru Bill Laswell and turntablist Rob Swift.

Possibilities (august 2005) was a set of duets with the likes of Carlos Santana, Trey Anastasio, Sting, Paul Simon, Annie Lennox, and even Christina Aguilera.

River - The Joni Letters (2007) interprets Joni Mitchell songs with help from Wayne Shorter.

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