Herbie Hancock kicks off the summer jazz-festival season

The last time I talked to Herbie Hancock, he'd been up all night talking to Joni Mitchell.

Turns out the two Angelenos weren't just shooting the breeze — they were planting the seeds of a new Mitchell tribute, due this fall.

"She's going to sing one of the songs," reported Hancock in a phone interview, "but there are other artists on it. It's all her material except for two pieces. One of them is 'In My Solitude,' which she heard when she was really young — the Billie Holiday version. The other piece that's not Joni's is 'Nefertiti,' by Wayne Shorter. She adores Wayne."

Hancock isn't touring with the famous chanteuse, but he is here in Seattle with his quartet — African guitarist Lionel Loueke, Fourplay bassist Nathan East and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta — to kick off the outdoor summer jazz season tomorrow at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Ever restless, Hancock is one of the few jazz artists whose name means anything outside the world of aficionados. That's because he's always had a great ear for what makes a hit record and no jazz snobbishness about making one.

One of the three main pianists of the '60s (McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans being the other two), Hancock also charted hits like "Watermelon Man," "Cantaloupe Island," "Maiden Voyage" and "Rockit."

Hancock's last album, "Possibilities," featured John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Paul Simon and others and was an out-and-out pop revue that, while selling well early, ultimately misfired.

The Mitchell project sounds more cohesive.

"I didn't realize how much jazz is in the construction of the pieces," said Hancock of Mitchell's songs. "The chords that she used moved in a fresh way. You know what she did? She would re-tune the guitar for whatever sound she was hearing that she couldn't execute with her hands."

Hancock's show at the zoo features tunes from "Possibilities" (with vocals by East), classic hits and a turn by Loueke.

The tour hasn't gotten the best reviews so far, possibly because of East's merely serviceable singing, but also because Loueke, a brilliant colorist as a sideman, tends to showboat on his own.

That said, it's rarely wise to skip a Hancock show. At a performance a few years ago in San Sebastian, Spain, what seemed like a perfectly ordinary set suddenly erupted, as the pianist took the band to outer space.

Something almost comparable happens on "Pilgrimage," the magically uplifting, posthumous album by saxophonist Michael Brecker released earlier this year.

Hancock, a practicing Buddhist, said the driving focus of that session wasn't so much that Brecker, who had a fatal blood disease, might die soon, but that he was so alive.

"He had energy to burn. There was no way to tell that he was sick, except he wasn't running up and down the stairs. He was very much alive, very happy, very excited. It was great to see him like that."

Ditto for Hancock.

Paul de Barros: 206-464-3247 or pdebarros@seattletimes.com