Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer, and actor. Hancock started his career with Donald Byrd. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles.

Hancock’s best-known compositions include the jazz standards “Cantaloupe Island“, “Watermelon Man“, “Maiden Voyage“, and “Chameleon“, as well as the hit singles “I Thought It Was You” and “Rockit“. His 2007 tribute album River: The Joni Letters won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album to win the award, after Getz/Gilberto in 1965.

Since 2012, Hancock has served as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He is also the chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz(known as the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz until 2019).

Hancock was born in Chicago, the son of Winnie Belle (Griffin), a secretary, and Wayman Edward Hancock, a government meat inspector. His parents named him after the singer and actor Herb Jeffries. He attended Hyde Park High School. Like many jazz pianists, Hancock started with a classical music education. He studied from age seven, and his talent was recognized early. Considered a child prodigy, he played the first movement of Mozart‘s Piano Concerto No. 26 in D Major, K. 537 (Coronation) at a young people’s concert on February 5, 1952 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (led by CSO assistant conductor George Schick) at age 11.