More interviews from talk show host Tavis Smiley’s archive today. Here is a a cool 2011 talk with the legendary pianist and composer Herbie Hancock. From the interview, Herbie talks about failing when taking chances on the bandstand and relates a great story from his days with Miles:

“You have to get up. (Laughter) You have to get up and try it again. You can’t let that throw you. Years ago, if I fell on my face somehow in the middle of a show or something, it just didn’t work – and actually, I can give you an example. I was playing with Miles one time, the great Miles Davis, during the ’60s, and we were performing in Europe.

We were on this tour. This particular night was the peak of the tour. It was the night, you know, when it’s all happening? Every song was building and building and building. We had the audience grasped like this. It was all like one. So Miles played the tune “So What,” and Wayne Shorter plays his incredible, fiery saxophone solo, Tony Williams is burning up on the drums, Ron Carter on the bass is amazing, and then Miles comes to his solo, right?

At the peak of Miles’s solo I play a chord that was so wrong (laughter), I thought I had lit a match to the whole thing and just burned it to the ground. I didn’t know what to do. Miles took a breath and then played some notes that made my chord right. (Laughter)

I couldn’t believe what I heard. He made it fit somehow. What is he, some kind of alchemist or something? Merlin the magician? It took me years to figure out actually what happened. What happened was Miles didn’t judge what I had played. He just heard it as an event that happened and went, “Hm, that’s interesting,” and then found some notes to make it work right. (Laughter)” 

— Peter Blasevick