Herbie Hancock & Ron Carter: For Miles

Monterey Jazz is proud to present this exclusive pairing of two jazz legends, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Miles Davis. This show is an exclusive, one-night-only event that you can only see at the 69th Monterey Jazz Festival.

Now in the seventh decade of his professional life, Herbie Hancock remains where he has always been: at the forefront of world culture, technology, business and music. Herbie Hancock has been an integral part of every popular music movement since the 1960s. As a member of the Miles Davis Quintet that pioneered a groundbreaking sound in jazz, he also developed new approaches on his own recordings, followed by his work in the 70s — with record-breaking albums such as Headhunters — that combined electric jazz with funk and rock in an innovative style that continues to influence contemporary music. “Rockit” and “Future Shock” marked Hancock’s foray into electronic dance sounds; during the same period he also continued to work in an acoustic setting with V.S.O.P.

Hancock received an Academy Award for his Round Midnight film score and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for River: The Joni Letters, and two 2011 Grammy Awards for the globally collaborative CD, The Imagine Project.

Hancock serves as Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and as Institute Chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz. In 2011 Hancock was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, and in December of 2013, received a Kennedy Center Honor. His memoir, Herbie Hancock: Possibilities, was published by Viking in 2014, and in February 2016 he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Hancock is currently in the studio at work on a new album.

Ron Carter is among the most original, prolific, and influential bassists in jazz. He has recorded over 2200 albums and has a Guinness world record to prove it! He continues to record. In 2026 he launched a groundbreaking jazz/gospel hybrid album called Sweet, Sweet Spirit with choirmaster Ricky Dillard and New G.

From 1963 to 1968, he was a member of the acclaimed Miles Davis Quintet. Over his 60-year career, he has recorded with so many of the jazz greats: Lena Horne, Bill Evans, B.B. King, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, Bobby Timmons, Eric Dolphy, Cannonball Adderley, Jaki Byard, and many others. He can be heard on many iconic jazz records of the 60s and 70s such as Speak No Evil, Maiden Voyage, Red Clay, Speak Like a Child, Nefertiti, and Miles Smiles, to name a few.

After leaving the quintet he embarked on a prolific 50-year freelance career that spanned vastly different music genres and continues to this day. He recorded with Roberta Flack, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Bette Midler and Aretha Franklin, appeared on the seminal hip-hop album Low End Theory with a Tribe Called Quest, wrote and recorded pieces for string quartets and Bach chorales for two to eight basses and accompanied Danny Simmons on a spoken word album.

Carter continues to do tours worldwide with his various groups: the Golden Striker Trio, the Foursight Quartet, the Ron Carter Nonet, and Ron Carter’s Great Big Band. He has recorded multiple albums with his groups.

Herbie Hancock photo ©Douglas Kirkland
Ron Carter photo ©Fortuna Sung