In his last performance in Iowa City, jazz great Herbie Hancock mentioned how he felt “at home in Iowa” because of his years at Grinnell College. For most artists, a nod to their alma mater might sound like simple gratitude. In Hancock’s case, it was an understatement. His time at Grinnell did not just influence him personally, it helped shape the way we hear modern music. What he learned in a small Iowa town altered the course of jazz, funk, electronic music and even early hip hop.
Hancock began attending Grinnell College in the late 1950s as an electrical engineering major. His lifelong fascination with how things work fueled his interest in circuitry and mechanics, but jazz kept pulling him away from equations and into improvisation. As he put it, “Jazz was occupying the time I should’ve been studying physics and math.”
Ultimately, he graduated with a double major in music and electrical engineering. That combination became the blueprint for his innovations.
Hancock created his own performance opportunities, forming a student big band composed of classmates with varying skill levels.
“I had no idea that what I was doing was amazing ear training,” he later said. The experience became a turning point, convincing him to shift his major to composition and pursue life as a professional musician after graduation.
Hancock’s engineering mindset followed him into his career. With Miles Davis’s “Second Great Quintet,” he became one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound.
In the 1970s, Hancock was an early adopter of synthesizers in jazz and funk, using the ARP Odyssey and other instruments to blaze entirely new sonic terrain. Because of his background in circuitry and electronics, he had a keen ability to communicate with developers of these new electronic instruments and innovate alongside them. This experimentation led to Head Hunters, the first platinum-selling jazz album, on which Hancock fused deep funk grooves with electronic textures that had never been heard before. The project showcased his dual identity as both musician and engineer, the “gadget guy” of jazz.
His influence extended far beyond his own recordings. Hancock shared his technical knowledge with other artists, even showing Quincy Jones his computer-based recording setup in the early 1980s. That exchange with Michael Jackson’s collaborator helped shape some of the most successful pop productions in history. He also brought the music and technology connection to children, famously demonstrating synthesizers on Sesame Street, saying, “Technology is just another instrument, another way to explore.”
Hancock also championed new electronic sounds he did not invent, including early hip-hop turntable scratching. His hit “Rockit” from the album Future Shock propelled scratching into the mainstream and introduced the technique to an international audience.
Herbie Hancock’s story is a reminder that groundbreaking ideas can emerge anywhere, even at a small liberal arts college surrounded by cornfields.
This article is from Little Village’s December 2025 Peak Iowa issue, a collection of stories drawn from Hawkeye State history, culture and legend. Browse dozens of Peak Iowa tales here.
