What inspired you to take on this project of recording Joni Mitchell songs?

I was in discussion with Dahlia Ambach, who is the head of A&R for Verve, about what to do for my next recording project. It was she that suggested -- she knows I have a great respect for Joni Mitchell as a human being and as an artist -- that I consider doing the music of Joni Mitchell. And I told her, "You know, I think that would be a great idea."

How crucial was it having Wayne Shorter's participation on this record?

Extremely important, because of two basic reasons, and they both have to do with admiration for Wayne and his talent. Joni really loves Wayne and his music, and I love Wayne and his music. Wayne has appeared on several of Joni's records in more recent years. Joni doesn't record as much as she used to, but Wayne is on maybe seven or eight of her records. I knew he had been on several of Joni's records, but I didn't know he was on that many. And I knew how Joni felt about him, so he was the first person we thought about bringing on board, and we were glad he could do it.

Both you and Wayne famously appear on Joni's 'Mingus' album from 1979. Did you feel that you were able to capture that same kind of vibe, or were you going for something entirely different?

Yeah, I wasn't really going for that because she already did that. I don't like to do anything that someone has already done -- including myself. I mean, for me, that's a kind of directive. Why give everybody the same present? If they've already got it, find something they don't have.

You've done jazz, you've done funk, you've done soundtrack work, you've explored all sorts of left-field things, like hip-hop and turntable scratching. What drives you to be so musically adventurous?

When I looked at her material, I looked at the full spectrum -- from her earlier work to some of her later stuff. I didn't want to have it all come from one record. We didn't want to do only the most popular stuff that she did; we wanted to do some of the more obscure things, too. And you just have a nice variety of material to explore on the recording.

Being that her songs are so musically eccentric, how difficult was it coming up with just the right arrangements for each of them?

Well, we didn't depend on any kind of prepackaged arrangements, except for the song 'Both Sides Now' -- we re-harmonized that. Larry Klein, the primary producer [and ex-husband of Joni Mitchell], both he and I thought that the direction I was going in, when I first started working out different harmonies, was appropriate for the lyrics. But for the other ones, the arrangements were more like sketches. Larry did the majority of them. Basically, he wrote out a chord chart, and the chart was pretty much the way that Joni had it originally except that there were some places that Larry suggested an area where you can open it up.

Joni appears on the record herself -- has she heard it and given you any feedback on it?

I actually hadn't talked to Joni during the whole time I was making this record. I spoke to her a month before that. Actually, the last time I talked to her was after I started working on the record, but we hadn't done any recording yet. Anyway, recently I found out that Joni had heard the whole record and that she really likes it.

Wow ... I would have felt like, "I wish it did resonate with her, and I'm sorry that it doesn't." I was hoping very much that she would like it, and when I found out that she did I was very relieved [laughs]. The thing is, I have to like it -- and I like it.

So many musicians will rejuvenate their careers by releasing an all-star record. But as a jazz musician you've been playing with so many of the greats all your life. Does that make your collaborations different?

Well, many of the collaborations that I've heard have been done kind of at a distance because of the technology that exists today. It's possible for people to, as they say, "fly in" their music because everything is done with overdubs. What you don't have with that is the human interplay that happens when people are together in one room playing. So even with difficult scheduling challenges, because everybody on the record is a band leader, we were able to find a time period when at least the instrumentalists could do the tracking together. We had a period in New York and a small period in L.A. when we did the tracks. Actually, Norah Jones, for the New York sessions, she did record hers live with the band. We didn't have the advantage of doing that with the other singers because of my scheduling and their scheduling. Corrine Bailey Rae recorded hers in London and Joni recorded hers in L.A.

How were the people selected who are on the record? Was it your decision or your producer's? And was it about who was available and appropriate?

I really depended on Larry Klein on this, as I did for the production of the songs. I was hoping that we would have a list of singers that Joni liked. Larry told me that Joni is a fan of Tina Turner's and that Joni liked Norah Jones. I don't know if she had heard Corinne Bailey Rae, but Larry thought that Joni would like her. And we knew how Joni felt about Leonard Cohen, that she's been a big fan of his for many years. And we knew that she would like Luciana. So those seemed like obvious choices, in a way.

For many people, when you say "Herbie Hancock," they think 'Rockit.' What was it like in 1983 having an actual huge hit record played all over MTV and enjoyed by millions of people who have never heard, say, 'Speak Like a Child'?

I had that experience when I wrote 'Watermelon Man' in 1962 and it became a hit in 1963 -- not my recording but Mongo Santamaria's recording -- and I remember I was 23 years old then, having just gotten a job working with the New Miles Davis Quintet. Walking down the streets of New York and having 'Watermelon Man' coming out the windows of so many apartments in New York, I thought, "It doesn't get any better then this -- to have a hit song and play with the top jazz group, the most respected jazz group of that time." So that was really cool, and with 'Rockit,' what was different to me then was the meeting or collaboration of jazz and what was then a new kind of underground movement called hip-hop. That joining of forces was intriguing to me. I had no idea what kind of response we'd get until we started getting the response, which was all good. When it became such a hit, I was, of course, pleased and surprised.

How does it feel to be one of the godfathers of hip-hop?

I was really surprised at how pervasive the influence of 'Rockit' was on turntablists. Because 'Rockit' was, in a way, the key that opened the door to hip-hop with the general public, it was a pleasant surprise, on one hand, but it made sense, on the other. It was really the first record that had that big an impact with the public. It opened the floodgates in a way.

That really speaks to your willingness to not just to take chances but really innovate when you do take those musical risks.

I didn't do it alone, believe me. I didn't have any clue about hip-hop and scratching and that whole idea of a musical movement. I mean, rap was barely on that scene at the time, but scratching and turntables and mixing was the freshest thing that was beginning to blossom. I was just fortunate to be at the right place at the right time with the right people that had enough of a connection to the hip-hop movement and turntable work and innovation -- like [bassist] Bill Laswell and [keyboard player] Michael Beinhorn, who were the producers and core writers of many of those songs for 'Future Shock.' And timing was another thing: All the elements kind of came together, and the icing on the cake, so to speak, was the success of the video. It was a whole different approach to music videos. Nobody had gone in any direction that was even remotely connected to what they did on 'Rockit.'