Herbie Hancock Blow-Up (1966)
Herbie Hancock (born 1940) wrote and recorded the score for Blow-Up (1966). He was twenty-six at the time of the recording, three years into his tenure as pianist in Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and Blow-Up was his first feature-film score.
Hancock's career through 1966
Hancock studied composition at Grinnell College in Iowa and electrical engineering before moving to New York and joining the Donald Byrd group in 1961. He recorded Takin' Off for Blue Note in 1962 (his debut as a leader; the album included "Watermelon Man"). Davis recruited him in May 1963; with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams, he was one quarter of what is now considered the most influential rhythm section in jazz history. By 1966 he had recorded Empyrean Isles (1964) and Maiden Voyage (1965) for Blue Note as a leader, both of which are now standard repertoire.
Antonioni found Hancock through producer Carlo Ponti's American contacts. The brief was to score a film about photography in Swinging London, and Antonioni reportedly wanted American jazz rather than English pop or European art-music — partly to keep the film's London from feeling too local, partly because he wanted the studio scenes to feel cool and rooftop-like.
"Antonioni said: 'Herbie, this film is in London but the music is not. The music is from somewhere else. It is the photographer's interior weather.' That was the brief." — Herbie Hancock, Possibilities memoir (2014) (book)
How the score sits in the film
Hancock wrote two main themes — the title theme that opens the film over the Rag-Week jeep, and the "Bring Down the Birds" funk that Thomas plays for Jane in the studio ("slowly. Slowly. Against the beat."). The score is sparing in classical-Hollywood terms; long stretches of the film have no music at all. The enlargement marathon plays in near-silence, with only the wind from the original park scene replayed under the action — a choice that has become a textbook example of subtractive scoring. See The Darkroom Sequence.
"I scored the film like a club date. There were the cues that mattered and there was the rest of the night, where the room just made noise." — Herbie Hancock, Possibilities (2014) (book)
The Yardbirds appear separately in the Ricky-Tick club sequence performing "Stroll On" — that performance is diegetic and was not arranged by Hancock. See The Yardbirds Club Scene.
"Bring Down the Birds" and its later life
The Hancock cue Thomas plays for Jane was released in 1967 on the Blow-Up Original Soundtrack album. The riff and bass figure were later sampled by Deee-Lite for "Groove Is in the Heart" (1990), which became a #1 international dance hit and gave Hancock's cue its longest second life.
"Half the kids who know that bass line have never seen a Carlo Di Palma frame. They know it from Deee-Lite. That is fine with me." — Herbie Hancock, The Guardian (2014)
After Blow-Up
Hancock left Davis's quintet in 1968 and made the Mwandishi sextet records (1971–73), then the Head Hunters (1973) album that became one of the best-selling jazz records of all time. His other major film score is Round Midnight (1986), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. He continued recording and touring into the 2020s, the elder statesman of post-bop and jazz fusion.
"Hancock's Blow-Up score is the moment American jazz crossed into European art cinema and stayed there. The film could not exist without that score." — Geoff Andrew, Sight & Sound (2017)