Dave Matthews to be featured on Herbie Hancock's Imagine Project

Marcus Miller and Herbie HancockHerbie Hancock is back in the studio working on his "Imagine Project" a new studio album and documentary due for an early 2010 release. Dave Matthews is one of many artists that will be working with Herbie as he records the new album. He is also pairing up with artists such as Chaka Khan, Anoushka Shankar and Tracy Chapman, and Jeff Beck.

Dave Matthews was in the studio with Herbie while they were in San Francisco at the end of August. Carter Beauford joined them in the studio along with Marcus Miller, who will play bass on the track.

Herbie explains that each artist will collaborate on an original composition, mixing languages and musical styles from their respective countries. He describes the project as capturing "peace through global collaboration. "Our same language is our commonality as human beings..."

In recent Billboard interview Hancock discusses his time in the studio with Dave Matthews. While riffing with the Gryphon Veillette (the tiny guitar), Herbie heard something he liked in the instrument and the sound.

"He played the first two chords and not only did it not sound like a Dave Matthews song, it didn't sound like anything I had heard from pop music. I said, "Wait a minute-I'm hearing some kind of gamelan thing." I've been to Bali three times. I found a gamelan sound on the synthesizer. I overdubbed it, and it just worked."

While listening to playbacks of the songs, Dave was writing what may be lyrics to the song, very familar to that of the song "Falling off the Roof", a song played just once live in 2007, and yet to be played again. The lyrics written in the studio started with:

"Falling off the roof/Looking up at the stars/Trying to get away from this world"

Given the nature of the project Herbie asked Dave what he would think about the lyrics being translatedinto either Balinese or Indonesian?" Dave complied and said "Got for it!"

Along with the album Herbie plans to produce additional online video content from the documentary, and special concerts with project participants are in the works.

Herbie Hancock has some history with Dave Matthews and guested with the DMB dating back to 1998. Dave is keeping busy as always, no surprise there...and if you need a refresher, download "Falling off the Roof"