Herbie Hancock’s Special Piano Makes Trip to Portsmouth, NH

Some musicians have riders listing requirements for a concert, like a certain color M&M. Others require a certain instrument.

Or you're Herbie Hancock, one of the world's largest pianos.

Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club in Portsmouth made sure Hancock's preferred piano, a Fazioli Grand Piano, was on stage for his concerts Tuesday and Wednesday. The club used a crane to lift the 1,200 pound piano through a window on Monday while Congress Street was shut down, according to the club's Facebook page.

The piano measures 9’ 2” from front to back, which the club said required a lot of "ingenuity, muscle and heavy equipment" to bring inside.

The piano costs $361,500 and had to be insured, the club wrote on the page.

Hancock said on the Fazioli website that "your pianos can, with the sound of one note, announce the celebration of the freedom and creativity of the human spirit."

Canadian musician Angela Hewitt is also a fan of the Faziolo Grand Piano, but the one she had used personally since 2003 was dropped by instrument movers in Berlin in 2020 after a recording session.

After being inspected by company representatives, it was deemed unsalvageable.

"The iron frame is broken, as well as much else in the structure and action (not to mention the lid and other parts of the case). It makes no sense, financially or artistically, to rebuild this piano from scratch. It's kaputt," Hewitt wrote on her Facebook page. "The movers of course were mortified. In 35 years of doing their job, this had never happened before. At least nobody was hurt."

"I hope my piano will be happy in piano heaven," she wrote.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNH