Herbie Hancock poses for a photo in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Photograph Steve Mundinger

On International Jazz Day, the music legend opened up about his struggles with addiction, the importance of striving and why the secret to jazz is generosity.

It’s 6pm on a Saturday night and Herbie Hancock is chanting down the phone to me.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, he goes. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

He pauses, a little breathlessly, to instruct me: “You don’t have to chant that fast.” I’m tempted to jump in – it all seems very soothing – but I don’t know the words.

We have been given – strictly – 15 minutes to talk by the jazz legend’s American press team. But as we get deeper into Hancock’s Buddhist faith, 15 minutes turns into 30 and then into an hour. It is only when I admit, with regret, that I have to go to put up my new IKEA bed, that we both realise the time.