Hancock show keys on versatility and virtuosity

Jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock, one of our generation's most curious and restless artists, has zigzagged his way through a career that's incorporated more musical developments than one man should be allowed to master: everything from hard bop and electronica to funk, avant-garde classical, and chart-topping techno. Hancock's last studio album was 2005's "Possibilities," a collection of collaborations with mainstream stars new (Joss Stone) and less new (Paul Simon). Next month he'll release "River: The Joni Letters," a tribute to singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell.

So it made a certain sense that Hancock's concert at Berklee on Saturday was presented by 92.5 "The River," an adult-oriented pop-rock station. And it made perfect sense to hire a trio of players as versatile as bassist Nathan East, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, and West African guitarist Lionel Loueke for this era-spanning show.

Hancock opened with a fragment of "Butterfly," a lovely piece from 1974's "Thrust" that found the 67-year-old artist swiveling back and forth between his grand piano and electric keyboards, sometimes spending only a few bars at each instrument. Loueke -- who graduated from Berklee in 2000 and will release an album on the Blue Note label next year -- has a phenomenal range of colors in his palette; on "Butterfly" he revived the worn wah-wah sound with cutting-edge textures to rival Hancock's own shimmering synths.

In a move that literally bridged years and styles, Hancock incorporated pieces of Loueke's composition "Seventeens" (named for the dizzying number of beats in a measure) into a luminous read of 1962's "Watermelon Man." Front and center with a keytar slung over his shoulder, Hancock traded spare, funky riffs with East, and engaged in a dense, abstract conversation with Loueke that flowed like free verse.

East filled in for John Mayer and Raul Midon on two songs from "Possibilities" and sang a cover of U2's "When Love Comes to Town," but his merely competent vocals were the weak link in an evening of virtuosic feats. Among the most exhilarating was Hancock's solo turn on "Maiden Voyage" -- a gloriously subdued rendering that was the aural equivalent of time-lapsed photography -- and a giddy performance of the fusion classic "Chameleon," featuring a surprise appearance from saxophonist Kenny Garrett, that closed the show.

Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com. For more on music visit boston.com/ae/music/blog.