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Head Hunters
- Artist: Herbie Hancock
- Total time: 41:34
- Label: Columbia
- Availability: In stock
- Item #: 20324090
- Your Price: $11.98
Review
Head Hunters was a pivotal point in Herbie Hancock's career, bringing him into the vanguard of jazz fusion. Hancock had pushed avant-garde boundaries on his own albums and with Miles Davis, but he had never devoted himself to the groove as he did on Head Hunters. Drawing heavily from Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, and James Brown, Hancock developed deeply funky, even gritty, rhythms over which he soloed on electric synthesizers, bringing the instrument to the forefront in jazz. It had all of the sensibilities of jazz, particularly in the way it wound off into long improvisations, but its rhythms were firmly planted in funk, soul, and R&B, giving it a mass appeal that made it the biggest-selling jazz album of all time (a record which was later broken). Jazz purists, of course, decried the experiments at the time, but Head Hunters still sounds fresh and vital decades after its initial release, and its genre-bending proved vastly influential on not only jazz, but funk, soul, and hip-hop. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music GuideTrack Listing
| 1. Chameleon | 15:44 | |
| 2. Watermelon Man | 6:32 | |
| 3. Sly | 10:20 | |
| 4. Vein Melter | 9:10 |
Details of This Recording
- Label: Columbia
- Credits:
- Additional Info:
- Styles:
- Funk
- Jazz
- Jazz-Funk
- Fusion
- Post-Bop
- Hard Bop
- United States of America
- Modal Music
Contents
Chameleon; Watermelon Man; Sly; Vein Melter.
Herbie Hancock, Keyboards; Bennie Maupin, Woodwinds; Paul Jackson, Bass; Harvey Mason, Drums; Bill Summers, Percussion.
Extended Article
In many ways, when Herbie Hancock released Head Hunters it was a line of demarcation between what music was and where it was going. One of the largest selling jazz albums of all time, Head Hunters made Herbie Hancock, who was already considered a young genius on the piano, a household name. Funk grooves, awesome percussion and textures never before heard in music would influence a whole new generation of superstars.
For this CD reissue, Herbie Hancock has contributed his insightful essay about the creation of this masterpiece.
Read About This Recording
Herbie Hancock, who rose to prominence as the pianist with the Miles Davis Quintet of 1964-68, led an adventurous sextet during 1969-72 that incorporated aspects of funk and subtle rock rhythms in abstract ways. Although he loved the band, by 1973 he was frustrated at the lack of its commercial appeal. Since Hancock has always enjoyed the pop, funk and rock music of his era, he decided to break up the sextet and formed the Headhunters.
The new group, which featured Hancock on electric piano and synthesizers, Bennie Maupin on reeds, electric bassist Paul Jackson, drummer Harvey Mason and percussionist Bill Summers, had an immediate hit with its recording of Jackson's Chameleon, a 15-minute funk jam that is the highlight of the group's debut release, Headhunters. The band also performs three Hancock compositions: a funkified version of his famous Watermelon Man, Sly and Vein Melter. This best-selling album, although often grouped with fusion, actually de-emphasized rock in favor of funk and was quite influential, leading to an expanded electric jazz/funk movement.
Although synthesizers have since become more flexible and sophisticated, the music on Headhunters still sounds fresh, lively and quite funky today. A classic of the early 1970s.
-Scott Yanow
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