head hunters

Herbie Hancock brought together a new band and paved the way for hip hop with the this funky fusion of jazz with R&B, electronic, and African music.  After the electronic experiments of 'Mwandishi', 'Crossings', and 'Sextant'; Hancock was looking for a new direction.  In the reissue liner notes, Hancock reveals:  "I began to feel that I had been spending so much time exploring the upper atmosphere of music and the more ethereal kind of far-out spacey stuff. Now there was this need to take some more of the earth and to feel a little more tethered; a connection to the earth....I was beginning to feel that we (the sextet) were playing this heavy kind of music, and I was tired of everything being heavy. I wanted to play something lighter."

For the new sessions, Hancock stuck with his long-time collaborator Bennie Maupin and assembled a new group called the Head Hunters.  Their first album 'Head Hunters' was produced by Herbie Hancock and David Rubinson and recorded at Wally Heider Studios and Different Fur Trading Co. in San Francisco, California with Herbie Hancock on Fender Rhodes electric piano, Hohner D6 clavinet, ARP Odyssey synthesizer, and ARP Soloist synthesizer; Bennie Maupin on Soprano and tenor saxophones, Saxello, Bass Clarinet, and Alto flute; Paul Jackson on Electric bass and Marímbula; Bill Summers on Congas, Shekere, Balafon, Agogô, Cabasa, Hindewhu, Tambourine, Log drum, Surdo, Gankogui, and Beer Bottle; and Harvey Mason on drums.

'Head Hunters' became the largest selling jazz album of all time with more than one million copies sold; reaching number eighty-six in Japan, thirteen on the US pop chart, two on the US R&B chart, and number one on the US jazz album chart.  Hancock considers:  "At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz.  I only listened to jazz and classical music. But then, when I noticed that Miles Davis was listening to everything — I mean, he had albums of Jimi Hendrix, he had Beatles records, he had Rolling Stones, James Brown — I started to re-examine this kind of closed attitude that I had...I didn't realize at the time, but looking back, I see that it was carving out a new direction."




http://www.herbiehancock.com/





'Head Hunters' 
full album:




"Chameleon" (Herbie Hancock/Paul Jackson/Harvey Mason/Bennie Maupin) – 15:41
"Watermelon Man" (Hancock) – 6:29
"Sly" (Hancock) – 10:15
"Vein Melter" (Hancock) – 9:09



"Chameleon" single version (2:50)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twPwNUcSiSM