Head Hunters

From that opening blood pumping, twelve note bassline (bowbowbowbow bow bow) via an ARP Odyssey synthesizer on "Chameleon", Herbie Hancock minted a new classic album with 1973's Head Hunters.  It was a defining work of music, a direction change from the "Mwandishi" days.  One that proved very popular with jazz, R & B, and even rock fans.  Not as spacey as some of Hancock's previous yet still airy and vast enough to get lost in.  To feel transported.

But also grounded.  Has the vibe of street music.  I mean that in terms of accessibility.  Complex, but so easy to get into its groove.  And very much of its time.  The very fast tempo "Sly", which was dedicated to Sly Stone, feels like theme music to a '70s cop and/or blaxploitation movie.  I've created a few in my head while listening.  Sections of it seem perfectly fitting for a chase scene, perhaps through Harlem.  The album's closer "Vein Melter" conversely is mellow electro jazz at its zenith.  One of the chillest pieces ever. 

Herbie pilots the Fender Rhoades like no one else.  He handles all the keyboard duties on Head Hunters while Bennie Maupin plays saxes and alto flute, Paul Jackson does bass, Harvey Mason is on drums, and Bill Summers goes off on congas, cabasa, and a beer bottle (into which he blows, imitating a flute) on a cover of Hancock's own bop standard "Watermelon Man".  Everyone creates hypnosis on these four lengthy tracks. The band itself would be known as The Headhunters.  I'm sure folks got high with this record, but it's so groovy and downtempo by turns on its own that no chemicals are really needed to get the desired effect. 

My first awareness of Hancock was "Rockit", featured on his 1983 album Future Shock.  Who could forget that video? And many a break dancer blasted it from boom boxes on street corners (and in front of my high school gymnasium). It would prove another groundbreaker for this unspeakably talented genius.  I would later get into his 1960s work (some in Miles Davis' quintet) before finally diving into Head Hunters, a true jazz/funk classic.  There really is no wrong starting point.