Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters deserves recognition on the 50th anniversary of its release for the rarest of reasons. It is not only one of the many creative pinnacles in this jazz icon’s discography, but it is the very first to garner widespread public acclamation outside the jazz community.
The record that ascended the Billboard charts, reaching #13 on the ‘Top 200’, was a natural extension of the projects that preceded it like 1969’s Fat Albert Rotunda. A series of similarly experimental albums by Hancock’s sextet, released between 1971 and 1973, depicts an artist who was looking for a new direction in which to take his music after five years of nurturing the innovation of Miles Davis’ second great quintet (with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams).
It’s a testament to Herbie’s bountiful imagination, as much as his creative bravery, that Mwandishi and Crossings are just as worthy of hearing in their own right as their aforementioned companion piece. Yet these LPs are hardly mere precursors to the fifty-year-old breakthrough: having left the employ of Miles Davis in 1968, Hancock purposely formed his own sextet to play this music, even as he also continued to appear on ‘The Man With The Horn”s records for the next few years.
Still, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew and A Tribute to Jack Johnson may be no more groundbreaking than Hancock’s watershed work, itself a natural extension of the continuity so noticeable as collected on the excellent compilation. The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings. Meanwhile, March ’73’s Sextant is just as logical an outgrowth of Herbie’s increasingly intricate style and its Robert Springett artwork reflects the creative continuity.
The use of electronics in Headhunters parallels the preceding records too. While that latter effort also relied heavily on repetition, the emphasis on much heavier rhythms in its successor not only distinguishes the two records from each other but from virtually all of what was in the marketplace at the time (Weather Report’s nascent move toward grooves, along with Miles ’72 watershed On The Corner, are the marked exceptions).
That said, Herbie acknowledged both his vintage roots and his modern influences on Headhunters. The heavily-syncopated “Sly” (as in Family Stone) was juxtaposed with his rearrangement of earlier bop leanings in the form of “Watermelon Man” from his first album Takin’ Off released in 1962 (Hancock had established his early pedigree with the work collected on The Complete Blue Note 60’s Sessions).
Layers of rhythm kick in at the very outset of “Chameleon” and continue in various forms of interlocking but supple density for the duration of this forty-one-plus minutes and four cuts. Only minor digressions like the modulations first occurring around the two-minute mark of that selection interrupt the constant churn.
Effects like synthesizer washes wafting through the bandleader’s electric piano solo on this ten-minute-plus track might sound artificial in a different context. But here those textures are not only a direct continuation of those dominating the previous record, they are also vivid contrast to the heat in the beats beneath.
Inculcations to chant commence the aforementioned drastic reworking of “Watermelon Man.” The alternately odd and pleasantly exotic sound of percussionist Bill Summers blowing into a beer bottle gives way to Bennie Maupin’s prominent sax work; his extended playing there, along with the melodic motifs curling around and about the foundational musicianship, give the lie to any impression Headhunters is all bottom anchored by bassist Paul Jackson and drummer Harvey Mason.
What sound like airy extracts from any number compositions by the man born Sylvester Stewart give way to some furiously syncopated interludes for the duration of the next-to-the-last cut. Preceding the smoldering and spacy end called “Vein Melter,” placement of homage to the Woodstock Festival’s showstopper is indicative of the thoughtful production of the album shared by David Rubinson and Herbie.
A team that first collaborated for Mwandishi and Crossings (with the former’s friends), then continued with the subsequent album Thrust (somewhat of a sequel to Headhunters sans so much group improv), the partnership foreshadowed of injection of funk into jazz fusion and perhaps more importantly, Hancock’s use of an even more refined approach on “Rockit,”
From the Future Shock LP of a decade later, this number solidified the expanse of the keyboardist/composer’s deservedly iconic status. In the interim, Hancock has refused to pigeonhole himself and/or simply churn out ‘more of the same’ in any form: prior to the Grammy-winning 1983 hit, he took part in the acoustic VSOP Quintet and subsequently jumped all over the modern jazz map with and without famous collaborators like Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Lionel Loueke, and Josh Groban.
Moving with all due confidence and grace into the new millennium, Herbie Hancock’s independence combined with his willingness to experiment–as often as not in creative partnerships—reaffirms just how influential a jazz musician he actually is.