The Headhunters | |
|---|---|
 Herbie Hancock and The Headhunters in 1975 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | United States of America |
| Genres | Jazz fusion |
| Years active | 1973–present |
| Labels | Columbia, Verve Forecast, Basin Street, P-Vine, Owl Studios |
| Past members | |
The Headhunters are an American jazz fusion band formed by Herbie Hancock in 1973. The group fused jazz, funk, and rock music.
Hancock had grown dissatisfied with his prior band, Mwandishi, and wanted to make a band with a stronger funk component. [1] He chose the name of the group, "Headhunters", while doing Buddhist chanting. [1] The name pleased him because it made a triple reference to the jungle, to intellectual concerns, and to sexual activity. [1]
In 1973, the band comprised Hancock (keyboards), Bennie Maupin (saxophone, clarinet), Harvey Mason (drums), Paul Jackson (bass), and Bill Summers (percussion). Their first album, Head Hunters , sold more than one million copies. [2]
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [3] | US Jazz (Trad) [3] | US Jazz (Cont) [3] | |||
| Head Hunters (Herbie Hancock album) |
| 21 | — | — | |
| Thrust (Herbie Hancock album) |
| — | — | — | |
| Flood (live album with Herbie Hancock) | — | — | — | ||
| Man-Child (Herbie Hancock album) |
| — | — | — | |
| Survival of the Fittest |
| 126 | 12 | — | |
| Straight from the Gate |
| — | — | — | |
| Return of the Headhunters! (with Herbie Hancock) |
| — | — | 9 | |
| Evolution Revolution |
| — | — | — | |
| Platinum |
| — | — | — | |
| Speakers in the House |
| — | — | — | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | |||||
| Title | Album details |
|---|---|
| On Top: Live in Europe |
|
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, using a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, Head Hunters.
Head Hunters is the twelfth studio album by American pianist, keyboardist and composer Herbie Hancock, released October 26, 1973, on Columbia Records. Recording sessions for the album took place in the evening at Wally Heider Studios and Different Fur Trading Co. in San Francisco, California. The album was a commercial and artistic breakthrough for Hancock, crossing over to funk and rock audiences and bringing jazz-funk fusion to mainstream attention, peaking at number 13 on the Billboard 200. Hancock is featured with woodwind player Bennie Maupin from his previous sextet and new collaborators – bassist Paul Jackson, percussionist Bill Summers and drummer Harvey Mason. The latter group of collaborators, which would go on to be known as The Headhunters, also played on Hancock's subsequent studio album Thrust (1974). All of the musicians play multiple instruments on the album.
Headhunter or head hunter may refer to:
Bennie Maupin is an American jazz multireedist who performs on various saxophones, flute, and bass clarinet.
Paul Jerome Jackson Jr. was an American jazz electric bassist and composer. He was a founding member of the Headhunters and played on several of Herbie Hancock's albums, including Head Hunters and Thrust. Jackson subsequently moved to Japan and started a voluntary concert called Jazz for Kids, with the intent of familiarizing students there with African-American history.
Jazz-funk is a subgenre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat (groove), electrified sounds, and an early prevalence of analog synthesizers. The integration of funk, soul, and R&B music and styles into jazz resulted in the creation of a genre whose spectrum is quite wide and ranges from strong jazz improvisation to soul, funk or disco with jazz arrangements, jazz riffs, jazz solos, and sometimes soul vocals.
Sextant is the eleventh studio album by Herbie Hancock, released in 1973 by Columbia. It is the last album with the Mwandishi-era sextet featuring saxophonist Bennie Maupin, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, trombonist Julian Priester, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart. Synthesizer player Patrick Gleeson and percussionist Buck Clarke also appear.
Thrust is the fourteenth studio album by American jazz-funk musician Herbie Hancock, released in September 1974 on Columbia Records. The album reached No. 2 on the Billboard Top Soul Albums chart and No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart. It is the second album featuring The Headhunters: saxophonist Bennie Maupin, bass guitarist Paul Jackson, drummer Mike Clark and percussionist Bill Summers.
"Watermelon Man" is a jazz standard written by Herbie Hancock for his debut album, Takin' Off (1962).
Future Shock is the thirty-fifth album by American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, released in August 1983 by Columbia Records. It was his first release from his electro-funk era and an early example of instrumental hip hop. Participating musicians include bass guitarist Bill Laswell, guitarist Pete Cosey and drummer Sly Dunbar.
Mr. Hands is the twenty-fourth album by Herbie Hancock. Unlike the preceding album, Monster, which was conceptualized as a dance album, Mr. Hands is a collection of different musical styles with distinct groups. It features bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius on the track "4 A.M.," plus multiple guests including Bennie Maupin, Sheila E. and Ron Carter, plus an all-synthesizer track ("Textures") performed entirely by Hancock. "Shiftless Shuffle" was recorded by the members of the Headhunters quintet in 1973 during the sessions for the album Head Hunters. This album was the first on which Hancock used a computer, this time an Apple II. He would continue his relationship with Apple Computer for many years.
Man-Child is the fifteenth studio album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. The record was released on August 22, 1975 by Columbia Records. It was the final studio album to feature The Headhunters, and a number of guest musicians including saxophonist Wayne Shorter, a full brass section, three different guitarists, and Stevie Wonder on harmonica.
Takin' Off is the debut album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock released in 1962 by Blue Note Records. Featuring veteran tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, bassist Butch Warren and drummer Billy Higgins. The album is a creative example of music in the hard bop idiom. The bluesy track "Watermelon Man" made it to the Top 100 of the singles charts, and went on to become a jazz standard. Hancock released a funk arrangement of “Watermelon Man” on his 1973 album Head Hunters. Takin' Off was initially released on CD in 1996 and then again in remastered form in 2007 by Rudy Van Gelder.
"Chameleon" is a jazz fusion standard composed by Herbie Hancock with Bennie Maupin, Paul Jackson and Harvey Mason, all of whom also performed the original 15:44 full-length version on the 1973 album Head Hunters, and featuring solos by Hancock and Maupin. The 9:41 edit omits an out-of-tune segment, features a new bassline added in at around 6:40 and new instruments added in post-production.
DeWayne Stephen "Blackbyrd" McKnight is an American guitarist. He was a member of The Headhunters, a jazz-funk fusion band from 1975 through 1978 and Parliament-Funkadelic from 1978 through 2008. He served briefly as guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers after the death of Hillel Slovak in 1988 before being replaced by John Frusciante. He also played briefly with Miles Davis in 1986.
Eddie Henderson is an American jazz trumpet and flugelhorn player. He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of pianist Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band, going on to lead his own electric/fusion groups through the decade. Henderson earned his medical degree and worked a parallel career as a psychiatrist and musician, turning back to acoustic jazz by the 1990s.
Fat Albert Rotunda is the eighth album by jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock, released in 1969. It was Hancock's first release for Warner Bros. Records after his departure from Blue Note Records. The music was originally done for the TV special Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert, which later inspired the Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids TV show.
V.S.O.P. is a 1977 double live album by keyboardist Herbie Hancock, featuring acoustic jazz performances by the V.S.O.P. Quintet, jazz fusion/ jazz-funk performances by the ‘Mwandishi’ band and The Headhunters. The concert was advertised as a "Herbie Hancock Retrospective," and Miles Davis, who was several months into his temporary retirement, was advertised as playing with the V.S.O.P. group. According to concert attendees, on the night of the show a handwritten sign was posted on the lobby door announcing that Davis would not be playing, but that Hubbard would be appearing instead.
Flood is the second live album, and sixteenth album overall, by American jazz pianist and keyboardist Herbie Hancock. Recorded live in Tokyo, the album was originally released exclusively in Japan in 1975 as a double LP 洪水, reads kōzui meaning flood. It features The Headhunters performing selections from the albums Maiden Voyage, Head Hunters, Thrust, and Man-Child –– with the latter album still two months away from release at the time of these concerts.
The discography of the American jazz artist Herbie Hancock consists of forty-one studio albums, twelve live albums, sixty-two compilation albums, five soundtrack albums, thirty-eight physical singles, nine promo singles and four songs not released as singles, but that charted due to downloads. This article does not include re-issues, unless they are counted separately from the original works in the charts, furthermore because of the enormous amount of material published, this discography omits less notable appearances in compilations and live albums. The discography shows the peak weekly main chart positions of eight selected countries: United States, France,[a] Germany, Japan,[b] Netherlands, Sweden,[c] Switzerland and United Kingdom. Positions also listed on United States are R&B / hip hop, dance / club, jazz[d] and bubbling under charts.[e] The peaks do not refer necessarily to the position that a record reached when it was first released. Also included are certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)[f] and the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI).[g]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
