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.
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop musicians who successfully explored funk and soul while remaining a jazz artist. As a bandleader, Byrd was an influence on the early career of Herbie Hancock and many others.
Soul jazz or funky jazz is a subgenre of jazz that incorporates strong influences from hard bop, blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues. Soul jazz is often characterized by organ trios featuring the Hammond organ and small combos including saxophone, brass instruments, electric guitar, bass, drums, piano, vocals and electric organ. Its origins were in the 1950s and early 1960s, with its heyday with popular audiences preceding the rise of jazz fusion in the late 1960s and 1970s. Prominent names in fusion ranged from bop pianists including Bobby Timmons and Junior Mance to a wide range of organists, saxophonists, pianists, drummers and electric guitarists including Jack McDuff, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Grant Green.
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.
Boogaloo or bugalú is a genre of Latin music and dance which was popular in the United States in the 1960s. Boogaloo originated in New York City mainly by stateside Puerto Ricans with African American music influences. The style was a fusion of popular African American rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul music with mambo and son montuno, with songs in both English and Spanish. The American Bandstand television program introduced the dance and the music to the mainstream American audience. Pete Rodríguez's "I Like It like That" was a famous boogaloo song.
Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría Rodríguez was a Cuban percussionist and bandleader who spent most of his career in the United States. Primarily a conga drummer, Santamaría was a leading figure in the pachanga and boogaloo dance crazes of the 1960s. His biggest hit was his rendition of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. From the 1970s, he recorded mainly salsa and Latin jazz, before retiring in the late 1990s.
Seven Steps to Heaven is a studio album by the jazz musician Miles Davis. It was released through Columbia Records on July 15, 1963. The recording took place at Columbia Studios in Los Angeles in April 1963, and at Columbia's 30th Street Studios in Manhattan in May 1963. It presents the Miles Davis Quintet in transition, with the New York session introducing the rhythm section of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, who would become Davis' regular sidemen for the next five years. Upon release, the album was Davis' most successful on the Billboard pop LPs chart up to that point, peaking at number 62.
Empyrean Isles is the fourth studio album by American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, released on Blue Note Records in November 1964. The album features Hancock alongside trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams.
Armando Peraza was a Cuban Latin jazz percussionist and a member of the rock band Santana. Peraza played congas, bongos, and timbales.
William Correa, better known by his stage name Willie Bobo, was an American Latin jazz percussionist of Puerto Rican descent. Bobo rejected the stereotypical expectations of Latino music and was noted for his versatility as an authentic Latin percussionist as well as a jazz drummer easily moving stylistically from jazz, Latin and rhythm and blues music.
"Afro Blue" is a jazz standard composed by Mongo Santamaría.
My Point of View is the second album by pianist Herbie Hancock. It was released in 1963 on Blue Note Records as BLP 4126 and BST 84126. Musicians featured are trumpeter Donald Byrd, trombonist Grachan Moncur III, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, guitarist Grant Green, bassist Chuck Israels and drummer Tony Williams.
Takin' Off is the debut album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock released in 1962 by Blue Note Records. The album features 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.
Steve Berrios was an American jazz drummer and percussionist born in New York City.
Carlos Valdés Galán, better known as Patato, was a Cuban conga player. In 1954, he emigrated from La Habana to New York City where he continued his prolific career as a sideman for several jazz and Latin music ensembles, and occasionally as a bandleader. He contributed to the development of the tunable conga drum which revolutionized the use of the instrument in the US. His experimental descarga albums recorded for Latin Percussion are considered the counterpart to the commercial salsa boom of the 1970s. Tito Puente once called him "the greatest conguero alive today".
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 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]
Mongo Returns! is an album by the Cuban musician Mongo Santamaría. It was released in 1995. The album marked Santamaria's return to the Fantasy Records label.
