or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Colour:
Image not available

 

Head Hunters

Herbie Hancock Audio CD
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
Price: £5.47 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Only 12 left in stock (more on the way).
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon. Gift-wrap available.
Want delivery by Wednesday, 22 May? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details

Amazon's Herbie Hancock Store

Music

Image of album by Herbie Hancock

Photos

Image of Herbie Hancock

Videos

Herbie Hancock "The Imagine Project" Video

Biography

Herbie Hancock is a true icon of modern music. Throughout his explorations, he has transcended limitations and genres while maintaining his unmistakable voice. With an illustrious career spanning five decades and 12 Grammy® Awards including the 2007 Album Of The Year for ‘River: The Joni Letters’, he continues to amaze audiences.

There are few artists in the music ... Read more in Amazon's Herbie Hancock Store

Visit Amazon's Herbie Hancock Store
for 213 albums, 13 photos, videos, discussions, and more.

Frequently Bought Together

Head Hunters + Blue Train + Time Out
Price For All Three: £14.14

Buy the selected items together
  • Blue Train £3.52
  • Time Out £5.15

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Product details

  • Audio CD (7 April 1997)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Columbia Legacy
  • ASIN: B000024F6K
  • Other Editions: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,868 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

1. Chameleon - Bennie Maupin
2. Watermelon Man
3. Sly
4. Vein Melter

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk

Keyboardist Herbie Hancock's remarkable career took a surprising turn with this funk album. Hancock's already-storied career had included an extended tenure with Miles Davis as a member of both the classic quintet of the 1960s and the trumpeter's groundbreaking electric dates. As a leader, the pianist had followed a similar course, cutting both outstanding acoustic dates (Maiden Voyage, Empyrean Isles) and experimental electric sessions (Sextant, Crossings). Head Hunters, however, was something different: a stripped-down date featuring reedman Bennie Maupin as the only horn player, and a funk-oriented rhythm section made up of Paul Jackson, Harvey Mason, and Bill Summers. Hancock traded in his sophisticated piano performances and complex compositions for simple melodies, slow-burn funk grooves, and light electric keyboard splashes. The results, particularly on the tracks "Chameleon" and "Watermelon Man", had a profound impact on other musicians, although critics charged Hancock with playing to the galleries. But the album has stood the test of time--something neither the wealth of Hancock's imitators nor his own subsequent albums in this vein have been able to do. --Fred Goodman

Product Description

Cd > Popular Music > CompilationCD > POPULAR MUSIC > ROCK

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The coolest album....ever. 12 Oct 2006
Format:Audio CD
If there was ever an introduction that embodied the complete essence of its album, it must be the famous bass line that begins Chameleon. From the opening note, a sense of cool is established that never lets up but for the furious solos on Sly.

Where do you start with Chameleon? It is a staple of funk music, a tune that is known to people who have never listened to jazz in their life, arguably the most famous genre crossover piece in history. BUT, bizarrely, it's perhaps the weakest track on Head Hunters, simply because of the quality of the tunes that follow.

Watermelon Man, funked up from Hancock's Takin' Off (Blue Note, 1963) standard, is given a lazy, half time feel, and easily eclipses the original. Sly, is where the cool feel of the album is briefly broken for insanely energetic solos by Bennie Maupin and then Herbie. The album is finished off with Vein Melter- a deeply chilled out effort that recalls Crossings' (Warner Bros, 1971) Water Torture, and returns the album's tone back into the blue.

Head Hunters is not a perfect album(witness the drums and the bass disagreeing over tempo after the electric piano solo on Chameleon, or Vein Melter's dodgy synth strings), but I like to think that no other jazz-funk album, Hancock's or anyone elses, has ever surpassed it. It remains one of my favourite albums, and a great introduction to Herbie Hancock's funk music.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Jazz never grooved like this. 8 Jan 2004
By R Jess
Format:Audio CD
I got this album as a birthday present from a friend who heard I had an interest in jazz. After receiving it I initially thought that his definition of 'jazz' might be slightly skewed. But I was pleasantly surprised as this is probably the coolest sounding album I own.

The opening track 'Chameleon' is the definition of 70's funk. For us foreigners this is as pure a sound of Americana as Louis Armstrong's 'Hot Five', Nelson Riddle's arrangements for Frank Sinatra or even Bob Dylan's early acoustic albums. The soundtrack of 70's urban America. With Hancock's extraordinary playing and improvised electronic sounds, I can almost feel those bell-bottoms flapping in the breeze.

'Watermelon Man' is an exercise in pure rhythm with some great ensemble work by all involved. Ironically the track 'Sly' is the least Sly Stone influenced of all the tracks on the album and the most conventionaly jazz-orientated. There's even a stronger sense of improvisation on 'Sly' and as a result I think it's the most intense track of the four. Its stops and starts lead Hancock to a seemingly unrelentless climax before it melts back into the original groove.

On 'Vein Melter' you can hear the influence of Miles Davis, like a 70's interpretation of 'Kind Of Blue'.

Headhunters is the sound of an artist who wanted to speak more directly to his audience and as a consequence helped to create a sound that is now so well-known in our culture, it borders on cliche. High praise indeed!

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Essence of jazz-funk 2 Jun 2001
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
Head Hunters heralded the birth of the jazz funk era, characterised by the use of jazz reeds, electric bass, guitar and keyboards, a highly defined rhythm driven by a tight bass-and-drum relationship, riff-based compositional devices, use of sudden silences and space as rhythmic elements in themselves, and an overall electric sound that demanded to be played loud.

"Chameleon", the opening track, was immediately recognised as a major contribution to both the jazz canon and the dance canon. No riff in jazz had ever sounded as deep and thrusting as this. In spite of the widespread popularity of "Chameleon" and the legion of admirers who claim it's the greatest jazz funk track ever, the real masterpiece is "Watermelon Man".

It's mildly ironic that the best piece on the album should be one that Hancock had composed early in his career (it first appears on his first album as leader, Takin' Off, Blue Note, 1962). The 1973 version is virtually unrecognisable from the original - it retains only the blues-based progression, and Paul Jackson's detached bass figures wink distantly at Butch Warren's original blues bass line. The composition is constructed cautiously over a light ostinato pipe figure that builds up into a theme dominated by Hancock's Fender Rhodes, alternating between a staccato emphasis on the off-beat and a call-and-response dialogue between Hancock and Bennie Maupin that hovers in eerie suspension over the bass and drums.

Most significantly, the album introduces humour as a central element in the argument: jazz-funk could only be taken seriously as a genre when it mocked itself. Head Hunters drew simultaneously on Herbie Hancock's decade of playing with the jazz greats, the wah-wah sound of Jimi Hendrix's legacy, and the feverish dance sound of Sly Stone and George Clinton. And it did this with the supreme paradoxical humour of simultaneous detachment and involvement that only a master like Hancock could pull off.

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?   Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Herbie's last great album
This album is hugely popular and widely loved for its joyful funkyness. It's one of the (if not "the") best selling jazz albums of all time. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Falstaff
5.0 out of 5 stars A jazz/funk fusion masterpiece
Four truly funky jazz grooves on one classic Herbie Hancock album. If you have only heard the more commercial version of "Watermelon Man" the album version will be a... Read more
Published 2 months ago by sctrainer
5.0 out of 5 stars Headhunters: Herbie Hancock - Herbie goes funk for one of the best...
1973's Headhunters from Jazz great Herbie Hancock is a bit of an oddity in my collection. It is the one jazz rock fusion record that I actually like. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Victor
5.0 out of 5 stars Headhunters: Herbie Hancock - Herbie goes funk for one of the best...
1973's Headhunters from Jazz great Herbie Hancock is a bit of an oddity in my collection. It is the one jazz rock fusion record that I actually like. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Victor
3.0 out of 5 stars What the funk?
My 2004 edition of The Penguin Guide to Jazz tells me this is `the biggest selling jazz record of all time`. My question is: why? Read more
Published 9 months ago by GlynLuke
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!
Saw Herbie live at the Festival Hall in London last year and am a huge fan. LOVED this cd. Extremely groovy! Enjoy!
Published 14 months ago by waff
5.0 out of 5 stars Caution required
If you are not much into jazz, art, inovation, genius or music
AVOID this album.
Saw this album reviewed in a mag, bought it! Read more
Published on 18 Jan 2008 by Dude
5.0 out of 5 stars It melts my veins
Anyone who has heard this album and doesn't give it 5 stars needs the doctor. This is the biggest selling jazz album of all time, and rightly so. Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2006 by molondas
5.0 out of 5 stars er..yes it is
Just checked on my iPod, and my version of Chameleon definatly is Bbm to Eb7.

Oh by the way, great album!
Published on 7 Aug 2006 by Mark J. Lewis
5.0 out of 5 stars Seminal
This is indeed a seminal jazz album... may I correct "Top 500 reviewer" going by the name of "ian17577" - 'Chameleon' is not Bb minor to Eb 7 it is A minor to D7. Read more
Published on 7 Dec 2004 by "chris_coull"
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums


What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback


Amazon.co.uk Privacy Statement Amazon.co.uk Delivery Information Amazon.co.uk Returns & Exchanges