Head Hunters

Personnel: Herbie Hancock (Fender Rhodes piano, Clavinet, synthesizer); Bennie Maupin (soprano & tenor saxophones, saxello, bass clarinet, alto flute); Paul Jackson (marimbula, bass); Harvey Mason (drums); Bill Summers (congas, shekere, balafon, agogo, cabasa, hindewho, tambourine, log drum, surdo, gankoqui, beer bottle).
Recorded at Wally Heider Studios and Different Fur Trading Co., San Francisco, California. Includes liner notes by Scott H. Thompson and Herbie Hancock.
Head Hunters has spawned a thousand copies and copyists, but is only strengthened through comparison. One of the most enduring works of the 70s' jazz/funk legacy, and surely one of Herbie Hancock's most enjoyable and infectious recordings, the album was released in the deeply groovy days of 1973, and soon became the best-selling record in jazz history. Loping along on a glorious bed of springy wah-wah and synth bass, the group used all the new technology of the time, and Hancock himself seemed to revel (as he still does) in the latest keyboard sounds available to him. Jazz/funk has never again sounded so exciting and dangerous.