Latest Release
- 3 FEB 2024
- 76 Songs
- Future Shock · 1983
- Empyrean Isles · 1964
- Head Hunters · 1973
- Street Sounds Presents Jazz Funk Classics, Vol. 1 · 1978
- 80s 100 Hits · 1979
- Head Hunters · 1973
- Head Hunters · 1973
- Cantaloupe Island · 1994
- Speak Like a Child · 1968
- Takin' Off (Expanded Edition) · 1962
Essential Albums
- Jazz purists didn't always thrill to Herbie Hancock's musical innovations. But whether or not they dug it, there was no denying that, with Head Hunters, Hancock opened doors and minds, lending to the birth of jazz fusion and to electronic music. Using an Arp, Fender Rhodes and other synths and keyboards, Hancock gave this 1973 album a feel that somehow remains timeless. And the rest of the ensemble locked right into this funk-jazz vision. Bennie Maupin's reeds lend just the right warmth to these sessions. Bassist Paul Jackson puts a bottom on "Chameleon" that rips floorboards clean from their roots. It's the perfect groove for Hancock's funky, screechy, and lucid solos. Hancock reworks his own standard, "Watermelon Man," in a completely new mode, creating a more tribal, urgent statement than anyone knew the song could elicit.
- 1973
- 1968
- Maiden Voyage sounds like the title of a debut, but it was Herbie Hancock’s fifth outing for Blue Note, recorded all in one day in March 1965, when the young piano master was in the thick of his association with the trailblazing Miles Davis Quintet. The Maiden Voyage line-up was in fact a version of Davis’ band, with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet in place of Davis, Wayne Shorter’s predecessor George Coleman on tenor saxophone, and the unrivalled rhythm section of bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams. (The same line-up, without Coleman, appeared on Hancock’s Empyrean Isles in 1964.) The short yet impactful program includes some of Hancock’s most famous and widely played compositions, including the title track, with its mesmerising vamp and hovering chords; “The Eye of the Hurricane”, with its darting obstacle course of a theme leading to galloping minor-key blues; and “Dolphin Dance”, a model of advanced harmony and lyrical songcraft, the perfect modern midtempo swing tune to bring it to a close. “Survival of the Fittest” points to a kind of open-form improvisation that Tony Williams and others on Blue Note were exploring at this time. (“The Egg” from Empyrean Isles is another specimen.) And “Little One”, recorded in rawer form by the Miles Davis Quintet two months earlier for the album E.S.P., gains a bit more expressive clarity here in the out-of-tempo passages (the contrast between the Shorter and Coleman tenor solos also proves fascinating). Arguably, it’s “Little One” that best captures the album’s dark and magical mood, which Nora Kelly sought to evoke in her impressionist liner notes: “A single ship, perhaps on her maiden voyage, her mast a black spike against the sky, hovers near the horizon, until the curving waters sink her sail from view.”
- 2016
- 2010
- 2005
- 1998
- 1997
Music Videos
- 2004
- 2004
- 1978
Artist Playlists
- A soul jazz master who played for Miles and advanced hip-hop.
- A pioneering jazz musician's compositions—and what they inspired.
- Even outside the spotlight, the jazz giant shines in these soulful selections.
- Jazz and pop creativity that flows like an unpredictable stream.
- Their original tunes have been the source material for some of modern music’s biggest hits.
Live Albums
Appears On
- George Duke
- Freddie Hubbard
- Toots Thielemans & Tony Mottola
More To Hear
- Innovative jazz, funk, and electronic sounds of Herbie Hancock.
- Vince shares music from Young Pappy, Herbie Hancock and Kanye.
About Herbie Hancock
If Herbie Hancock had faded from view after his momentous mid-’60s stint with the Miles Davis Quintet and his pioneering Blue Note releases in the same period, his reputation as one of the most consequential pianists in jazz history would still have been assured. But Hancock repeatedly changed course, from the abstract electric jazz of his Mwandishi sextet to the tightly coiled jazz-funk fusion of Head Hunters to his prescient electronic experimentation with producer Bill Laswell in the ’80s. The Chicago-born Hancock achieved commercial success on his own terms, following a genuine creative path while ignoring barriers between jazz and pop (the title shared by his 2005 album and his 2014 memoir, Possibilities, said much about his worldview). He remains a “Chameleon”, true to his signature track from 1973, covering songs by his friend and collaborator Joni Mitchell and working alongside Kendrick Lamar, Thundercat and Flying Lotus in the studio.
- HOMETOWN
- Chicago, IL, United States
- BORN
- 12 April 1940
- GENRE
- Jazz