Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters (1973) [Japanese Reissue 2020] MCH SACD ISO + DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Sony Japan continues with their limited edition quad SACD series with one of the greatest masterpieces of the fusion jazz genre. The 1973 “Head Hunters” album from keyboardist Herbie Hancock gets a reissue in multi-channel surround. Not only is the packaging unique to other editions, for the first time, the actual 4 channel quad version of the album has been released in a digital format. This should not be confused with the SACD that was issued by Sony Japan back in 2008, a multi-channel version which was reconfigured from the four channel master tapes. Instead this newly remastered 2020 edition truly gives quadrophonic collectors the original mix on a great format, and directly takes fans back to the 70's quad era.

After recording with Miles Davis over several years starting in 1963, Hancock's solo career blossomed on the Blue Note label with his classic albums Maiden Voyage, Empyrean Isles, and Speak Like a Child. After leaving Miles Davis's group, Hancock put together a new band called The Headhunters and, in 1973, recorded Head Hunters. This album became a pivotal point in his career, bringing him into the limelight of fusion jazz. Drawing heavily from Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield and James Brown, Hancock developed a deep funky, texturally gritty rhythms over which he took liberties with electric synthesizer solos. Maintaining all of the sensibilities of jazz, particularly with his long improvisational solos, he firmly tied jazz to the rhythms of funk, soul, and R&B, in turn giving the album a mass appeal.

Head Hunters was a pivotal point in Herbie Hancock’s career, bringing him into the vanguard of jazz fusion. Hancock had pushed avant-garde boundaries on his own albums and with Miles Davis, but he had never devoted himself to the groove as he did on Head Hunters. Drawing heavily from Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, and James Brown, Hancock developed deeply funky, even gritty, rhythms over which he soloed on electric synthesizers, bringing the instrument to the forefront in jazz. It had all of the sensibilities of jazz, particularly in the way it wound off into long improvisations, but its rhythms were firmly planted in funk, soul, and R&B, giving it a mass appeal that made it the biggest-selling jazz album of all time (a record which was later broken). Jazz purists, of course, decried the experiments at the time, but Head Hunters still sounds fresh and vital decades after its initial release, and its genre-bending proved vastly influential on not only jazz, but funk, soul, and hip-hop.

Tracklist:

01. Chameleon
02. Watermelon Man
03. Sly
04. Vein Melter

Personnel
Herbie Hancock - Fender Rhodes electric piano, Hohner D6 clavinet, ARP Odyssey synthesizer, ARP Soloist synthesizer
Bennie Maupin - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, saxello, bass clarinet, alto flute
Paul Jackson - electric bass guitar, marímbula
Bill Summers - congas, shekere, balafon, agogô, cabasa, hindewhu, tambourine, log drum, surdo, gankogui, beer bottle
Harvey Mason - drums

Recorded at Wally Heider Studios & Different Fur Trading Co., San Francisco, CA.
Original Quadrophonic Sound and Remix Supervision by David Rubinson & Herbie Hancock.
Quadrophonic Remix Engineer: Fred Catero.
Mastered by Mark Wilder & Koji Suzuki.


Thanks to kiukku!
Uncompressed SACD ISO size > 3,11 GB
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