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Herbie Hancock’s ‘Head Hunters’ Band Is as Sly as Ever at 50th Anniversary Hollywood Bowl Show: Concert Review
Herbie Hancock's 'Head Hunters' band was sly and funky at a Hollywood Bowl concert celebrating the legendary album's 50th anniversary.
Just as on the original recording, Summers used a beer bottle to imitate the sound of a Zairean hindewho flute as he led his collaborators into “Watermelon Man,” Hancock’s languid reinvention of the track he first composed in 1962 for his debut album “Takin’ Off.” The entire “Head Hunters” record runs only 41 minutes, so it wasn’t unrealistic to expect the group to draw out these live versions, but they somewhat surprisingly trimmed more fat than they chewed, knocking out a dynamite midtempo rendition before immediately moving onto “Sly.” Where its predecessor was a bit faster than the original, this performance slowed things down just a bit as Maupin made a meal out of his sax solo, and Hancock showcased his singular mastery of the keys. That said, “Head Hunters” signaled Hancock’s excursion into melodic (and Abdul-Jabbar underscored, “danceable”) r&b and funk, but he himself was steeped in hard bop, modal, fusion and free jazz, and his bandmates’ younger counterparts kept up admirably on “Overture,” shuffling through each of those subgenres to keep up with their bandleader as he alternated between his Kronos and an acoustic piano. Head Hunters back out on stage for a final kitchen-sink rendition of “Chameleon.” Admittedly, that makes it sound like a free-for-all, but we’re talking about multiple generations of the best jazz musicians in history, and collectively they closed the show with a masterful, exuberant performance.
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