CELEBRATING HERBIE HANCOCK – 50 YEARS THE HEADHUNTERS

American keyboard player and bandleader Herbie Hancock (1940) achieved critical success as a perceptive, harmonically provocative jazz pianist in the 1960s, then went on to gain wide popularity as a leader of electric jazz-rock groups. One of these, Hancock’s band The Headhunters, ushered in a new era of jazz that appealed to a far wider audience, making jazz listeners out of rhythm and blues fans, and vice versa. From the albums ‘Head Hunters’ (1973) and ‘Thrust’ (1974) through to Hancock’s late 1970s work, the influence of Hancock and The Headhunters on the histories of funk and jazz funk cannot be overstated. In 2024, 50 years after Hancock and the Headhunters completed their first year-round tour, Stingray DJAZZ celebrates Hancock’s contribution to jazz funk by broadcasting his 1974 German television appearance with The Headhunters. Herbie Hancock (keys) is joined by Bennie Maupin (saxophones), Paul Jackson (electric bass), Mike Clark (drums) and Bill Summer (percussion) in performances of Palm Grease, Sly, Butterfly, Spank-A-Lee, and Chameleon.