254. Herbie Hancock, "Head Hunters"

 

Longtime readers will know that jazz is my weakest genre in that it's the one I know the least about and, let's be honest, like the least, so when a jazz album shows up on the list I usually sigh heavily and then put it on while I'm working and try to just get through it.  I was expecting pretty much the same here.

I was wrong.  The first song, "Chameleon," starts out with a synth bass line that's immediately catchy and then the other instruments build in, assembling a funk-inspirred groove that does not let up.  I've since found out that it's a jazz classic, and I can see why.  There is a ton going on here, multiple layers, with new sounds introduced just as you've gotten used to the last new sound.

"Sly," the third of four songs on the album, is named for Sly Stone, whose influence on this album Hancock acknowledged.  It also sits somewhere in that Venn diagram between jazz, soul, and funk.  The last track, "Vein Melter," reads to me more like pure jazz, but I could be totally wrong because me talking about jazz is like a chimp explaining particle physics.  I may accidentally get some stuff right, just like the chimp might stumble across the neutrino, but neither one of us really knows what it means oh fuck this analogy didn'tr really work because chimps can't talk but you get the idea.

This was the first million-selling jazz album in history, an album so important there are books about it.  It's, of course, a Pitchfork 10.  I will not sully the good name of music journalism by trying to place it in context or anything, since I don't know shit, but I know I actually enjoyed listening to it, so that's a new thing for me.  

I shall close with a mildly funny Herbie Hancock story.  A friend of mine who's really into jazz saw Herbie play locally, and Herbie told a story about getting a speeding ticket that day.  A few years later, he actually met Herbie at a signing or something, and asked him about the ticket.  Herbie did not pause at all before saying, "That's been taken care of."  You wish you could be that cool.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? I'm sure.