Each piece functions well. Only on 'Mercy Street', so dear to me as Peter Gabriel's deeply moving original song, it took a bit longer to adjust my ears to this livelier and faster interpretation. An A class jazz concert musically, but the DVD could have been fancier in every aspect. The camera work is of average level, concentrating mostly on playing hands. The album starts off with what is very comfortably the best track, Chameleon, immediately drawing the listener in with it's masterful bassline, which while quite simple also carries such an insane groove to it that I find it hard to not immediately love it.
This is further accentuated by the way that every other component of the song serves almost purely as ways to further elevate the bass of this, making an already great aspect of the song feel that much better. I also noticed that this track does the same thing as another classic Hancock song, Cantaloupe Island, where the tempo steadily increases, but does it in a subtle enough way that it's completely plausible to not pick up on this, but still feel as if it's intensifying.
Watermelon Man is a more traditionally jazzy song, with a lot more focus one just jamming out, with a lot of the funkier aspects still being there, but nowhere near as prominent, accompanying the other elements rather than being the core focus of it. All in all very fun and chilled out, I like the instrumentation choices as well, with the broad range of percussion such as the surdo and agogo bells giving it quite a unique sound.
After the more slow paced nature of Watermelon Man, Sly goes for the completely opposite approach, being blisteringly fast paced and intense, the initial groove quickly being abandoned for wild interplay that feels as if it keeps spiralling further and further out of control. While not as amazingly crafted as Chameleon, depending on the day this honestly surpasses it for me, although barely, especially with how smoothly it transitions back into the melody from its intro, bringing it all together extremely nicely.
The album closes off with Vein Melter, a track I find both great but also a bit disappointing, being far more conventionally jazz fusion compared to the extremely fun funkiness of everything else here. I also feel like for something with a title as cool sounding as Vein Melter, the lack of intensity here is a bit of a letdown.
Even so, this is definitely one that grows on you, initially feeling quite boring, but gradually revealing its greatness, especially in how relaxing it is, bringing the album to a close in what's probably not the most representative way, but it still works regardless and serves as a cool down after the intensity of Sly.
In the end, this works incredibly well as an entry point into jazz fusion and even jazz in general, with a great amount of variation in between the 4 tracks keeping things fresh, while also ensuring that it all sticks to a consistent sound and aesthetic, giving some cohesion to the variation.
This is just a very consistent fun time that's honestly something I consider essential to demonstrate the more accessible side of the genre, so I strongly recommend this extremely vibrant, colourful album. His traditional jazz period lasted from his debut and lasted to his release 'The Prisoner' but starting with his following album 'Fat Albert Rotunda' a new phase began that incorporated funk and fusion elements which spawned some of his most celebrated era for prog oriented fans with the Mwandishi Trilogy followed by a series of funk jazz classics including 'Head Hunters.
For a funk oriented disco album this one is unusual in that it contains only six tracks with four passing the seven minute mark however this isn't progressive disco or anything of the sort.
This is an album's worth of funk guitar rhythms, reserved keyboards that often imitates horn sections and disco percussive beats accompanied by smooth soulful vocals from several different singers.
While jazz is hardly the focus here it's not completely absent it's more of a sampled jazz pop kept from getting too wild in the confines of a funk groove. While it sounds like a horrible idea as a hardcore progger and jazz stalwart i'm certainly not put off by simpler music with soulful lyrics and steady beats it's not the kind of album you'd expect from one of the fusion masters of jazz.
I can't say that MONSTER really stands out from the plethora of similarly sounding albums of the era and fails to produce any real zingers that make you want to return for listens. This era would start the era of HANCOCK's unpredictable output but at this point its' safe to conclude that his best works remained in the past.
On the newer remastered editions are several bonus tracks but in the end i'm quite satisfied with owning the original six tune release because that's about all i can really handle of this. On that album he employed the talents of bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart, and a trio of horn players: Eddie Henderson trumpet , Julian Priester trombone , and multi-reedist Bennie Maupin which despite resulting in a lackluster sales performance still managed to garner critical acclaim.
In addition to the seven main members, there are additional performers with congas and chorus vocals. The opening track 'Sleeping Giant' was monumental in scope. The near 25 minute track opens in an eruption of tribal percussion as if a war dance were being performed in the distant deepest jungles of the Congo. This newest development displaysed HANCOCK's infatuation with the percussive explorations of Sun Ra's avant-garde jazz escapades that quietly fueled the underground jazz world of the 60s.
While the percussive drive is completely outside the purview of the lockstep orthodoxies that the jazz world had settled into, the orgy of pummeling drums and congas juxtaposes the ancient traditional African rhythms alongside more sanctioned modern jazz styles. The track subtly introduces electronic counterpoints until it finally erupts in the fully fueled funk fusion that provides the main harmonic drive throughout the album.
The album is basically split between this lengthy track, originally as the entire side one on vinyl which was written by HANCOCK while the second side which contains the other two tracks were written by Maupin. Around the seven minute mark the percussion ceases and it becomes a spacier form of spiritual jazz with both modal styled keyboard tinkling but the funk bass wrests control of the formless fluttering about of the angularity and nudges the the rhythmic groove back into the a more structured flow as if playing tug-of-war with the horn section's desire to go fully freeform.
Eventually the funk wins as it sounds more like the completely controlled funk fusion of the 'Fat Albert Rotunda' album. The track continues to drift in and out of funk and spacier airy fairy jazz until it reaches its conclusion. Thursday 23 September Friday 24 September Saturday 25 September Sunday 26 September Monday 27 September Tuesday 28 September Wednesday 29 September Thursday 30 September Friday 1 October Saturday 2 October Sunday 3 October Monday 4 October Tuesday 5 October Wednesday 6 October Thursday 7 October Friday 8 October Saturday 9 October Sunday 10 October Monday 11 October Tuesday 12 October Wednesday 13 October Thursday 14 October Friday 15 October Saturday 16 October Sunday 17 October Monday 18 October Tuesday 19 October Wednesday 20 October Thursday 21 October Friday 22 October Saturday 23 October Sunday 24 October Monday 25 October Tuesday 26 October Wednesday 27 October Thursday 28 October Friday 29 October Saturday 30 October Sunday 31 October Monday 1 November Tuesday 2 November Wednesday 3 November Thursday 4 November Friday 5 November Saturday 6 November Sunday 7 November Monday 8 November Tuesday 9 November Wednesday 10 November Thursday 11 November Friday 12 November Saturday 13 November Sunday 14 November Monday 15 November Tuesday 16 November This quintet is often regarded as one of the finest jazz ensembles, and the rhythm section has been especially praised for its innovation and flexibility.
The second great quintet was where Hancock found his own voice as a pianist. Not only did he find new ways to use common chords, he also popularized chords then rarely used in jazz.
Hancock also developed a unique taste for "orchestral" accompaniment - using fourths and Debussy-like harmonies, with stark contrasts then unheard of in jazz. With Williams and Carter he would weave a labyrinth of rhythmic intricacy on, around and over existing melodic and chordal schemes. In the later half of the sixties their approach would be so sophisticated and unorthodox that conventional chord changes would hardly be discernible, hence their improvisational concept would become known as "Time, No Changes.
His albums Empyrean Isles and Maiden Voyage were to be two of the most famous and influential jazz LPs of the sixties, winning praise for both their innovation and accessibility the latter demonstrated by the subsequent enormous popularity of the Maiden Voyage title track as a jazz standard, and by the jazz rap group US3 having a hit single with "Cantaloop" derived from "Cantaloupe Island" on Empyrean Isles some twenty five years later. Both albums are regarded as among the principal foundations of the post-bop style.
Hancock also recorded several less-well-known but still critically acclaimed albums with larger ensembles?
During this period, Hancock also composed the score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup which was to be the first of many soundtracks he would record in his career. Davis had begun incorporating elements of rock and popular music into his recordings by the end of Hancock's tenure with the band. Despite some initial reluctance, Hancock began doubling on electric keyboards including the Fender Rhodes electric piano at Davis's insistence.
Hancock adapted quickly to the new instruments, which proved to be instrumental in his future artistic endeavors. Under the pretext that Hancock returned late from a honeymoon in Brazil, he was kicked out of Davis' band. So in the summer of Hancock formed his own sextet. Davis would soon disband his quintet to search for a new sound. Hancock though, despite his departure from the working band, continued to appear on Miles Davis records for the next few years. One of the jazzier songs on the record, "Tell Me A Bedtime Story", was later re-worked as a more electronic sounding song for the Quincy Jones album, Sounds Hancock was fascinated with accumulating musical gadgets and toys.
Together with the profound influence of Davis's Bitches Brew, this fascination would culminate in a series of albums in which electronic instruments are coupled with acoustic instruments. Hancock's first ventures into electronic music started with a sextet comprising Hancock, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart, and a trio of adventurous horn players: Eddie Henderson trumpet , Julian Priester trombone , and multireedist Bennie Maupin.
Patrick Gleeson was eventually added to the mix to play and program the synthesizers. In fact, Hancock was one of the first jazz pianists to completely embrace electronic keyboards. The sextet, later a septet with the addition of Gleeson, made three experimental albums under Hancock's name: Mwandishi , Crossings both on Warner Bros.
Records , and Sextant released on Columbia Records ; two more, Realization and Inside Out, were recorded under Henderson's name with essentially the same personnel. The music often had very free improvisations and showed influence from the electronic music of some contemporary classical composers. On Crossings as well as on I Sing the Body Electric , the synthesizer is used more as an improvisatory global orchestration device than as a strictly melodic instrument. This reflected Gleeson's and Powell's interest in contemporary European electronic music techniques and in the West Coast synthesis techniques of Morton Subotnick and other contemporaries, several of whom were resident at one time or another, as was Gleeson, at The Mills College Tape Music Center.
An early review of Crossings in Downbeat magazine complained about the synthesizer, but a few years later the magazine noted in a cover story on Gleeson that he was "a pioneer" in the field of electronics in jazz. In the albums following The Crossings, Hancock started to play synth himself and unlike Gleeson, he plays it as a melodical and rhythm instrument just like electric pianos. Empty Pockets - 66 BPM. Driftin' - 59 BPM. The Maze - 88 BPM. Glitterbox - Discotheque.
Glitterbox Recordings. Catz 'n Dogz - "Good Touch feat. Bawrut - "Pioneers" - BPM. Oscar Brown Jr - "Mr. Kicks" - 97 BPM. IRM 09 May 17 Jazz. Hornets - BPM. Interlude - BPM. Hornets 2 - BPM. Gibralter - BPM. RR 01 Jul 16 Jazz. DJ Vas.
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