Few artists in the music industry had more influence on acoustic and electronic jazz and R&B than Herbie Hancock. In 1963 Miles Davis invited Hancock to join the Miles Davis Quintet. During their five years together Herbie recorded many classics with the jazz legend, including "ESP", "Nefertiti" and "Sorcerer", and later also played on Davis' groundbreaking albums "In A Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew".

Hancock's own solo career thrived with Blue Note, with classical albums such as "Maiden Voyage", "Empyrean Isles" and "Speak Like A Child". After leaving Davis' troupe, Herbie put together a new band, called The Headhunters, and recorded "Head Hunters" in 1973. This was a key point in Hancock's career that gave him a pioneering role in fusion jazz. Hancock had pushed the boundaries of the avant-garde both on his own albums and with Miles Davis, but never before had he devoted himself so much to groove as on 'Head Hunters'.

Building heavily on Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield and James Brown, Hancock developed very unconventional, even courageous rhythms, which he overplayed with solos on electric synthesizers, bringing this instrument to the forefront of jazz. The recordings all had the extraordinary sensitivity of jazz, especially when Hancock got lost in long improvisations, but the rhythms were firmly rooted in funk, soul and R&B, making the record so attractive to a wide audience that it became the best-selling jazz album to date (a record that was later surpassed).

Jazzpurists naturally tried to talk the experiment down, but 'Head Hunters' still sounds fresh and alive four decades after the first release and Hancock's transformation of the genre proved to be enormously influential not only for jazz, but also for funk, soul and hiphop.

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