Herbie Hancock Headhunter II

By the late 1980s, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters had long since become a byword for jazz-funk at its most open-ended and inventive. This 1989 set from the Carl-Orff-Saal im Gasteig, part of the Munich Klaviersommer, finds Hancock revisiting that electrified sound world with a formidable band, moving from the elastic grooves of “Chameleon” and “Hang Up Your Hang Ups” to the darker pulse of “Spider” and the floating lyricism of “Maiden Voyage.” A twist comes with Friedrich Gulda, founder of the festival and a fellow boundary-crosser, whose presence underlines the curiosity driving the performance. Funky, exploratory and unapologetically groove-driven, it captures Hancock and his Headhunters playing to a crowd ready for the ride.