Headhunters 24 Bit

The music of Herbie Hancock has affected the lives of generations of jazz performers. Like many of these musicians, it was the opportunity to play with the great pianist/composer that introduced the great drummer Mike Clark to the jazz world at large. To show his appreciation, Clark presents a selection of his favorite Hancock pieces performed with a trio on his new recording, Mike Clark Plays Herbie Hancock.

'Big Time Things' is a story of crossed wires and missed connections, sleepless nights and scrapped plans. On the third album from Office Culture, the Brooklyn-based band led by pianist-songwriter Winston Cook-Wilson, the magic is in how every element of their texturally rich, emotionally complex music conjures these same visions. The choruses offer humble pledges (“I only want you to be happy”) and uneasy interruptions (“Stop, I feel nervous”); the band swells and sprawls; the arrangements incorporate strings, horns, and backing vocals, suggesting how each moment casts its own shadow.

To celebrate our 10th anniversary as Emily Francis Trio, we are delighted to present the remastered version of our debut album "The Absent".

Sometimes there are musicians who seem to be fated to collaborate. They can come from different places and, even different generations, but their connection will be immediate and deep. This is the type of relationship that has developed between legendary drummer Mike Clark and stellar saxophonist Michael Zilber. Their friendship and musical cohesiveness can be felt immediately upon hearing their new recording, Mike Drop.

A veteran of numerous straight-ahead jazz, R&B, and pop sessions, drummer/composer Harvey Mason revisits his own fusion past on "Chameleon". The Fourplay co-founder gathered both his peers and next-generation players for this revisitation of electric jazz classics from the '70s. A blend of R&B, urban and cutting-edge Jazz, "Chameleon" takes its inspiration from the title track, which drummer Harvery Mason co-wrote with Herbie Hancock in 1973. Mason himself was eventually nicknamed the “Chameleon” for his ability to perform so many styles of music.

"Sextant" is Herbie Hancock’s 1973 masterpiece. The recording is his final album with his Mwandishi Band. The musicians perform a brilliant set that includes the standouts, “Rain Dance,” “Hidden Shadows” and “Hornets”. The compositions are complex and rhythmically challenging. This electric, fusion-based work reached #3 on Billboard’s Top Jazz albums.

As the world plummeted into the COVID-19 pandemic, the four members of Black Stone Cherry were nestled deep in the woods of Kentucky, scrambling to complete their 7th album. There, they could feel the disease closing in as they watched the news daily, and it became apparent the album they were finishing featured lyrics that were eerily prescient. The resulting 13-track record is broadly emotive, and anthemic. It was finished just before the global lockdown was imposed, and it's aptly titled, The Human Condition.

"Sunlight" originated as a UK import album in 1978. The album is viewed as more funk than jazz and encounters the beginnings of Herbie's electro-funk stage heard in some of his later albums. Sunlight features the UK single "I Thought It Was You".

In 2022, Legendary Saxman Frank Catalano will be touring the USA, Europe and Asia extensively as well as releasing a collection of recordings from his many performances at New York’s legendary Birdland Jazz Club. These recordings feature Herbie Hancock Headhunters alum Mike Clark and will be Frank’s 5th album on the Ropeadope label.