Man-Child

Man-Child
Herbie Hancock's studio album
Publication (s)	1975
Label (s)	Columbia Records
Format (s)	LP, CD
Genre (s)	Funk , jazz
Title (number)	6th
running time	44:47
occupation	Herbie Hancock - synthesizer , piano , electric piano , clavinet Harvey Mason - drums DeWayne McKnight - guitar Ernie Watts - flute and saxophone Wah Wah Watson - synthesizer , guitar Stevie Wonder - harmonica Dick Hyde - tuba and bass trombone Henry Davis - bass Mike Clark - drums Bill Summers - percussion David T. Walker - guitar Bud Brisbois - trumpet Garnett Brown - trombone Jay DaVersa - trumpet James Gadson - drums Jim Horn - flute and saxophone Paul Jackson - bass Louis Johnson - bass Bennie Maupin - bass clarinet , treble recorder , saxello , bass flute, tenor saxophone , soprano saxophone and percussion Wayne Shorter - alto and soprano saxophone
production	Herbie Hancock , Dave Rubinson
chronology Death Wish (1974) Man-Child Flood (1975)

Man-Child is a jazz-funk album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock , released in 1975 on Columbia Records .

background

The album is a funk influenced album by Hancock and represents a further departure from the "spacey higher atmosphere jazz", as he called it, of his earlier career. It was also the last album by the group The Headhunters , whose core is Paul Jackson, Bill Summers, Harvey Mason, Bennie Maupin and Mike Clark formed and with whom Hancock had toured and made recordings in the years before.

The pieces are characterized by short, repetitive riffs in the rhythm section , the brass section and bass lines. Man-Child has fewer elements of improvisation from the band members and focuses on riffs with short solos from the horn section and from Hancock himself on the synthesizer and the Fender Rhodes piano over the repetitive riffs.

On this album, Hancock also increasingly used electric guitars, in continuation of his work on the album Fat Albert Rotunda , which he had recorded five years earlier. The guitarists on this album are Wah Wah Watson, DeWayne "Blackbyrd" McKnight and David T. Walker.

Extensive use of the wah-wah pedal and the accentuation of the chords on the upbeat instead of the downbeat give the album a much more funky rhythm that is broken by stops. The riffs are fast and with repetitive patterns that combine multiple voices (that is, horns, piano, bass, synthesizer, guitar, short vocal interludes by Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock, drums, and percussion). The horn section in Hang Up Your Hang-Ups plays the riffs in unison , which are answered alternately by the electric piano, synthesizer and electric guitar in short periods of call and response .

reception

Alex Henderson wrote about the album on allaboutjazz : "Those who like their jazz with a lot of funk should not miss this album."

According to Richard Cook and Brian Morton , who only gave the album three stars in the Penguin Guide to Jazz , Man-Child was something of a color chart for his bands in the mid-1970s, strong in texture and full of new ones Ideas.

Album pieces

1. Hang Up Your Hang Ups (Hancock, Ragin, Jackson) - 7.27
2. Sun Touch - 05.09
3. Traitor (Hancock, Ragin, Johnson, Shorter) - 9.36
4. Bubbles (Hancock, Ragin) - 8.59
5. Steppin 'in It - 8:36 am
6. Heartbeat (Hancock, Ragin, Jackson) - 5:15

(All compositions by Herbie Hancock, unless otherwise noted)

Cover versions

Janet Jackson covered Hang Up Your Hang Ups for her song All Nite (Don't Stop) . The Fantastischen Vier covered Hang Up Your Hang Ups for their song Nenn Him President on their album 4 Gewinnt .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Those who like their jazz with lots of funk shouldn't miss this one."
2. ↑ Review at allaboutjazz
3. ^ Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .

Web links

• Man-Child at Allmusic (English)