Herbie's herpes

b1-66er: 

https://youtu.be/K3lgmnsTdcA?si=S5oDTNSJWd2yIuhJ

D4rw1n: 

Like the commenter says, I feel measurably cooler listening to that Herbie Hancock Wah Wah Watson track. I tell you, I feel 3-4% cooler just looking at those outfits 

This reminds me of an odd thing that happened in jazz music in the 70s. For many young people (and certainly for me), Herbie Hancock funk tunes were great, but they seemed simplistic compared to earlier forms like the bebop of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. (And by the way a much younger Herbie Hancock played on a lot of bebop records too, which is important). So a lot of us thought we were making our way up the ladder of virtuous music from simplistic funk to much more complex bebop.

But what I didn't really grasp at the time was that Herbie Hancock was making his way in the opposite direction. I somewhat disdained funk and disco, because bebop was more complex and, I thought, therefore more authentic.

I now think Herbie Hancock and many others were seeking to return to the real roots of jazz, which were urgent originally dance forms

If I thought about Herbie Hancock's musical direction at the time, it would've been to think of him as a bit of a sellout. Thinking he was following a trend toward disco, to cash in.

I also think he was just trying to reconnect with a human audience. The bebop audience was shrinking into nothingness because it had gone so complex and inward-looking. Looking back at these tracks like the one you sent really brings it home. They were reconnecting with the joy and beauty of creating music that people could clap, and sing, and dance to