Pitchfork乐评拙译

Head Hunters

Herbie Hancock

10/10

In 1973, Herbie Hancock, a virtuosic jazz dissident, stomped out an entire history of sound when he walked out a bassline on a modular synthesizer. This was not someone's upright acoustic bass played with calloused fingers, it was preprogrammed on a circuit board obscured inside a small wooden box, amplified by some hidden electrical process. And it wasn't one bassline crawling out of the speakers, it was two, dubbed on top of each other, split across the stereo field, blasphemed onto what was ostensibly a jazz recording in post-production.

在1973年，神乎其技的爵士传统叛逆者Herbie Hancock凭借着用模块合成器弹出来的低音线颠覆了整个爵士声响的历史。该低音线并不是某个老乐手直接在原声贝斯上弹出来的，相反，它由一个装在小木盒里的电声键盘重新编排，并经由一堆电子程序把它的声音放大。我们能听到的低音线还不止一条，它由两条互相建构但分开整个听觉场域的不同低音线构成。它亵渎了表面上的爵士乐后期制作传统。

For purists, it was just another heretical element on another album of heresy from yet another jazz pioneer turned iconoclast. The afterimages of Miles Davis' blinding turn toward the electric music a few years earlier were still being processed by audiences, players, and critics alike. Hancock, having played keys for six years with Miles Davis' Second Great Quintet, had his own gauntlet to throw. Inspired by the power he saw in James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone, Hancock wanted to quit wafting in the rarified air of acoustic and avant-garde jazz. “I was not trying to make a jazz record,” Hancock said later. He wanted to get low, down to the floor, through the earth. He wanted to make a pure funk record. Instead, he made Head Hunters.

对于爵士老顽固们来说，这一举措只不过是另一张“变成异端的爵士先锋”做的异端专辑里的一个异端元素罢了。早些时候，Miles Davis[1]“灾难性地”向电声转型之举依然被食古不化的听众，乐手和评论界不断鞭尸。现在，同样的批评对着在Miles Davis的五重奏乐队里弹过6年键盘的Hancock虎视眈眈。在以James Brown[2]和Sly & the Family Stone[3]为代表的放克乐的力量影响下，Hancock不再想在传统爵士凝固的稀薄空气里随波逐流。“这次我不做爵士专辑了。”不久后他说。他想要把他音乐的姿态放低，放在狂欢的舞池里，坚实到击穿地心。他想要做一张纯粹的放克专辑。于是，他做出了Head Hunters。

A year before Hancock plunked out that bassline, his woodwind player, Bennie Maupin, sat among the sold-out crowd at Los Angeles Coliseum for Wattstax, a 1972 benefit concert sometimes referred to as “Black Woodstock.” Every marquee artist from the iconic Memphis soul label Stax performed that August afternoon—from the Staple Singers to the Bar-Kays to Isaac Hayes, who closed the concert wearing a gold chainmail cape. The eight-hour show meant to “give back to the community” in the primarily black Watts neighborhood, which had been torn by riots seven years earlier. Tickets were $1, and the security force was entirely black and unarmed. With over 110,000 in attendance, it was then the largest gathering of African Americans in one place since the civil rights March on Washington in 1963.

就在Hancock弹出那条低音线一年前，他的管乐手Bennie Maupin正坐在人满为患的洛杉矶体育馆里——那时，那里正举行着被誉为“黑人的伍德斯托克音乐节[4]”的瓦兹塔克斯义演。当时，从Staple Singers[5]到Bar-Kays[6]再到穿着一件金链子斗篷压轴登场的Isaac Hayes[7]，每一个来自孟菲斯著名灵魂乐厂牌“Stax”的大牌都贡献了精彩表演。这场八小时的表演意在“将音乐的力量带回到百姓那里”。演出在从前的黑人社区“沃茨街坊”举行，七年前，那里被一场暴乱[8]撕裂。演出的票价仅仅1美元，所有保安都是没有装备武器的黑人。超过十一万观众参与了此次演出，这使它成为了自1963年华盛顿大游行[9]以来最盛大的美国黑人集会。

Maupin, a 32-year-old jazz woodwindist nonpareil from Detroit, had been playing with Hancock for the previous three years on a trilogy of experimental albums known as Hancock's Mwandishi period, from the Swahili name for “composer” that he had adopted at the time. Mwandishi (1971), Crossings (1972) and Sextant (1973) were lofty, sometimes electronic excursions, all influenced deeply by jazz's big extinction event, Miles Davis' 1970 album Bitches Brew. The Mwandishi group would sometimes sit in the tour bus and listen to records by German electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen at Hancock's request. In the studio they were incorporating the vanguard production techniques of Bitches Brew, which were verboten in traditionalist jazz circles: extensive editing, amplified instruments, two drummers, overdubs, synth loops. Having played bass clarinet on Bitches Brew, Maupin served as real connective tissue from the most infamous jazz record to the second most infamous jazz record: Head Hunters. When Hancock disbanded the Mwandishi group in search of a new sound, Maupin was the only member he kept.

来自底特律的Maupin是一位32岁的爵士管乐大师。在这之前的三年，他一直和Hancock在后者的实验爵士三部曲“旺达希”（这个名字来自斯瓦西里语中的“作曲家”）中合作。Mwandishi，Crossings和Sextant这三张专辑都达到了伟大的高度。有些时候，专辑中出现了晦涩的电子乐编排。这三张专辑都深受“传统爵士乐消亡的重大事件”——Miles Davis于1970年发行的专辑Bitches Brew[10]影响。在Hancock的要求下，“旺达希三部曲”的乐手们有时候坐在巡演大巴里听德国电子乐先锋Karlheinz Stockhausen的专辑。在录音室中，他们吸收了Bitches Brew的先进制作技术。这些在“正统爵士乐迷”那里被嗤之以鼻的技术包括扩张性的后期剪辑，被放大的器乐演奏，两个鼓手的配置，overdub[11]以及合成器循环段落。已经在Bitches Brew里吹过低音单簧管的Maupin成为了横贯在爵士史上最“臭名昭著”的专辑和第二“臭名昭著”的专辑（Head Hunters）的桥梁。当Hancock为了寻找新的声响效果而解散了“旺达希三部曲”的乐队时，Maupin是唯一一个被他留下来的成员。

The heady strains of the Mwandishi era were a lot more highfalutin than the music Maupin witnessed at Wattstax, though. As the bands grooved to soul, R&B, and funk onstage, Maupin watched a group of young kids dancing the funky robot, popping and locking their joints at right angles. “I just started to hear in my mind melodies centered around that kind of movement,” Maupin later said. The melody: two little hitches, a staccato double-tap, followed by a bluesy riff down a minor pentatonic scale. Tributaries of jazz history flowed through Maupin, who had played with hard bop greats like Lee Morgan and avant-garde pioneers like Pharoah Sanders in the previous decade. But at Wattstax, he was tapping into a broader, more popular, more body-focused black experience. The music Hancock was plotting, like the melody Maupin imagined, drew from the politics of the Watts Riots and Black Nationalism and the counterculture, but also the beat, the one, the groove that made kids want to free their mind and dance.

虽然但是，Hancock在“旺达希”时代做出的音乐要比Maupin在瓦兹塔克斯见证的音乐更加疯批。当乐队演奏着律动强劲的灵魂乐，R&B和放克乐时，Maupin看着一群年轻人疯狂扭动着身体，将他们的关节放在恰当的位置，像一群机器人一样跳舞。“我听到了在我脑中播放的，专为这样的舞蹈而生的旋律。”Maupin在此之后说道。这段旋律由一个断续的军鼓和连接它们的两个小动机组成，接下来，一个小调五声音阶布鲁斯riff跟进。Maupin见证过爵士历史上星光熠熠的洪流。在之前的十年中，他曾经和Lee Morgan[12]那样的硬波普大师，以及Pharoah Sanders[13]那样的先锋爵士先驱合作过。但在瓦兹塔克斯，他进入了一个更广博，更流行，也更能调动人们感官的黑人音乐世界。Hancock想做的东西和Maupin脑海中的旋律具有不约而同的特质。它们都从类似于“沃兹暴动”，黑人民族主义和反文化思潮的政治理念中汲取营养，并且它们都吸收了放克乐中能让年轻人们解放思想，跳起舞来的节拍和律动。

When the concert let out, Maupin brought his riff idea based on the funky robot back to Hancock at a rehearsal space in Los Angeles, where he fed it to the newly assembled Head Hunters lineup. Maupin didn't use the woozy timbre of the bass clarinet but rather the gritty R&B sound of the tenor sax. The upheaval of avant-garde and the donning of funk all poured into “Chameleon,” an indefatigable 15-minute track that staked a new epoch for jazz the minute Hancock plunked out its bassline. Nothing was what it seemed: the bassline was a synth; the guitar-sounding riff was a bass, played by Bay Area funk stylist Paul Jackson in the altissimo register. Hancock plays his clavinet like Hendrix comping time with a wah-wah pedal. The in-demand R&B session drummer Harvey Mason plays in a straight-eighth funk feel, like Clyde Stubblefield did behind James Brown. “Chameleon” slid in and out of the downbeat of '70s funk, the looseness of cool jazz, the musical modes of R&B, all while drawing upon the rhythms of Anlo-Ewe and Afro-Cuban drumming, black counterculture, and the vanguard of modular synthesizers.

伍兹塔克斯义演结束之后，Maupin把他基于放克乐的riff想法在洛杉矶的一个排练房带给了Hancock和刚刚成立的Head Hunters乐队阵容。Maupin没有采用音色含混的低音单簧管，而是用高音萨克斯创造出了一种坚实的R&B声响。先锋爵士的动荡之声和放克乐的包装被注入到了Chameleon中。在Hancock弹出它的低音线那一刻起，这首仿佛永不疲倦般延续十五分钟的曲子就为爵士乐的新时代奠定了基础。光靠听，你绝对猜不出来耳朵里的声音是由什么乐器发出来的：这条貌似是贝斯的低音线是合成器演奏的，那个听起来像是吉他的riff实际上是由湾区放克大师Paul Jackson演奏的听感很高的贝斯。Hancock像Jimi Hendrix用哇音踏板那样弹着电声键盘。极受欢迎的R&B雇佣鼓手[14]Harvey Mason用放克乐的律动，像Clyde Stubblefield[15]为James Brown那样打着鼓。Chameleon这首乐曲汲取了非洲原始部落和非裔古巴人的鼓声律动，黑人的反文化思潮和模块合成器的先锋实验元素。它带着我们经过70年代放克乐的起落，经过酷派爵士[16]的灵活结构和R&B的音乐模式。

All this blending of traditional instruments and technology, of black American and African sound, was reflected on the album's cover: Next to Maupin, there's Jackson holding a Fender bass; Mason clutching a snare; a virtually unknown percussionist from the Bay Area, Bill Summers, holding gourd rattles. Front and center is Hancock, his face covered with something resembling the ritual kple kple mask worn by the Baoulé people of the Ivory Coast—the eyes, however, are radio knobs, and the mouth is a VU meter, an electronic tool for measuring loudness.

所有在传统乐器和音乐技术基础上的融合和非洲化的声响都能从Head Hunters的专辑封面上看出来。在Maupin的身边，Jackson拿着一把芬达牌的贝斯，Mason抓着军鼓，一个来自湾区，之前没什么名气的打击乐手Bill Summers拿着一个葫芦状的拨浪鼓。Hancock坐在中间，他的脸上盖着一个像是象牙海岸边的巴乌勒人进行宗教仪式时戴的面具。但面具的眼部是收音机旋钮，嘴巴是一种测量响度的电子器械。

A satellite view of Head Hunters reveals a vast bazaar of cultures and genres, a complicated interchange of artistic and personal histories. Recorded in a single week and released shortly thereafter, on October 13, 1973, it spent 42 weeks on the Billboard chart, becoming the first platinum-selling jazz album, as it was being slammed by critics as a rapacious commercial move. It was an album that captured jazz as it broke out and mingled with America, appealing both to the Wattstax crowd and to white suburbia. “Sure I'm getting a bigger white audience,” Hancock said a year after the album's release. “But I'm also getting a big black audience, which I never had...I've finally been able to come out with some music the general black public can relate to.”

纵观Head Hunters这张专辑，它是一个不同文化与流派间的大熔炉，也是艺术历史和私人经验间复杂的交流之地。这张专辑的录制仅仅花费了一周时间，不久后，该专辑于1973年10月13日发行。它在公告牌榜单上呆了42周，成为了第一张达到白金销量的爵士专辑。与此同时，乐评界认为它是一次贪婪的商业恰饭之举，对其大加鞭笞。这张专辑敏锐地捕捉到了爵士乐刚刚在与美国文化交媾中诞生时的模样，并以这样的姿态吸引着从黑人群众到白人中产在内的每个人。“我当然有了更多的白人听众，”Hancock在专辑发行一年后说道。“但我同样有了更多的黑人听众，这是我从未做到过的......我终于做出了普通黑人群众也能沉浸其中的音乐。”

By 1973, rock, pop, and R&B had been cannibalizing the jazz audience for over a decade. In the wake of Miles' electric albums, jazz fusion groups like the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, and Return to Forever tried to capture both sides of the aisle. The walls were crumbling between the haughty air of jazz and what was being played on commercial radio. Taking a cynical view, jazz historian Grover Sales put it this way: “Some bored rock artists had been gravitating towards jazz because they were bored, while jazz players dallied with rock to recapture their dwindling audience.” In the eyes of purists, fusion groups had poisoned the sanctity of jazz, for reasons ranging from crass commercialization of what was once a pure art form to something more pernicious. Head Hunters co-producer David Rubinson said that “jazz fusion meant... white people playing black music.”

在1973年的过去至少十年内，摇滚，流行乐和节奏布鲁斯不断蚕食着爵士乐的听众。在Miles Davis的电声专辑感召下， 像Mahavishnu Orchestra[17]，Weather Report[18]和Return to Forever[19]那样的融合爵士乐队不断尝试着把爵士与时兴的音乐风格融合起来。架在阳春白雪的爵士乐和商业化的流行乐之间的高墙正在崩塌。爵士史学家Grover Sales曾以一种刻薄的视角如是说：“有些饱食终日的滚青就因为他们没事可做，所以才被爵士吸引；同样有些玩爵士的，为了吸引他们那点日渐减少的听众而选择在摇滚乐上浪费时间。”在那些爵士老顽固眼中，融合爵士乐队已经抹杀了爵士的神圣传统。他们的理由包括“融合爵士是一种商业化的粗鄙举动”和“曾经是纯粹艺术的爵士乐如今变成了泔水桶”。专辑的联合制作人David Rubinson如是说：“融合爵士意味着......白人玩黑人音乐。”

But Head Hunters avoids the fussy, technical chops of those fusion groups, and instead sinks deeply into funk. In a 1985 interview, Hancock revealed his mindset going into making a pure funk record: “When I heard [Sly & the Family Stone's] “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” it just went to my core. I didn't know what he was doing. I mean, I heard the chorus, but how could he think of that? I was afraid that was something I couldn't do. And here I am, I call myself a musician. It bothered me…I decided to try my hand at funk.”

但Head Hunters避免了其他融合爵士乐队技术上的烦人事，反而一个猛子扎进了放克的海洋。在1985年的一次采访中，Hancock说明了他为什么要做一张纯粹的放克专辑：“当我听到Sly & the Family Stone的Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)这首歌时，它深深地震撼了我，我不知道他在干什么。我听到了他的和声，但他怎么能想出来的啊？我觉得恐怕我做不出这种感觉。但是我依然在这，依然觉得自己是个音乐家。这事让我挺矛盾的......我决定试着去做放克。”

Like jazz, funk was, at its genesis, a wholly black and political genre, tempered in the Black Power movement of the '60s and carried forth into the Nixon era by Brown, Sly, George Clinton, Curtis Mayfield, and others. For all of funk's nastiness and ecstasy, its subversive emancipation of mind and ass, its no-pretense elemental nature, Rickey Vincent, in his 1995 book on the history of funk, lands on a long-view definition. He writes that funk is “...an aesthetic of deliberate confusion, soulful behavior that remains viable because of a faith in instinct, a joy of self, and a joy of life, particularly unassimilated black American life.” The black roots of Head Hunters create this underground communion of joy, a funky celebration of all that is modern and ancient.

像爵士乐一样，放克在它的创始之初就是一个完完全全的，关乎黑人与政治的流派。它在上世纪60年代的黑人权力运动中被锻造成型。它在尼克松时代被James Brown，Sly & the Family Stone，George Clinton[20]和 Curtis Mayfield[21]等艺术家推上了高峰。放克乐种那种肮脏下流的致幻感和毫无托辞的本性彻底解放了民众的头脑和性欲。Rickey Vincent在他1995年的，关于放克乐历史的书里给它下了一个立足长远的定义。他写道放克乐“是一种关乎精微困惑的美学，一种由于本性中的信念，自我与生活的愉悦感，特别是原汁原味的非裔美国人生活而力求变通的，灵魂深处的举动。”Head Hunters的黑人音乐根源造就了这张地下的欢乐集会，它是关乎古今的放克狂欢。

Funk was psychedelic dance music, working-class rebellion, something elusive and unattainable to a mainstream white audience. And as always, mainstream America drank deep from this new well of underground black music. It made Hancock rich—and the numerous times “Chameleon” and “Watermelon Man” have been sampled in hip-hop only made him richer. But it was a sticking point for critics who called the great jazz piano player a pop sell-out. Members of the jazz cognoscenti did not want the hem of their garments sullied with the commercial slop of popular music. In conversation with famous jazz grouch Wynton Marsalis, Hancock defended Head Hunters not as an album that set out to make money, but an album that happened to make money. “Look I'd like to have a Rolls-Royce,” Hancock said, “but I'm not trying to set myself up to get a Rolls-Royce.”

放克乐是一种迷幻的舞曲，也是工薪阶级对权威的反抗。它对于主流的白人听众来说神秘而无法企及。像往常一样，美国民众对这汪黑人音乐的深井之水甘之如饴。Head Hunters让Hancock发了财，而嘻哈制作人对专辑中的“Chameleon” 和“Watermelon Man”的采样给了他更多的钱。但这张专辑对于那些把这位伟大的爵士钢琴家称为“商业炸子鸡”的评论家来说是个耻辱。那些爵士乐的所谓“行家”可不想让他们眼中纯洁的爵士乐被流行的脏垢玷污。在与有名的爵士批评家Wynton Marsalis对话的过程中，Hancock辩解道这张专辑并不是为了挣钱而做的，它只不过是碰巧挣了钱而已。“我现在能买得起劳斯莱斯”，Hancock说，“但我并不是为了买劳斯莱斯才去做音乐。”

It is impossible to capture the whole external life of the galactically important Head Hunters, what it touched, how it functioned, its shape in society, its place on the great cosmic map (though musicologist Steven Pond approaches totality in his peerless 2005 book on the album). Truthfully, though, Head Hunters doesn't confer great importance by the sound of it. It doesn't scream “cash-grab,” or signal a fissure in jazz, or really exist in any of the contexts that surrounded its release almost five decades ago. The microbial funk of the album, its living power, lies below all that.

对于这样一张银河系级别伟大的专辑，我们不可能把握它的一切经历与影响。我们也不可能完全了解它试图表达的东西，它形成的过程，它在社会中的反响与作用，以及它在整个流行音乐版图上的位置（虽然音乐史学家Steven Pond在他2005年关于这张专辑的开拓性著作中已经很接近这一目标了）。坦白来讲，Head Hunters的伟大意义并不仅仅在于它的听感。它绝不是一张一文不值的废品，也不仅仅标志着爵士乐内部的分化。这也不是一张仅凭五十年前的，赞扬或批评的文字就能够被盖棺定论的专辑。这张专辑微缩的放克元素和它延续着的力量就足以藐视那些纷纷扰扰。

Head Hunters states its intent in its name: The music will blow open your skull the second you press play, the instant the bassline from “Chameleon” comes out of the speakers in full stereo sound. And if that doesn't move you, how about when Harvey Mason comes in with the funkiest drum part in the history of drumming, a groove even Hancock said he had never heard before in his life, that snare hit coming just before the two, the kick drum so dead and relaxed, are you kidding me? Head Hunters rightfully belongs to the Library of Congress as one of our nation's most treasured recordings, sitting there, smoking, untouchable, a factory of winces and hoooos.

从这张专辑的名字“Head Hunters”中，我们就可以知道它的意图：当你按下播放键，从“Chameleon”的立体声低音线从扬声器中传出的那一刻起，音乐就会炸开你的天灵盖。如果这都没让你大吃一惊的话，不妨试试Harvey Mason在打击乐历史上最具放克神韵的鼓击吧。就连Hancock都说他有生之年从来没见过这样的律动。军鼓在两小节后紧随而来，底鼓均匀又放松。你会情不自禁想：“你他妈逗我？这玩意怎么这么牛批？”Head Hunters绝对能以全美最珍贵的唱片之一的身份被国会图书馆珍藏。要聆听这张无可企及的专辑，你只需坐下点一根烟，然后准备迎接颤栗和惊叹吧。

Hancock's idea for Head Hunters involved making a funk album with players who brought many other worlds to the table. Mason was an R&B drummer who played deep in the pocket, but he didn't just sit on one pattern, he tugged and pulled at it throughout the song, a tailor constantly adjusting the fit and feel. Then there's Summers' famous solo on beer bottles, pennywhistle, shekere, handclaps, and falsetto ad-libs at the beginning of “Watermelon Man,” a tune carried over and radically reinterpreted from Hancock's earlier career as a more traditional jazz player. This section is an adaptation of the traditional calls of Ba-Benzélé pygmies of Central Africa, an effort by Summers “to bring up the level of appreciation of the African experience.” With a fat Fender sound, Jackson plays the best bassline on the album—better even than “Chameleon”—defining the one and creating the syncopation outside of Summers' nest of percussion.

对于这张专辑，Hancock是想要做一张乐手们各显神通，带来新东西的放克专辑。Mason是个专精的R&B鼓手，但他没有只按一个模式打鼓。他整首歌都火力全开，像个裁缝一样不断试着融入这首歌的整体感觉。接下来，Summers著名的啤酒瓶独奏，口哨，非洲拨浪鼓和拍手接踵而至。之后，你将听到在“Watermelon Man”开头中的假音口技。这是一个在Hancock还是个传统爵士乐手时遗留下来的，被夸张地重新编排的元素。这一部分是对中非巴本泽莱俾格米人传统音乐的改编。也是由Summers做出的“为了增进人们对非洲文化的了解与欣赏”的努力。Jackson用肥厚的芬达之声演奏了整张专辑最好的低音线——甚至比“Chameleon”都好。在Summers的打击乐之外，他凭空创造了整首歌的律动。

Maupin doesn't just riff around on the blues scale; on the vastly underappreciated “Sly,” he goes far out, squeaking and running high and low on the soprano sax, bringing his '60s avant-gardism back into the soundscape, all on a song named after funk master Sly Stone himself. “Sly” may not have the cultural cachet of “Chameleon” or “Watermelon Man,” but it is the album's true synthesis of funk texture and jazz feel. When the song shifts grooves around the two-minute mark, Hancock starts comping on his clavinet in stereo, Summers starts an Afro-Cuban groove on the conga, and Mason loosens his wrist on the snare to give Maupin as much room as he needs. By the time Hancock gets to his solo on his Rhodes, the song feels both impossibly free and tightly wound.

Maupin没有无脑吹布鲁斯riff。在那首被普遍低估的“Sly”里，他走得远比这深入。他用尖锐的高音萨克斯在高音与低音间不断游走。由此，他将60年代先锋爵士元素融入了这首以放克大师Sly Stone本人命名的曲目。“Sly”可能没有专辑中前两首曲目那么受人赞誉，但它是专辑中放克质地和爵士感觉相结合的代表性作品。当这首歌的律动模式在两分钟处转变的时候，Hancock开始在他的立体声电钢琴上疯狂输出，Summers则在康佳鼓上打出非裔古巴人的律动。与此同时，为了提供给Maupin发挥的空间，Mason放松了他正在打军鼓的手腕。当Hancock开始在他的罗兹牌电钢琴上独奏时，整首歌听起来既自由又组织严密。

Finally, Head Hunters cools down with “Vein Melter,” the corpse pose, a psalm on death written for a friend of Hancock's who died of a heroin overdose. With Mason's snare rolls every measure, it sounds like a funeral march, but Hancock doesn't put anything to rights. He delays interment with a sneaky grin while comping on the Rhodes with preternatural chill. “Vein Melter” never succumbs to meditative repetition—you can hear the heaving breath, the residual energy of the first three songs pulsing behind it.

最终，在“Vein Melter”中，专辑的温度冷却了下来。这首关乎死亡的曲目是为Hancock因海洛因过量而死的朋友而写的诗篇。Mason的军鼓充盈着整首曲子，让它听起来像是一场葬礼游行。但Hancock并没有顺理成章地划水。他用超自然般的电钢琴演奏鬼鬼祟祟地延缓了这场葬礼的进程。但这首曲子没有向这种冥想般的重复屈服。你可以从中听到前三首歌的搏动痕迹，它们起伏的呼吸和残留的能量。

Head Hunters is the bond that connects unnamable forces at the center of jazz and of funk, divine aspirations and base desires, head and body. It's foolish to try to name the spark of music like this, a parlor game better left to the comedown of an acid trip or a street preacher on his last leg. Head Hunters isn't the god, it's just five consummate pros jamming, with a light amount of editing and production. It's simple, really, even accidental. About six minutes and 55 seconds into “Chameleon,” as Hancock solos on his Arp Odyssey, he lands on a four-note phrase that's about a half-step away from the key of the song. It is a phrase that pulls your shoulders up to your ears, makes you put your hands up to your face to block the punch. It is the single funkiest, unholiest, nastiest moment on the record, and it was a complete mistake. Hancock was futzing with the manual pitch bender on the synthesizer during his solo and didn't realign it. He was playing the wrong notes, but the right notes were coming out.

Head Hunters联系着在爵士和放克两大流派中心的那些不可名状之力。它同样联系着那些神圣的愿景和下层的渴求，也联通着人们的头脑和身体。试图为这样一张伟大专辑的神妙之处命名是个愚蠢的行为。对于正在衰退的迷幻旅行或是濒死的街头传道者来说，这张专辑是一场富有教益的游戏。Head Hunters不是神迹，它只是五个技艺精纯的专业乐手在为数不多的后期编辑和制作中即兴而出的产物。它很简单，它的出现甚至可以被称作是意外的产物。在“Chameleon”的大约6分55秒处，当Hancock在他的电钢琴上演奏时，他弹了与这首曲目的调式相差一个半音的一组四个音。这组音阶的力量之大，足以让你把双手挡在脸部去阻挡音乐的冲击。这是整张专辑最具放克神韵，最不合常理，也是精巧的时刻。但他当时完完全全弄错了。在他独奏的时候，Hancock弄错了这架电钢琴的手动调音器，并且没有调整它。可是尽管他弹错了音符，但此刻，缪斯便落于他的指尖。

参考

1. ^伟大的爵士音乐家，60年代末期后转向融合爵士，引领了fusion风潮。
2. ^放克之父
3. ^伟大的放克乐队，把白人音乐元素注入放克中，产出了一批传奇专辑。
4. ^世界最著名的摇滚音乐节之一
5. ^活跃于上世纪70年代初的美国著名跨界黑人音乐团体，对福音的流行化有卓越贡献。
6. ^来自田纳西的著名funk，soul，R&B乐队，于1967年被著名灵魂乐歌手Otis Redding选为巡回演出后备乐队。
7. ^美国灵魂乐传奇人物
8. ^指1965年的沃茨暴动
9. ^此次游行中马丁·路德·金博士发表了著名演说《我有一个梦想》。
10. ^融合爵士乐历史最伟大的专辑之一。
11. ^一种类似于采样的，在一个录音上混合几个不同的声音层次的制作手法。
12. ^伟大的爵士小号手。代表作《The Sidewinder》。
13. ^爵士萨克斯手，Spiritual Jazz巨匠。
14. ^与乐队，音乐人或制作人签订短期合同的鼓手。
15. ^James Brown的鼓手。代表作《Funky Drummer》。
16. ^一种衍生自波普乐的爵士流派，一般认为Miles Davis为其先驱。
17. ^以John McLaughlin为核心的融合爵士乐队。
18. ^以Josef Zawinul和Wayne Shorter为核心的融合爵士乐队。
19. ^以Chick Corea为核心的融合爵士乐队。
20. ^传奇放克音乐人，放克乐队Parliament和Funkadelic的核心人物，P-Funk流派的代表人物。
21. ^美国著名灵魂乐，放克乐大师。