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| Performing Mozart with the Chicago Symphony at the age of 11, Herbie Hancock was a child prodigy who blossomed into one of the most distinct and influential pianists in the history of modern music. His miraculous playing on all the Miles Davis albums recorded between 1963-68 reveal a musical evolution of quantum leaps and bounds. By the time Herbie graduated from Miles’ band in 1968, he left not as a sideman to the great trumpeter, but as an equal. From the late-‘60s through the mid-‘70s, Herbie’s music moved in parallel evolution to that of Miles, with the pair both deeply immersed in genre blurring electronic experimentation. Leaving Blue Note for Warner Bros, Herbie plugged his instrument in and radically changed his sound. His first post-Miles album, 1969’s Fat Albert Rotunda was Herbie’s maiden voyage into the newly emerging realm of jazz-funk. As Herbie explained to Bob Blumenthal in 1971, “I did the music for the Fat Albert cartoon show Bill Cosby did on TV. Bill had the soundtrack tape, which he played for the executives at Warner Bros., and they flipped over it; they just loved it. So I chose to record Fat Albert Rotunda as my first album for the label—which gave me the freedom to do Mwandishi next.” The album is a jazzed up finger-popping blast of vintage late-‘60s funk, served up with all the compositional sophistication and technical mastery you’d expect from an old Herbie Hancock record. This highly danceable album features instrumental arrangements every bit as engaging and complex as those found on The Prisoner, the final album he recorded for Blue Note earlier that year. But unlike The Prisoner, with its dark and brooding undercurrents, Fat Albert Rotunda is an exuberantly friendly and upbeat joy of an album. Far from being frivolous in tone, the album has a soulful depth which is generously fleshed out by a moody pair of down tempo tracks, “Tell Me A Bedtime Story” and “Jessica.” Above all else, Fat Albert Rotunda is about the groove, which might explain why it is one of the most sampled jazz records in history. Brazenly blending the sounds of street with hard swinging jazz, Herbie kicks out chunky riffs and rhythms on his Fender Rhodes electric piano, content to lay low in the fatback pulse of bassist Buster Williams and drummer Tootie Heath. He peppers the albums’ super-tight vamps with brief bursts of virtuosity, stepping out with electrifying force on such tracks as “Wiggle Waggle,” “Fat Mama” and “Oh! Oh! Here He Comes.” Likewise, saxophonist Joe Henderson plays with uncharacteristic restraint in the band’s three-horn frontline (which also includes Johnny Coles on trumpet and Garnett Brown on trombone). This impressive brass section engages Herbie in heated call-and-response exchanges that add much heft to the fanfare. And in those very few spots where Henderson is unleashed, his wild tenor ranges freely within the funky mood, taking things even higher. A mighty euphoric, Fat Albert Rotunda turns like a potent chemical key, spinning at 33 1/3 rpm to unlock endorphins deep inside the brain. “I’ve played with some fantastic soloists,” he told Blumenthal, “but there’s a thing that I think is more important than solos. I think music is supposed to make you high, to give you an experience so that you can transport yourself from wherever you are and that whole physical contact with the world so that you can gain a little more consciousness—inner consciousness…my new music is set up to do just that. It’s set up to make you high.”Although the 'new music' on this album is now over 30 years old, it still moves with all the frenetic pull and glorious uplift of youth. It's enough to make you high. —John Ballon (email) June 17, 2002
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