Secrets

Performer: Herbie Hancock
Artist: Ray Parker, Jr.; James Gadson; Bennie Maupin; Paul Jackson
Producer: Herbie Hancock; David Rubinson
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Personnel: Herbie Hancock (acoustic, Fender Rhodes & Yamaha electric pianos, Clavinet, ARP, Moog & Oberheim synthesizers); Wah Wah Watson (vocals, synthesizer, guitar, bass); Bennie Maupin (soprano & tenor saxophones, saxello, lyricon, bass clarinet); Ray Parker Jr. (guitar, background vocals); Paul Jackson (bass); James Gadson (drums, background vocals); James Levi (drums); Kenneth Nash (percussion); Art Baldacci, Fred Dobbs, Don Kerr, Chris Mancini (background vocals). Engineers: Fred Catero, David Rubinson, Michael Fusaro. Recorded at Wally Heider Recording and Columbia Recording Studios, San Francisco, California. This is a specially imported limited edition 20-bit digital remaster from Japan. All tracks have been digitally remastered. Having long since established his funk credentials, Herbie Hancock continues the direction of Head Hunters and its U.S. successors here, welding himself to the groove on electric keyboards while Bennie Maupin again shines sardonic beams of light on a variety of reeds. In "Doin' It," the most successful track, Hancock makes a more overt bid for the dancefloor, for the tune is basically one long irresistible groove with a very commercial-sounding bridge. Again Hancock chooses to recompose one of his standards; "Cantelope [sic] Island" is almost unrecognizable converted into a sauntering, swaggering thing. A streamlining process has set in -- the drumming has been simplified, some of the old high-voltage drive has been muted -- yet there are still enough enjoyable, intelligently musical things happening here to hold a Hancock admirer's attention. ~ Richard S. Ginell

One of the most open-eared and forward-thinking jazz musicians of his day, Hancock has, more than just about anyone else, consistently tried to broaden the music's horizons by mixing it with the most interesting elements of contemporary pop. Hancock has consistently pushed the envelope, from his earliest days with Miles Davis to his jazz-rock fusion of the early '70s and his early embrace of synthesizers and electronic instruments, his early-'80s experiments with hip-hop and sampling, or more recently, his acoustic piano reinterpretations of songs--the new standards, in his parlance--by everyone from Don Henley to Nirvana.

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