Head Hunters

Steven Pond's Head Hunters captures a transitional moment in modern music history, a time when jazz and rock intermingled to create a new, often controversial, genre. At the forefront of that style was Head Hunters, Herbie Hancock's foray into the fusion jazz market. It was also the first jazz album to go platinum, and the best-selling jazz record of all time to that point. The album became a turning point for a radical shift in both the production and reception of jazz. The sales numbers were unprecedented, and the music industry quickly responded to the expanded market, with production and promotion budgets rising tenfold. Such a shift helped musicians pry open the control-booth door, permanently enlarging their role in production. But it was all at a cost. Critics, believing that rock and funk might be appropriating jazz to new musical ends- or more ominously, for commercial reasons- grew increasingly alarmed at what they saw as the beginning of the end of jazz.