Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters - WLIR Ultrasonic Concert Series, Ultrasonic Recording Studios, Hempstead, NY, 10-1-1973

I recently posted a couple of concert albums by Chick Corea and his band Return to Forever, and John McLaughlin and his band the Mahavishnu Orchestra (as I write this in August 2026). I'm not into that kind of jazz. But I do want to post all the worthy concerts from certain concert series, and I know other people do like this kind of music. So here's a Herbie Hancock concert from that same time period, the early 1970s, as part of the WLIR Ultrasonic Concert Series.

Hancock has to be one of the most famous jazz musicians of all time. A lot of that has to do with his 1973 album "Head Hunters." On this album, he switched styles, combining instrumental jazz with funk more than he had on any previous album. Here's what the Wikipedia entry about the album has to say about how it was received by the public: "The album was a commercial and artistic breakthrough for Hancock, crossing over to funk and rock audiences and bringing jazz-funk and jazz fusion to mainstream attention, peaking at number 13 on the Billboard 200. Today the album is regarded as a landmark of fusion and has influenced artists in numerous other genres." In fact, it went Platinum, and became the best selling jazz album of all time, up until that point.

That album was released on October 26, 1973. This concert took place on October 1st. So Hancock had his new band, the Head Hunters, and his new funk-jazz style, but I guess the audience wasn't familiar with his style until they heard it in this concert.  

The sound quality is excellent. However, there was a problem with the recording in that there was a lot of hiss. But that kind of thing is easily fixed these days. I ran all the songs through the MVSEP audio editing program, and got rid of most of the hiss. I'm assuming this sounds better than any previous versions of this bootleg. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
02 The Spook Who Sat by the Door [Instrumental] (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
03 talk (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
04 Butterfly [Instrumental] (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
05 Sly [Instrumental] (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)
06 Chameleon [Instrumental] (Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vaEwA778

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/80bsDdTfQjnBjjZ/file

The cover image of Hancock is from an unknown concert in 1973.