MAN-CHILD

1. "Hang Up Your Hang Ups" (7:27) a song some proclaim the greatest funk jam of all-time, Herbie's clavinet, Louis Johnson's bass, the solid drums and amazing horn arrangements really are amazing but it's the incredible rhythm guitar of Melvin "Wah Wah" Watson and the other guitarists that always get me. Great housecleaning music. Excellent, if slightly incongruous. piano solo in the final 90 seconds. I am hard pressed to imagine how won could make this a better song. (15/15)

2. "Sun Touch" (5:09) a sound palette that could serve as a late-nite "Pillow Talk" radio theme song is actually quite complex with some very intricate performances. The rhythm section seem to almost want to pause or delay the song but Herbie's Fender Rhodes keeps pushing it along. Brilliant! Then you get the addition of Wah Wah's guitar riffs and the horns the further you travel into it. (9.5/10)

3. "The Traitor" (9:36) now that's some funky bass, with excellent response from the drummer. Herbie's clavinet accents are so dextrous and never over done. The bass, guitar, and horns frisky additions in the second minute are so awesome! It's like we're listening to PARLIAMENT! Then you put Herbie's snarky synth soloing over the top and it's like Bernie Worrell or George Clinton himself were sittin' in! Wow! Never knew Herbie let himself go this funky! I love it! Seems like a preview of every funky hip hop act of the next twenty years--as well as a reflection of early Kool & The Gang, Ohio Players, and Brothers Johnson, and the new Isley Brothers sound. And the sound engineering is so incredible: every instrument is easily followable while the fullness of the collective weave is never tampered with. The instrumental choice I think I'd leave off would be that occasionally sustained Oberheim strings chord: the funk doesn't need it. Toward the end of the song, the bass solo beneath Wah Wah's "distant" talk box guitar play is awesome. (19.25/20)

4. "Bubbles" (8:59) a fairly simple and minimalist construction of basically five instruments: the melodic bass, the more-percussive drums, a single lead guitar, a horn player injecting a variety intermittent sounds, and Herbie with a wide barrage of subtly delivered keys (clavinet, Fender Rhodes, Oberheim strings, other synth flourishes). Amazing how little front man action there is: just little attention grabbers from a wide assortment of contributors, all pretty much delivered in flourishes and sudden outbursts. Cool! Highly entertaining to listen to just to try to catch all of the tremendous number of sounds injected into it. (17.75/20)

5. "Steppin' in It" (8:36) more funk coming from the bass and bass-synth departments with spacious drum-and-bass funk while accented by an active and unpredictable horn section and team of several rhythm guitarists. This reminds me of the theme song from Sanford and Son. In the fourth minute Herbie's Fender Rhodes steps into the forefront to give us some uninspired and unobtrusive soloing. Then, just as I was thinking for the third or fourth time how "Stevie Wonder"-like this all was, who should step into the spotlight but Stevie Wonder with his harmonica! This feels like something from Stevie's upcoming Songs in the Key of Life. And yet the song is given full compositional credit to Herbie! The two must have run into each other in 1974 or 1975 while recording their own musics at the same music studio on the West Coast (most likely Crystal Studios in Hollywood: where Stevie recorded most of SinKoL--including the song "As" which features Herbie on Fender Rhodes). As a matter of fact, I'll go so far as to guess that Stevie's harmonica part was added towards the end of the song's processing as I can still hear the "shadow" of Herbie's Fender Rhodes solo beneath Stevie's harmonica--indicating to me that originally Herbie's solo that was started around the three minute mark actually went fully through the song but then was later muted (or attempted to have been removed from the song) from the 4:10 mark onwards in lieu of Stevie's solo. Regardless of the accuracy of my deductions, neither performances do enough to lift this song up: the performances here are just not as energetic or spirited as those on the other songs on the album, thus, this is not my favorite: it's a little too BOB JAMES-thin for my preferences. (17.5/20)

6. "Heartbeat" (5:17) stomping bass and bass drums open this while guitars, keys and horns introduce their sound package for about 30 seconds before the train starts rolling. It's another soul-funky song that reminds one of earlier classic 1970s Soul/R&B music like that of Motown's The Temptations ("I Can't Get Next to You") or Four Tops (Ain't No Woman [Like the One I Got]). The performers are totally engaged and synched up for this one! Love to hear it when everybody's on board like this! Great drumming, great bass play, GREAT Herbie play, and great contributions from Bill Summers and the rhythm guitarists. (9.25/10)

Total Time 44:47

An amazingly creative foray into the deepest funk territory I've ever heard a jazz artist ever go, and yet, at the same time, the jazzy core of improvisational interweaving of many instruments never suffers or is sacrificed--again, something that I've rarely (maybe never) heard to this level of perfection. I am truly shocked to have only discovered this album and hereby recognize it as one of the greatest testaments to the peak accomplishments of Jazz-Rock Fusion.

A/five stars; a masterpiece of funked-up Jazz-Rock Fusion; a true example of nearly perfect blending of Jazz-Rock and Jazz-Funk trends as they occurred in the mid-1970s. Though many people consider Herbie as a leader and innovator, I choose to think of him and his musical outpourings as an excellent barometer of the latest trends in J-R Fusion: he was always in the first wave of expressionists to come after the stones of innovation had been thrown by other artists and engineers--maybe he was (consistently) that first wave.

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