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Herbie Hancock Complete Columbia Box


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One a side note, over the last few days I've been transfering this music into my iTunes library and noticed instead of the actual album titles showing up when imported each album comes up as either The Acoustic Collection or The Electric Collection. I wonder if there are future plans to subdivide this music and release as two additional boxes with different target audiences? Stranger things have happened.

Just noticed that eMusic has both the electric and acoustic collections available for download. A quick search of Amazon didn't turn up any physical products. Given this development, I would bet that they will eventually be available as seperate CD box sets sometime in 2014 after the holidays.

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One a side note, over the last few days I've been transfering this music into my iTunes library and noticed instead of the actual album titles showing up when imported each album comes up as either The Acoustic Collection or The Electric Collection. I wonder if there are future plans to subdivide this music and release as two additional boxes with different target audiences? Stranger things have happened.

Just noticed that eMusic has both the electric and acoustic collections available for download. A quick search of Amazon didn't turn up any physical products. Given this development, I would bet that they will eventually be available as seperate CD box sets sometime in 2014 after the holidays.

Having just finished working through this box, two sub-boxes would make a lot of sense. I got aural whiplash from some of the drastic changes from period to period over the 17 years. The electric stuff alone had some of the best and some of the worst music I've ever heard. 'Headhunters' and it's ilk are one thing, Herbie all by hisself in the studio with vocoder and machines is something else again...

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One a side note, over the last few days I've been transfering this music into my iTunes library and noticed instead of the actual album titles showing up when imported each album comes up as either The Acoustic Collection or The Electric Collection. I wonder if there are future plans to subdivide this music and release as two additional boxes with different target audiences? Stranger things have happened.

Just noticed that eMusic has both the electric and acoustic collections available for download. A quick search of Amazon didn't turn up any physical products. Given this development, I would bet that they will eventually be available as seperate CD box sets sometime in 2014 after the holidays.

Having just finished working through this box, two sub-boxes would make a lot of sense. I got aural whiplash from some of the drastic changes from period to period over the 17 years. The electric stuff alone had some of the best and some of the worst music I've ever heard. 'Headhunters' and it's ilk are one thing, Herbie all by hisself in the studio with vocoder and machines is something else again...

One a side note, over the last few days I've been transfering this music into my iTunes library and noticed instead of the actual album titles showing up when imported each album comes up as either The Acoustic Collection or The Electric Collection. I wonder if there are future plans to subdivide this music and release as two additional boxes with different target audiences? Stranger things have happened.

Just noticed that eMusic has both the electric and acoustic collections available for download. A quick search of Amazon didn't turn up any physical products. Given this development, I would bet that they will eventually be available as seperate CD box sets sometime in 2014 after the holidays.

Having just finished working through this box, two sub-boxes would make a lot of sense. I got aural whiplash from some of the drastic changes from period to period over the 17 years. The electric stuff alone had some of the best and some of the worst music I've ever heard. 'Headhunters' and it's ilk are one thing, Herbie all by hisself in the studio with vocoder and machines is something else again...

Yeah, I mean "I Thought It Was You" is so cheesy, but it sticks in your head. Don't have the box yet but I was going thru Spotify where they have the individual albums (not the current remasters from the set) and I hope with the box I can at least look at the Laswell material for what it is. I really never liked it at all. Still through everything there's Herbie's unmistakeable harmonic and rhythmic sense. It has to be looked at from an R&B lens some of that post "Secrets" work, I think because those audiences love that stuff. I think the previously Japan only acoustic sessions are some of his best work, hands down. I really want the box to have all the VSOP stuff and "Flood" b/c a friend burned me that a long time ago. Herbie's been pulling out the vocoder again fairly recently though.

Edited by CJ Shearn
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  • 2 weeks later...

As an "aficionado" I've acquired most or all of these as single releases over the years, I wonder how the supposed new remastering sounds like?

A few comments on the Japanese-only releases:

- Kimiko Kasai's Butterfly is pretty hilarious and I'm glad more people get to experience it now. Her pronounciation is "very Japanese", and her sense of rhythm is kind of goofy. The band and Herbie plays tight, regardless, although some of the source material aside from the Sunlight songs (I think the tune "Head In The Clouds") is kind of iffy.

- Direct Step has a cool longer (15 mins.) version of "I Thought It Was..." and surprisingly, "Shiftless Shuffle" from the forthcoming Mr. Hands.

- Dedication is by far the most interesting of them. As you know by now probably, it's basically a Herbie solo piano album with a twist. It's just Herbie playing a Suitcase Rhodes and an acoustic grand along with a rudimentary rhythmic "loop" (it's actually an analog sequencer). Way ahead of his time, even then!

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I've listened to about half this box set now. My opinion: the new mastering is very good. It sounds like the best of Mark Wilder's work: clear and detailed and dynamic. Not exceptionally bright unless your system sort of likes bright too much. Very happy with the mastering.

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What Lon said.

It's representative of Mark Wilder's work for Sony since 2009 (Miles Davis Complete Columbia Albums Collection, Mingus, Monk, etc.). You can safely buy all his recent Sony remasterings blindly.

As the set's book says, they've gone to some lengths to gather the best source material and it shows. Even the most repulsive disco in this set sounds wonderful.

Edited by erwbol
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Can't talk about remasterings but I've played almost all of it by now (three more to go ... the final ones except for the movie soundtrack that I've known for a while) and I've enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Not many real clunkers in there ("Monster" may actually be the only one?) and lots of surprisingly wonderful music!

Favourites, besides the obvious ones, are "Flood", V.S.O.P.'s "Live Under the Sky", "Mr. Hands", and the album with Kimiko Kasai.

Obviously, this will need time to sink in ... of the vocal albums, I've not really, really enjoyed one in its entirety, I think, but most of them have some very good stuff to offer. And some of the later funk albums ("Directstep" for one) are pretty good! I also enjoyed the solo piano album (the purely acoustic one that is) and the quartet with the evil guy on trumpet, too ... the second of the trio discs is pretty good, too (the first as good/bad as "Third Plane", same sessions, same rather uninspired performance, it sounded to me).

Oh, and the one beyond the obvious ones (those are: "Sextant", "Head Hunters" and "Thrust", obviously) that I've known before, "V.S.O.P.", remains a favourite! I've had some digpack edition (french?) of this and always enjoyed it a lot!

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Favourites, besides the obvious ones, are "Flood", V.S.O.P.'s "Live Under the Sky", "Mr. Hands", and the album with Kimiko Kasai.

Obviously, this will need time to sink in ... of the vocal albums, I've not really, really enjoyed one in its entirety, I think, but most of them have some very good stuff to offer.

Yeah, that's just the way it goes with that stuff. Frustrating as hell to live through in real time, but when viewed cumulatively, in a longer-ish retrospective, not nearly as horrific as it seemed at the time. And as you say, some stuff that is really very good.

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i received this box for christmas. what a perfect way to survey an oeuvre like herbie's!

i own most, but not all, of the material in one form or another except for the first trio record (which i'd heard, but never responded to) and 'monster' (which i was completely unfamiliar with). curious as to how bad could it be, i gave 'monster' a spin last weekend. putrid. never again... even 'magic windows' isn't *that* bad.

has anyone commented on the wealth of alternate takes on 'the piano'?

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I don't know anybody who likes Monster.

I can enjoy Magic Windows, though even if as a low investment/low expected return/casual sex basis. Not *that* bad is exactly right.

But Monster, hell, I'm one of those "listen to everything, hear the recipe, appreciate it for what it is & keep the whole "like it" thing as a separate & unrelated activity" kind of guys, and no, I don't need no Monster. Not now, not never. Ever.

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I don't know anybody who likes Monster.

I can enjoy Magic Windows, though even if as a low investment/low expected return/casual sex basis. Not *that* bad is exactly right.

But Monster, hell, I'm one of those "listen to everything, hear the recipe, appreciate it for what it is & keep the whole "like it" thing as a separate & unrelated activity" kind of guys, and no, I don't need no Monster. Not now, not never. Ever.

Damn, Jim. Next you'll be telling us you don't like Kenny G! :smirk:

gregmo

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I don't know anybody who likes Monster.

I can enjoy Magic Windows, though even if as a low investment/low expected return/casual sex basis. Not *that* bad is exactly right.

But Monster, hell, I'm one of those "listen to everything, hear the recipe, appreciate it for what it is & keep the whole "like it" thing as a separate & unrelated activity" kind of guys, and no, I don't need no Monster. Not now, not never. Ever.

Damn, Jim. Next you'll be telling us you don't like Kenny G! :smirk:

gregmo

But he'll quaiify it as being a "as a separate & unrelated activity" kind of like.

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No I won't. I don't like Kenny G in any kind of a way. If the only two records in the world were Monster, and anything, anything by Kenny G, one copy of each. I would proactively break the Kenny G record into many pieces of tiny shards and then proceed for all eternity having Monster being the only record left on Earth. Monster might at least get people making their own music to have something to get away from Monster. Kenny G would just kill all musical inclinations in all of life itself. Random musical sex vs mass musical degonadization, those are the choices.

That's a no-brainer of a choice right there.

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Are there even more alternate takes added to "The Piano?" vs the 2004 CD? This box is off my radar for a while. Did they also restore the missing audience dialogue present on the Japanese and French "Live Under the Sky"? The ones I remember off the top of my head "this is the greatest audience, ever" and Herbie joking about showering in the rainstorm. Not all that important, but strange they were edited out on the 2004 US reissue of "Live Under the Sky".

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