Jazz breaking news: The Headhunters get Under the Bridge shaking
Friday, May 10, 2013
From a small stage bleached by flashing lights and a monster-sized projection of the band's 1974 debut album sleeve, it was left to the shake, sizzle and snap of the band's original drummer and percussionist – Harvey Mason and Bill Summers – to drive this latest model of Herbie's former fusioneers through a exhilarating two hour show.
Through whistles and rowdy cheer, most of which honoured to the inspired interplay between electric bassist Reggie Washington, saxophonist Rob Dixon and synth-smith Rob Bargad, came a wish-list of tunes that, kick-starting with a Latin-like ‘Cantaloupe Island’, quickly gave in to a fetish for funk that would litter the rest of the set. Unveiled by Summers as the ‘first of three tunes from that first album we'll play tonight’ heard ‘Sly’ flip from its mellow Moog beginnings, into a fallout of frantic drumming, wah-wah clavinet and shrill alto sax, only to be cooled by the breezy ‘Butterfly’.
Along the way, possibly to drag back any of the audience lost to drawn-out displays of jazzy virtuosity during a shot at Shorter's ‘Footprints’, Summers shared stories and comical anecdotes, later reserving room to remind all of the group's heavy debt to the spiritual sounds of Africa with a raw, and momentarily moving, vocal and percussion showcase. With regular service resuming to room-rattling bass guitar and Dixon's crisp soprano sax scissoring into the bottle-blown bit to ‘Watermelon Man’, it was fair to declare this, and the instant-recall riff to ‘Chameleon’, clear highlights. Even an impromptu tribute to James Brown spitting out some of the most arresting playing of the evening managed to get most up dancing and make up for the shock-horror no-show of the band's biggest hit in ‘God Made Me Funky’.
– Mark Youll
– photo by Roger Thomas