Hats off to Columbia, who are recycling their huge and musically significant back catalogue and coming up with series of excellent Complete Columbia Album collections, all competitively priced, neatly packaged, excellently remastered and with CD size facsimile album covers for each album release. This set comes with an excellent 200 page book, including very informative liner notes by Bob Belden and an exhaustive discography, and stands as a virtual tour guide for this collection, which spans 16 years and a staggering 31 albums whose scope is beyond clarification by simplification.

Of special note is the inclusion of eight albums that were released only in Japan that are now included for general release for the first time. In addition, there are also two albums originally recorded and released in Japan that were subsequently put on general release by Columbia/Legacy in 2004, (the solo The Piano and V.S.O.P/Live Under the Sky that come with additional tracks which were not on the Japan only versions). Because the set contains several live albums, it is possible to compare and contrast many songs (originals as well as jazz standards) in multiple versions, for example, ‘Watermelon Man’ (Hancock's first hit on the old Blue Note label in 1963) was famously re-jigged for Headhunters, Hancock's hit album of 10 years later, which appears again in a 1975 live version on the album Flood. Similarly, ‘Chameleon’ appears on both albums. In fact, the set is dotted with multiple versions of pieces such as ‘Maiden Voyage’, ‘Cantaloupe Island’, ‘Dolphin Dance’, ‘Eye of the Hurricane’, ‘Speak Like a Child’, ‘Tell Me a Bedtime Story’ and more that in their various guises reflects the changes that swept Hancock's music between 1972 and 1988.

The set begins with Hancock's music in transition, when the space-jazz of the Mwandishi band (Sextant) faced a reality-check at a 1973 gig they shared with the Pointer Sisters. After the Pointers earned a standing ovation, the Mwandishi band followed to the complete indifference of the audience, most of whom headed for the exit signs. Hancock, struck by the energy of the Pointers, came up with the jazz-funk of Headhunters which went to 13 on the Billboard chart, producing the hit single ‘Chameleon’ and a new musical direction. Less successful artistically was Thrust (1974) that followed and the soundtrack album for Hancock's score for the motion picture Death Wish (1975), described as “banal” on release in one contemporaneous review.

Meanwhile in 1976, a Hancock retrospective at the Newport Jazz Festival reunited the ‘second’ Miles Davis Quintet, with ringer Freddie Hubbard in place of Davis. V.S.O.P. was born, maintaining a touring schedule into the 1980s with a shifting personnel that in later incarnations included the Marsalis brothers. Hancock's suave and elegant work with this ensemble provides a fascinating counter current to Hancock's electro discography. Post Headhunters, Hancock often gave rein to his commercial instincts in the electric/funk context (which by his own admission were not jazz and he is on record stating his surprise that anybody should consider them so) – for example, Sunlight, Feets Don't Fail Me Now, Monster to name a few. Very much of their time and aimed at dancefloor audiences they have quickly dated (as did disco) and are, it has to be said, more for Hancock completists.

The eight albums that were originally released in Japan only, but now included for the first time on general release are: Dedication (1974); Flood (1975) – the Headhunters band live; The Herbie Hancock Trio (1977) and The Herbie Hancock Trio With Ron Carter + Tony Williams (1981) – the only piano trio recordings Hancock has ever made thus far; Tempest in the Colosseum (1977) – V.S.O.P. with Hubbard, Shorter, Carter and Williams live; Directstep (1978) – his electric ensemble recorded directto-disc; Five Stars (1979) – the same V.S.O.P. line-up as Tempest in their only studio set recorded direct-to-disc, and Butterfly (1979) – the electric band plus singer Kimiko Kasai in a studio recording.

In 1983 came Future Shock, midwifed by Bill Laswell that reflected the emerging breakbeat sounds of Africa Bambata and others – indeed, the cover art of Future Shock, seems inspired by Godley & Creme's MTV video for ‘Rockit’ – that provided Hancock with a huge hit, but as Hancock said at the time, “‘Rockit’ has nothing to do with jazz.” The collection is rounded out by Hancock's Grammy winning work for the musical score of the motion picture Round Midnight in 1986 and his third collaboration with Bill Laswell on Perfect Machine, Hancock's Kraftwerk-influenced final album for Columbia. This mighty set, then, comprises a mind-boggling journey of genre hopping, with the forgettable rubbing shoulders with the indispensable (some live versions, acoustic and electric, are especially rewarding). Fortunately, there is enough of the latter to overwhelm the former making this one of the most remarkable odysseys in 20th century music.