HERBIE HANCOCK — Death Wish (OST) (review)

HERBIE HANCOCK — Death Wish (OST) album cover Album · 1974 · Jazz Related Soundtracks Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
js
Having just released his amazing psychedelic fusion work with his Sextet, Herbie Hancock was a natural choice to compose the music for this tense gritty movie. This album mixes modern concert hall music with blaxploitation grooves, electronic experimentation, insane psychedelic jazz blow-outs and beautiful pastoral instrumentals into one big funky intellectual tone poem. All the moments you would expect from a crime movie are here, tense scary music that hangs in the air, quick pulsed chases and sweeping panoramic urban views. In his attempt to paint these aural pictures Herbie uses every sound available at the time including extended techniques for string orchestra, synthesizers, echoplexes, and all manner of percussion and noise makers.

For fans of Herbie's Sextet (possibly the finest fusion group ever) there is one track at the end of the album that features that group doing what it does best, playing super intense solos over an impossible syncopated groove while Hancock adds a smorgasbord of electronic colors.

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Matt wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Sounds great John.

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