“Thrust” by Herbie Hancock

It’s the 50th anniversary of one of Herbie Hancock’s most slept-on albums.

Imagine being Herbie Hancock in the aftermath of Head Hunters.

You’ve achieved the kind of mainstream success no other jazz musician had before (the LP was the first jazz record to go Platinum in the US). In “Chameleon,” you’ve crafted an all-time funk anthem that’s influenced R&B, hip-hop, and many other artists for over a half-century. But, in the process, you’ve also spat in the faces of everyone who thinks they know what your music—or, more broadly, jazz—should sound like.

As Wynton Marsalis put it to Hancock in 1985, there’s defying expectations, and there’s upending them to the point of eliciting genuine rage. “When you put out HeadhuntersandThrust, Branford and I listened to those albums, but we didn’t think it was jazz,” he explained. Later on in the exchange, he adds: “[…] People think I’m trying to say jazz is greater than pop music. I don’t have to say that, that’s obvious. But I don’t even think about it that way. The two [say] totally different things. Jazz is not pop music, that’s all. Not that it’s greater …. I didn’t mean it was obvious.”

Imagine being Hancock at that point in time. He was groundbreaking in the eyes of many and traitorous in the eyes of others. What do you do next? His response was simple: run it back.

Thrust, released in 1974, leaned even harder into the jazz-funk sound than its predecessor had. Structurally, they’re incredibly similar—four tracks deep, right around 40 minutes long, and somehow both tightly wound and effortless in nature. Perhaps the most significant change is on the personnel side, where jazz veteran Mike Clark replaced Harvey Mason on drums. According to a 2016 interview, it wasn’t necessarily automatic that Clark would join Hancock’s group:

“Working with Herbie Hancock is not just like playing with one of your buddies. [It] was definitely big. However, I had a good jazz career. I was playing with Woody Shaw and Bobby Hutcherson and I was also a steady drummer with Vince Guaraldi at the time […] I had a career that was swinging […] I told Mr Hancock, ‘I’m flattered and honored that you want me to play in your band, but if you’re very famous and if I do play in this band and the music is funk, then I’m gonna get known for this and it might put a dent in my jazz career.’ He said to me, ‘Well, you got a good point there. You could stay here in the Bay Area the rest of your life and play til you die, which there’s nothing wrong with that. Working is a good thing. But, maybe nobody will ever ever hear of you and, if you come with me, I’ll show you the world. I’ll teach you a lot of stuff and everybody will hear of you.’”

As much of a fan as I am of Mason’s drumming on Head Hunters, Clark’s grooves from Thrust will forever be seared into the back of my brain. That dramatic pause right before the end of the first bar on “Palm Grease,” before Hancock’s synths start worming their way into the mix, immediately lets you know that expectations will be subverted even more on this record. The control and command Clark plays with is incredible, tipping its cap to Clyde Stubblefield at multiple points along the way. Paul Jackson’s bass wraps itself around Clark’s beat like a stylish mink, adding even more muscle to Bennie Maupin’s saxophone and Hancock’s signature “wah-wah” clavinet and electric piano playing. As mid-70s rhythm tracks go, this one’s near-unbeatable.

Then, just when you think the funk can’t get any funkier, “Actual Proof” gallops through your speakers. The first time I heard it, I literally paused the track and immediately started back from the beginning, if only to confirm what I’d heard the first time was real and I wasn’t imagining things. Could you even play drums and bass with that much intricacy but maintain that light touch through an almost 10-minute track? Featuring Bill Summers, who provides some added percussion heft, this song mystifies me more than any other Hancock cut, which is saying a whole heck of a lot. No matter how many times I hear it (including when I saw the legend live in Toronto in 2023), I can’t get over how breathtaking the playing is from every member of the Headhunters.

If that weren’t enough, what if I told you neither “Palm Grease” nor “Actual Proof” is the most intriguing composition on this LP? That honor goes to “Butterfly,” an exceptional Herbie Hancock electric ballad that sounds like it originated from another album or universe entirely. Co-written with Maupin, whose sweet, seductive soprano playing is beautiful, this track is an essential bit of foreshadowing too, setting the table for even kookier funk-infused love songs he’d record before the decade was through (see: “Come Running to Me”). It’s also a conversation starter regarding Hancock’s iconic romantic melodies, a trademark of his more traditional 60s jazz period and his experimental 70s bent. I don’t know if one is necessarily better than the other, but to hate “Butterfly” solely because it’s not “real jazz” is to out oneself as clinically insane.

There’s a lot of talk in the streaming era about the futility of categorizing music based on genre. Straightforward categorization is much more challenging than it used to be, which leads a lot of publications and pundits to proclaim such-and-such a genre is dead or at least comatose on the operating table. But, in reality, these judgments happen on a sliding, cyclical scale, and Herbie Hancock’s music is a prime example of this in action. He didn’t kill jazz or ruin it for future generations. Nor did he fertilize the funk landscape with soil that killed all the existing crops. Instead, he expanded on and, in my view, improved the existing model on either side of the aisle.

Genres can bend and twist and change. Genius that’s at Hancock’s level are the hands that sculpt them.