After Man-Child, alas, Herbie Hancock's American jazz-funk records in the 1970s grew gradually more commercial, less stimulating, and crucially, less truly funky with each release, even as his equipment rack grew larger.
Just take a look at the staggering collection of keyboards on the back cover of the Sunlight LP -- all sought-after collectors' items now -- yet Hancock makes so little use of their possibilities here.
For much of the album, he seems most interested in establishing a new career as an electronic vocalist.
"I Thought It Was You," "Come Running to Me," and the title track introduce the ghostly, gauzy sound of Herbie's singing voice as heard through a vocoder; there's even an electronic Herbie scat choir.
Stevie Wonder, he's not.
There are still occasional splashes of Hancock harmonic color on the keyboards, but he also relies upon superfluous, self-arranged brass riffs and string backgrounds.
The backup bands shift from track to track, from combinations of Headhunters alumni that offer soft-focused facsimiles of the old funk drive to a surprisingly strait-jacketed pairing of Tony Williams and Jaco Pastorius on the eccentric "Good Question.".
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | I Thought It Was YouJeffrey Cohen, Herbie Hancock, Melvin Ragin | Herbie Hancock | Play | 03:38 | 8 MB | 0 MB |
| 3 mins | 8 MB | |||||
| 0 mins | 0 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Terry Adams | Strings |
| 2 | Terry Becker | Assistant Engineer |
| 3 | Garnett Brown | Brass |
| 4 | Phill Brown | Mastering |
| 5 | Fred Catero | Engineer |
| 6 | Leon "Ndugu" Chancler | Drums |
| 7 | Jeffrey Cohen | Composer |
| 8 | Herbie Hancock | Brass Arrangement, Composer, Keyboards, Primary Artist, Producer, String Arrangements, Synthesizer, Vocals, Vocals (Background) |
| 9 | Fred Jackson, Jr. | Woodwind |
| 10 | James Levi | Drums |
| 11 | Roy Malan | Strings |
| 12 | Steve Mantoani | Engineer |
| 13 | Harvey Mason, Sr. | Drums |
| 14 | Bennie Maupin | Sax (Soprano) |
| 15 | Byron Miller | Bass (Electric) |
| 16 | Chris Minto | Assistant Engineer |
| 17 | Jack Nimitz | Woodwind |
| 18 | Robert O'Bryant | Brass |
| 19 | Jaco Pastorius | Bass (Electric) |
| 20 | Melvin Ragin | Composer |
| 21 | Raul Rekow | Percussion |
| 22 | Henri Renaud | Producer |
| 23 | Nathan Rubin | Strings |
| 24 | David Rubinson | Engineer, Producer |
| 25 | Bobby Shew | Brass |
| 26 | Maurice Spears | Brass |
| 27 | Bill Summer | Percussion |
| 28 | Emily VanValkenburgh | Strings |
| 29 | Cheryl Ward | Assistant Engineer |
| 30 | Allee Willis | Composer |
| 31 | Linda Wood | Strings |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |