For all the Herbie Hancock aficionados out there:
Wounded Bird Records has announced the re-release a series of Hancock’s – long out of print (OOP) – Japanese-only issued Sony records on the 23 September this year.
This series of first time global release of these Japanese Sonys include:
* Dedication, solo piano, rec. live 29 July 1974
* Flood, w. Bennie Maupin a.o., rec. live 28 June & 1 July 1975
* Herbie Hancock Trio, w. Ron Carter & Tony Williams, rec. in studio 13 July 1977
* Tempest in the Colosseum, by the V.S.O.P. Quintet, rec. live 23 July 1977
* DirectStep, w. Webster Lewis, Alphonse Mouzon a.o., rec. in studio 17-18 October 1978
* Five Stars, by the V.S.O.P. Quintet, rec. in studio 29 July, 1979
* Herbie Hancock Trio with Ron Carter + Tony Williams, rec. in studio 28 July 1981
These issues are fully licensed with Sony.
3 Responses to “OOP Herbie Hancock Japanese records reissued”
John Kelman
Hi Johan,
Great news that Wounded Bird is putting these out, but a couple of corrections, I’m afraid:
1. Unless things have changed, Wounded Bird is a US-only company…so much so that when I tried to get some review copies of material a couple years back for review at All About Jazz, an American based site, because I live in Canada they absolutely refused to send, citing licensing issues. Of course, that doesn’t stop people from buying them through Amazon on other vendors that choose to pick then up. But from Wounded Bird’s perspective, their license is for the USA only, unless things have changed
2. This is not the first time these originally Japan-only titles have been made available internationally. That would have been last fall, when Legacy Recordings (with true international licensing) released Herbie Hancock – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection box, that brought together his entire output for the label, including all originally Japan-only titles.
Just wanted to set the record straight. And for those who are big Herbie fans, the box set is great. But for those who don’t want the whole enchilada, these individual releases are absolutely great news, indeed – especially Flood and the VSOP dtaes’ which are, I think, the best ever released by that group.
Cheers!
John
Johan Hauknes
Thanks for the corrections and supplements, John.
And yes, I’ll be at Punkt. See you there!
John Kelman
Hi Johan! Great news that these will be available separately….but they were made available internationally for the first time in the Herbie Hancock – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection box set, released last fall by Legacy Recordings. Still, great news, indeed, that folks who don’t want to shell out for he entire box can now have them – especially the V..S.O.P. sets, which are, IMO, the best recordings that group ever made, and Flood, which is a great Head Hunters live set. But just to be clear: this is not the first international release of these titles outside of Japan.
Best wishes….perhaps see you at Punkt?
John