History is made, too, in the tracks and grooves themselves. It's a song set that breaks new ground, while reconsidering the band's own history as funk-jazz pioneers. The core band - reed player Bennie Maupin, legendary bassist Paul Jackson, drummer Mike Clark, and percussionist Bill Summers - is joined by keyboardist Billy Childs, with additional input by pianists Patrice Rushen and Darrel Smith, and they are in fine form, together again.

Hancock also makes special guest appearances on almost half of the album's tracks, as does guitarist and new Verve Forecast signing, JK, who also co-produced the album with the band. JK is regarded as one of the freshest young creators and interpreters of the new funk sound. According to Hancock, who helped get the long-awaited reunion off the ground, "we wanted to take a '90s approach to the basic sound of what the Headhunters were about. Rather than try to recreate something we did, we wanted to take the elements of the personalities of the musicians and the way they are now, and put a '90s spin on it - the result being something that is fresh and has its own unique quality."

Return of the Headhunters does indeed have a fresh spin, as well as a diverse musical scope. The material ranges from the slamming energy of "Funk Hunter" and the driving Jackson compositions "PP Head", "Skank It", "Tip Toe", and "Watch Your Back" (the last two songs with new lyrics by N'dea Davenport, formerly of the '90s pop/R&B group Brand New Heavies, and rap artist Trevant Hardson from the experimental hip hop group The Pharcyde), to the more adventurous jazz turf of Maupin's "Premonition" and Clark's "Two But Not Two". "Frankie & Kevin" is a poignant ballad, while Childs' "6/8-7/8" puts the band in a more complex and progressive metric setting. It all adds up to a reunion of musicians who retain their ability to make heady funk, but who have also matured in the interim.

In its '70s heyday, The Headhunters carved out its own niche in the jazz world. At a time when other jazz-rock "fusions" were sometimes overstated, this band kept the soul and the groove imperative intact. Hancock, who had played with Miles Davis' renowned mid-'60s acoustic quintet and also on some of Davis' electro-jazz music, was looking for a new musical hybrid. As Hancock recalled, "I was interested in a more fun kind of approach to combining funk and jazz. Miles was very serious and very mysterious - dark. I needed something more earthy, more fun.

I'd been playing experimental music with my own group, Mwandishi, for some time. That was some pretty far out stuff we were doing."

Hancock assembled the right players for the job. Maupin had played on Miles Davis' epochal Bitches Brew and with Hancock's Mwandishi band. Paul Jackson is a bassist with a strong, individualistic voice out of the Bay Area, where the band met to jam, record and generally forge its new sound. Percussionist Bill Summers added all-important color to the rhythm section of the original incarnation of the band, whose drummer, Harvey Mason, left the group immediately after their debut recording to pursue his session career. Enter Mike Clark, the dynamic jazz and funk drummer who had been playing with Woody Shaw and Bobby Hutcherson. Clark was Jackson's room mate and best friend - they played almost exclusively together - and naturally locked in with the band.

Clark has been integral to the group's sound from the day he joined, particularly because of his close rhythmic rapport with Jackson. Clark noted that "Paul has been my best friend for most of my life. When we play, we have this special, invisible radar. We make up these intense, displaced grooves and it's totally spontaneous and improvisational - the grooves take on a life of their own. We don't talk about it or rehearse it; we just count if off and hit and it's always been like that."

With Clark in tow, the band followed up its smash 1973 debut with regular touring around the world, and three acclaimed recordings - Thrust, Flood (released only in Japan), and Man-Child for Columbia. After Hancock left the band to pursue other projects, the band went on to release Survival of the Fittest and Straight from the Gate, on Arista. Summers recalled that "when the band first got together [back then], it was a hard time, socially. Vietnam was happening. We were bridging the gap between different worlds, between the traditional jazz world and people who liked funk. We wanted to blaze a trail and pioneer new frontiers."

By the 1980's, the band members had gone in separate musical directions, but the matter of a reunion was ever-present. "I have always considered the reunion of the Headhunters as unfinished business," Jackson notes, "and am very happy to be back with my friends who have been an important influence in my musical life." Now, vintage Headhunters recordings have influenced a new generation of musicians and fans in the acid jazz and progressive dance scene, and wherever else hardcore groove music is appreciated.

On the new album, history hasn't repeated itself, but it did inform the artistic outcome. Clark, who had moved to New York in 1979 to pursue his jazz career, and Jackson, who moved to Tokyo, Japan in 1985, have still worked together on and off over the past several years. Maupin and Summers played with Hancock on his 1994 album for Mercury Records, Dis is da Drum and it was soon after that the Headhunters' return was set into motion. Maupin said, "There has been talk of a reunion over the years, but nothing ever really materialized to the point where we felt that there would be something we could sink our teeth into and get the kind of exposure that would give us an opportunity to really do something." The project reached fruition once it became clear that this album would be the opening salvo on Hancock Records.

The first track that was laid down two years ago, and now leads off the album, was "Funk Hunter". This impromptu late-night session marked the first time that these musicians had played together in almost 20 years! The sense of blending energy and invention comes through on the tune, graced with a typically propulsive, shuffling drum/bass lock-up, with Maupin's simple melody on top. In the middle comes one of those feisty, creative Hancock piano solos, weaving in and out of the harmonic structure, that are his signature. As he commented, "I've been playing a long time, and I like to build my own kind of structure on top of whatever existing platform there is, whatever the foundation is. It's not just for my own comfort, but I feel that it's like taking charge and making it mine."

Summers asserted that "the fact is that Herbie is an amazingly diverse player. He can swim in any pool. He can deal with anybody's stuff, and he doesn't have an ego about that. He's never snobbish about whether it's jazz or this or that. That's the good thing about this new album. We tried to go into some unknown territory with this record, and, at the same time, give them what is reminiscent of the Headhunters they remember. I think it's very important that they hear that sound, that they hear funky bass by Paul Jackson and the grooves of Michael Clark. We even had those pygmy whistles that I played on 'Watermelon Man' on the song 'Skank It'."

Summers brought in vocalist N'dea Davenport, who added a new sound to the band, along with rap artist Trevant Hardson, who makes a cameo appearance on one track. While players brought in songs for the project, the working process was always collaborative. Summers said, "I'm someone who doesn't just express my music through percussion. I also like to write for piano and saxophone and woodwinds, and to contribute with chords or bass lines." Jackson adds that "the music of the Headhunters is totally dependent on the contributions of each individual bandmember, because of their unique talents. With that mind, I brought in my compositions with the expectation that they would be further developed by the other members of the group. Of course the chemistry of the individuals - namely Herbie, Bennie, Bill, and Mike - did what I expected and even more."

The Maupin-penned "Premonition" creates its own loose, pensive mood, anchored by his bass clarinet. "The sound of the bass clarinet is one of the voices that a lot of people know me for," Maupin said, "Since I recorded with it on Bitches Brew and used it through the years with Herbie, I wanted to create a nice environment for that." An even looser, more improvisation-driven environment is heard on "Two But Not Two", on which Clark's free-ranging drumming style reflects his lifelong dedication to playing jazz. The album closes with two venturesome tunes by Childs, "6/8-7/8" and the atmospheric "Kwanzaa".

Return of the Headhunters will appeal to lovers of funk and jazz, as well as the full range of musical languages in between. The band has come upon the next chapter in its evolution, and, as they did from the outset, they're making music that both challenges the mind and induces a dance instinct.