Secrets (Herbie Hancock album)

Infobox Album | Name = Secrets
Type = Studio album
Artist = Herbie Hancock


Released = 1976
Recorded = San Francisco, CA
Genre = Jazz fusion, Jazz Funk
Length = 47:57
Label = Columbia Records
Producer = David Rubinson and Herbie Hancock
Reviews =
* Allmusic Rating|3|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:7dq3g4ebtvnz~T1 review]
Last album = "Flood" (1976)
This album = "Secrets"' (1976)
Next album = "V.S.O.P." (1976)

"Secrets" is a 1976 jazz-funk fusion album by keyboard player Herbie Hancock.

The album clearly followed from its predecessor "Man-Child". As ever, Paul Jackson's basslines were critical, and the other regular member Bennie Maupin continued to provide most of the solos alongside Hancock. "Man-Child" had seen the addition of electric guitar to Hancock's sound, and "Secrets" saw the guitar's place in the arrangements rise to crucial importance throughout. The flamboyant rhythm guitar contributions of top Motown session musician Wah Wah Watson are a particularly notable feature of the album.

Where "Man-Child" was evenly divided between up-tempo and laid-back tracks, "Secrets" emphasised the more mellow, softly rounded mood. Even the more up-tempo tracks, "Doin' It" and "Cantelope Island", are suffused with a relaxed Caribbean influence, and overall the album tends towards restrained, rolling grooves rather than overtly high-energy funk. Appropriately, Hancock spent much of his time using the mellow tones of the Rhodes piano, and took advantage of the new polyphonic synthesizers to contribute thick pads, foreshadowing ambient music.

Although summery and mellow, the album was far from lounge music, with some extremely abstract and intense sections, particular in the latter half; it is also entirely instrumental beside the "Jus' keep on doin' it" chants of the opening track. Subsequent Hancock albums saw the addition of more vocoded lead vocals and disco influences.

The "Secrets" line-up performed "Spider" (from this LP) and "Hang Up Your Hang-Ups" (from "Man-Child") at the V.S.O.P. concert in the summer of 1976.

Track listing

# "Doin' It" (Melvin Ragin, Ray Parker, Jr.) – 8:03
# "People Music" (Herbie Hancock, Ragin, Paul Jackson) – 7:11
# "Cantaloupe Island" (Hancock) – 7:06
# "Spider" (Ragin, Hancock, Jackson) – 7:21
# "Gentle Thoughts" (Hancock, Ragin) – 7:05
# "Swamp Rat" (Jackson, Hancock, Ragin) – 6:26
# "Sansho Shima" (Bennie Maupin) – 4:50

Personnel

*James Gadson – drums on "Doin' It"
*Herbie Hancock – piano, Rhodes electric piano, electric grand piano, ARP Odyssey, ARP String Ensemble, Hohner D6 Clavinet, Micromoog, Oberheim Polyphonic Synthesizer, Echoplex
*Bennie Maupin – soprano sax, tenor sax, saxello, lyricon, bass clarinet
*Ray Parker – guitar, backing vocals on "Doin' It"
*Paul Jackson – bass
*James Levi – drums
*Kenneth Nash – percussion
*Wah Wah Watson – guitar, Maestro universal synthesiser system / sample and hold unit, voice bag; vocals & bass on "Doin' It"