During the 1980's Herbie Hancock had an extremely productive and successful period,recording innovative and commercially successful albums with Bill Laswell that have more than withstood the test of time in more ways than one. He also played many acoustic dates as well. So on both ends of his talents,the electric and the acoustic he was still very much in his peak even as he climbed up the latter of middle age.  By the time the 1990's came into it's own,a very strange thing happened in music. A strange mixture of accepted skepticism and negativity was in the air. And really it's still there to this day because no one acknowledges it's existence. Basically,if you were a rocker you more or less had to make music that related in some way to the grunge/alternative mindset. If you were a soul,funk or even jazz artist the music similarly had to relate to the hip-hop world to be commercially viable. Well Herbie had survived what seemed to be enforced music trends before. Figured he did it before,he could do it again. Or could he?

  Produced by Herbie and Bill Summers and including ex Headhunter Bennie Maupin,it was clear that this album had a terrific intention. And that was to take his hip-hop/afro funk fusion and update it to fit into the new decade in much the same way Miles had with his&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Doo-Bop/dp/B000002LTU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Doo Bop</a>&nbsp;around the same time. It was that idea of updating where the issue lays with this. "Call It '95',the title song,"Shooz" and "The Melody" for one all feature live drumming and instrumentation believe it or not. But what was intended to be highly funky ended up being very burdened by an artificial and sterile sounding production and dull melodies mostly in the minor chord. The beats to the songs don't possess much vitality or compositional weight. It's on a remake of his 1974 classic "Butterfly" that the album fulfill's it's intention. Taking the song to a much funkier place than the more ethereal original this set more of a presidents for the second half of this record. "Juju","Rubber Soul" and "Bo Ba Be Da" possess much stronger compositional elements. Even so all are somehwat bogged down with dull slogging beats without much rhythmic excitement.

  Whether it be a production choice,a symptom of the time or a bit of both this album started with great intentions and...I really don't think it got there. It's far from a cliched smooth jazz album I'll give you that. But something about the sound and production took away the vitality that these musical ideas were supposed to have. It also didn't help that so many of these songs were flat out lacking in much memorability. That was always a Herbie Hancock trademark. And it's pretty much missing on a lot of these songs. Even songs such as "Mojuba" which are meant to have an obvious African theme. I've heard bits and pieces of this album over the years. It sounds excellent popping your head to on a good sized road trip I'll tell you that. But Herbie Hancock's function artistically is not to just make good backround music. As casual listening,especially taken as a whole,this album falls somewhat flat. Especially in terms of performance vitality. Things would definitely move forward for the better from this point on though as far as Herbie was concerned.
During the 1980's Herbie Hancock had an extremely productive and successful period,recording innovative and commercially successful albums with Bill Laswell that have more than withstood the test of time in more ways than one. He also played many acoustic dates as well. So on both ends of his talents,the electric and the acoustic he was still very much in his peak even as he climbed up the latter of middle age. By the time the 1990's came into it's own,a very strange thing happened in music. A strange mixture of accepted skepticism and negativity was in the air. And really it's still there to this day because no one acknowledges it's existence. Basically,if you were a rocker you more or less had to make music that related in some way to the grunge/alternative mindset. If you were a soul,funk or even jazz artist the music similarly had to relate to the hip-hop world to be commercially viable. Well Herbie had survived what seemed to be enforced music trends before. Figured he did it before,he could do it again. Or could he? Produced by Herbie and Bill Summers and including ex Headhunter Bennie Maupin,it was clear that this album had a terrific intention. And that was to take his hip-hop/afro funk fusion and update it to fit into the new decade in much the same way Miles had with his&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Doo-Bop/dp/B000002LTU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt? ie=UTF8">Doo Bop</a>&nbsp;around the same time. It was that idea of updating where the issue lays with this. "Call It '95',the title song,"Shooz" and "The Melody" for one all feature live drumming and instrumentation believe it or not. But what was intended to be highly funky ended up being very burdened by an artificial and sterile sounding production and dull melodies mostly in the minor chord. The beats to the songs don't possess much vitality or compositional weight. It's on a remake of his 1974 classic "Butterfly" that the album fulfill's it's intention. Taking the song to a much funkier place than the more ethereal original this set more of a presidents for the second half of this record. "Juju","Rubber Soul" and "Bo Ba Be Da" possess much stronger compositional elements. Even so all are somehwat bogged down with dull slogging beats without much rhythmic excitement. Whether it be a production choice,a symptom of the time or a bit of both this album started with great intentions and... I really don't think it got there. It's far from a cliched smooth jazz album I'll give you that. But something about the sound and production took away the vitality that these musical ideas were supposed to have. It also didn't help that so many of these songs were flat out lacking in much memorability. That was always a Herbie Hancock trademark. And it's pretty much missing on a lot of these songs. Even songs such as "Mojuba" which are meant to have an obvious African theme. I've heard bits and pieces of this album over the years. It sounds excellent popping your head to on a good sized road trip I'll tell you that. But Herbie Hancock's function artistically is not to just make good backround music. As casual listening,especially taken as a whole,this album falls somewhat flat. Especially in terms of performance vitality. Things would definitely move forward for the better from this point on though as far as Herbie was concerned.