2. Thrust - Herbie Hancock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxBkmMOh0Uc Herbies album Head Hunters tends to be most popularwith songs like Watermelon Man and Chameleonbut Thrust has always been my favorite. This album builds on the funky jazz-rock of Head Hunters, bringing it to a new level of hard-hitting sublimity. The grandiosity doesnt lie in an ornate concept for the album or in 100-piece arrangements. Its in the extended funky jams. Long songs are of course not rare in jazz, but the funk and rock forms Hancock utilizes gives the long songs an intensity usually reserved for Led Zeppelin. At the same time, there are some more chill, cerebral moments, to remind us that this is, first and foremost, jazz. Before experimental jazz became too weird for most listeners, before the aforementioned backlash to fusion demonized artists who dared break with 1940s jazz conventions, there was Thrust.