Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters album is included in 'The Complete Columbia Album Collection 1972-1988' that is now out on Sony Legacy , according to a report by the Financial Times.

The Head Hunters went gold, while "Chameleon," its lead track became a commercial hit and is still a jam-session staple until today, the Financial Times said.

Hancock fused funk and the depth and freedom of jazz music, which led to a series of experimental music included in the album. The album was a product of Hancock looking for a new direction that his music will take.

If you are a Hancock fanatic, you will remember the sleeve notes of his 1997 CD re-issue, which said:

"I began to feel that I had been spending so much time exploring the upper atmosphere of music and the more ethereal kind of far-out spacey stuff. Now there was this need to take some more of the earth and to feel a little more tethered; a connection to the earth....I was beginning to feel that we (the sextet) were playing this heavy kind of music, and I was tired of everything being heavy. I wanted to play something lighter."

He formed a new band, The Headhunters, which made the carrier album of the same title materialized. During the album's recording, Hancock was hands-on with all the synthesizer parts of the music. The tracks of the album were long, with tempos changing, and full breadth of improvisation.

Herbie Hancock is a relaxed and unshowy performer. He was so at eased with his craft, but his impact with late-20^th century jazz music was remarkable. Every jazz pianist at present bears Hancock's style and mark, the report said.

Hancock was born in Chicago and was considered a musical prodigy. He performed Mozart with the Chicago Symphony when he was only 11-years-old, although he couldn't hide his love for rhythm and blues. He discovered jazz when he was a teenager and never looked back since.