Head Hunters

CTL-E-5854 · Work · album · 1973

VERIFIED evidence grade — master store (canonical CSV)

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-00129 · provenance: canonical master store (CSV), record CTL-W-0013 + build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5854. Master record source: CTL seed 2026-10-16 — UNVERIFIED, verify before public citation.

Head Hunters is Herbie Hancock's 1973 album for Columbia Records, co-produced by David Rubinson, and a defining document of jazz-funk fusion. Its four extended tracks — 'Chameleon,' 'Watermelon Man,' 'Sly,' and 'Vein Melter' — pair jazz improvisation with funk and R&B rhythms, with Hancock on Fender Rhodes, clavinet, and ARP synthesizers alongside reedman Bennie Maupin, bassist Paul Jackson, drummer Harvey Mason, and percussionist Bill Summers. 'Watermelon Man' is a new electric arrangement of the composition from Hancock's 1962 debut, Takin' Off, and 'Sly' honors Sly Stone, one of the funk musicians — with James Brown and Curtis Mayfield — whose example Hancock absorbed. Released in October 1973, the album sold more than a million copies, became the first platinum-selling jazz record, and was for a time the best-selling jazz album ever; the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2007.

The record

• Year: 1973
• Work type: album

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 8; first Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Head Hunters entity in the live graph at 3,523 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5854 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — corpus scan sample, readiness rank 2129 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #181). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — landmark jazz-funk album by graph-homed artist Herbie Hancock (CTL-E-5144); core Black music canon scope. Vital status: n/a (Work). STATISTICS (sourced, dated): released October 1973 on Columbia (Herbie Hancock's twelfth studio album, per the platinum-award record); its in-house platinum award commemorates sale of more than 1,000,000 copies, and NPR identifies it as the first platinum-selling jazz record; added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2007. MEDIA: photo HELD (original Head Hunters Columbia album cover named as candidate; no file-page verification in this pass); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5854-head-hunters.svg); video HELD (no matching CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (recording is third-party copyrighted material with no CTL rights basis). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Non-place record; no map attaches at the entity layer.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (The recording itself is third-party copyrighted material with no CTL rights basis; no audio is staged in this )

Relationships

• Columbia Records — released by
  Head Hunters, Herbie Hancock's twelfth studio album, was released October 26, 1973, on Columbia Records (label: Columbia). Closes the blocked edge documented in Scan Tail Wave 1.
• Herbie Hancock — authored by
  Head Hunters (Columbia, 1973) is Herbie Hancock's album of jazz-funk fusion, co-produced with David Rubinson.

Sources

• NPR (via WKYU), "'Head Hunters' Found A New Direction In Jazz" (December 28, 2008) — 1973 Columbia album, first platinum-selling jazz record, fusion of jazz, R&B, funk, and African music, Library of Congress preservation, and Hancock's James Brown and Sly Stone influences — https://www.wkyufm.org/2008-12-28/head-hunters-found-a-new-direction-in-jazz (build store)
• Heritage Auctions, "Herbie Hancock Head Hunters In-house Platinum Record Sales Award" (accessed 2026-10-16) — Columbia PC 32731 (1973), twelfth studio album, co-producer David Rubinson, award text commemorating sale of more than 1,000,000 copies, National Recording Registry addition in 2007 — https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/music-memorabilia/awards/herbie-hancock-head-hunters-in-house-platinum-record-sales-award-columbia-pc-32731-1973-/a/7161-89613.s (build store)
• All About Jazz, "Head Hunters — Herbie Hancock" review (accessed 2026-10-16) — Columbia 1973 release, personnel (Bennie Maupin, Paul Jackson, Harvey Mason, Bill Summers), the four tracks, and more than one million copies sold on its October 1973 release — https://www.allaboutjazz.com/head-hunters-herbie-hancock-columbia-records-review-by-aaron-basiliere (build store)
• https://loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/registry-by-chronology.pdf (verification source · master store)

Evidence note (master store)

Album title: Head Hunters Artist: Herbie Hancock Release year: 1973

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Record CTL-E-5854 · Combined Graph record U-00129 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 4 sources · 2 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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