A
Herbie Hancock LP, circa 1969; the musicians adopted
African names (the LP was named after HH). He'd always kept a delicate balance between pop (e.g. "
Watermelon Man") and esoterica (his work with
Miles Davis, and the more challenging bits on his own LPs), but this was a chance to fully go the challenging route, with inventive textures and great group interaction. Legend: an apathetic Pointer Sisters crowd (in a double-bill akin to
Jimi Hendrix and
The Monkees) led him to quit the band.
Their last hurrah was actually a 1973 LP, Realization, released under the name of the group's trumpeter, Dr. Eddie Henderson (his nickname was "Mganga"). After the dispersal of the group - Hancock did his mega-selling dumbed-down funk LP, with a new group that included only saxophonist "Mwile" Bennie Maupin from the Mwandishi band. The others carried on the Mwandishi concept on some ECM recordings by the group's trombonist, "Pepo Mtoto" Julian Priester.