THE HEADHUNTERS

FIFTY YEARS SINCE THEIRstart as part of Herbie Hancock’s goal for a frenetic fusion jazz ensemble, and forty-eight years since its groove-heavy debut album Survival of the Fittest, The Headhunters isn’t just going strong in 2023. Cofounders and composers Bill Summers and Mike Clark — respectively, the Headhunters’ percussionist and drummer — are thriving, driving hard through new original music, freeform solo improvisation (or “miracle” in Summers’ words), and bold, fresh albums ripe with Orleans parish funk (courtesy the inspiration of Louisiana-based alto saxophonist and member about those shows is that they turned into one big gig. [laughs] They all blend together. And being on the road, then, with Herbie, we did shows every composer Donald Harrison) such as the newly-released Speakers in the House on the Ropeadope label.

M.C: It’s interesting you say that because I never know what we’re going to do before we do it because Bill and I don’t discuss our improvs. He changes it up every tune, every night. The whole band does. To make any arrangement come alive, all bets have to be off. I’m not an expert, for instance, on Latin music save for some clave [a characteristic pattern of beats] stuff that Bill has shown me or I’ve picked up on from other players. But having played with Bill so much and for so long, I just read the rhythm in my body. Music, in that regard, hits me just like it did when I was a little kid: with immediacy. So, I roll with it, and the rest of the band rolls with me. And if I feel as if I’m bumping into Bill, I move out of the way. [laughs] We’re playing it all fast and loose. I’m playing with Bill like Elvin (Jones) played with Coltrane — it’s a conversation underneath the guise of soloing.

Currently touring behind Speakers in the House and for its 50th anniversary, Summers, Clark, and Harrison phoned en masse to discuss their longtime friendship and the message in the music of the Headhunters.

A.D: I know you just played Philly’s Brooklyn Bowl, but I want to take you back even farther to your first Headhunters gig in the area: 1973, the Bijou Café. Any recollection of the gig?

B.S.: The Seventies? What I do re- day let alone the after parties. I do, however, remember the Bijou. It’s not around anymore. Now the shows we did at Brooklyn Bowl — this whole tour — the playing has been exceptional. We are so good now; like a well-oiled basketball team. Everybody knows their position, and everyone is giving their all. I am amazed every night.

A.D: That’s funny to hear you say that, only because if there was ever a team of excellent inventive musicians acting as one unit, it has forever been The Headhunters because you and Mike have been doing this, as one, since its start.

A.D: How does all of this lead to coming up with the music of Speakers of the House?

B.S: What’s important about what we do as the Headhunters is thinking outside of the box. We have a whole way of thinking that is surely not the norm. Also, I have been playing for so long with Michael that it is a spiritual journey now. When we play together, we can time travel to spirit travel. Man, as a whole, probably won’t ever time travel with a machine — it will come from within, as it will use the soul, or the essence of a person, to steer that ship. Mike can play one lick, and I’ll repeat it or converse from there. And he with me. We’ll look at each other and laugh about the process be- cause we acknowledge what the other is doing. You have to be really connected to a person to have what we have — and that comes with a lot of talking, hanging, and fighting, except now, we’re too old and don’t have time to fight (laughs).

M.C: We’ve traveled the globe many times and talked about UFOs, dinosaurs, boxing, and baseball. We share similar tastes and information. We both came from an era and love of great soul music and know a lot of the same stuff. But right now, that knowledge is real coming together, and the Headhunters are on the precipice of breaking through in a new way. But, we need to do that night-bynight, gig-by-gig. In the old days, when we toured night for a year at a time, you really had a way to develop your chops, that language. Now we gig for two weeks at a time, go home, do our projects, and get together again for another two weeks of gigs. Luckily, the Headhunters can pick up where we left off.

B.S: I think that the Headhunters are at their very best level right now. If Jesus came with his band, he wouldn’t want us to play before him.

M.C: We have Big Chief Donald Harrison with us, a saxophonist who had deeply researched Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and everything modal in between. And, as the Big Chief, he has that New Orleans flavor in his DNA. He’s a visionary — Herbie Hancock was a visionary.

A.D: And Headhunters has had some choice saxophonists — Azar Lawrence, Bennie Maupin, Rob Dixon. Skerik. What do you two look for in a reeds man?

M.C: Without overusing the word, the guy’s got to have some real soul. We need a guy who can bring the funk, improvise in a jazz sense, and has roots in many different trees. We need a guy who can cover whatever we’re going for, naturally, whenever we go for it, and Donald can over the whole damn thing.

B.S: And let me tell you something about the concept of solos. With a person like Don- ald, he’s playing one note at a time. To me, the word solo greatly diminishes what is really going on. What’s really happening, considering that Donald is turning his horn upside down, inside out, is a miracle. Don’t call it a solo. Call it a miracle. They’re whipping out things from their memory banks as if they were computers, man. The guys in the Headhunters are making miracles happen every night.

D.C: I’ve been lucky to come up with and play with the people who are my heroes before I even started playing. From “Chameleon” to “Watermelon Man,” I was the biggest fan of Herbie’s songs and albums, never thinking that I would ever be connected to that in some way. They were at the furthest edges of the universe, and I was in some little town near New Orleans. Yet, by some stroke of luck, I met these gentlemen, they asked me to play with them, and every night, I am grateful. They change how we look at

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Copenhagen Cowboy (Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn). Starring: Angela Bundalovic, Andreas Lykke Jørgensen, Li Ii Zhang. For his second streaming series, this time with Netflix, Danish prankster Nicolas Winding Refn helms and cowrites (with Sara Isabella Jønsson Vedde, Johanne Algren and Mona Masri) a superhero origin story as only he could dream it up. Leisurely paced and neon-drenched, the six episodes follow Miu (Angela Bundalovic), a mysterious woman who is alternately good luck charm, bad omen, and avenging angel. She appears to have a criminal past, but it might be better to say that her ancestry and aims adapt to whatever situation she’s in. She begins semiimprisoned by an Eastern European brothel owner, then swept up in a kidnapping drama involving a pugilist crime lord, and finally locked in a supernatural battle with an ageless nemesis played by Refn’s own daughter Lola Corfixen. As with most of the filmmaker’s productions, it’s best to groove on the narcotizing mood more than seek narrative coherence. But there is plenty of pleasure to be had in all the gleefully obscure mindfuckery. [N/R] HHHH

Infinity Pool (Dir. Brandon Cronenberg). Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman. A pall of anxiety hangs over writer-director Brandon Cronenberg’s latest, though less due to the shadow of his famous father, David, than to the sense that he’s telling a tale he thinks he should rather than one he truly desires. To a degree that tracks with the plight of his protagonist, James (Alexander Skarsgård), a creatively blocked writer vacationing with his wife on a fictional resort island and searching desperately for inspiration. He finds it in the form of Gabi (Mia Goth), a deceptively ditzy temptress who inadvertently causes James to commit a criminal act. And then…well, let’s just say things get “doubly” weird, as well as gratuitously violent and sexual. There are good ideas buried in the resulting morass, one being the thin line separating lizard-brain fantasy from real-life brutality, but

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