In this episode, we cover the first two albums in your Metal Blade Anthology, Omen's Warning of Danger and Fates Warning's The Spectre Within. In this episode, our host J. Bennett talks to Kenny Powell from Omen, and Fates Warning's singer John Arch. 

This ninth season of VMP Anthology tackles one of the most important labels in the history of heavy music, Metal Blade. On this first episode, our host J. Bennett interviews Metal Blade founder Brian Slagel about the label's beginnings. 

In this, our final episode of the season, we cover the final two albums in your box set: 1+1, an album Herbie made with his best friend and collaborator Wayne Shorter, and River: The Joni Letters, an album that garnered Herbie the Album of the Year Grammy. We start with Herbie talking about 1+1, and then hear from Wayne, before Robert Glasper explains why the album is two masters in communication. Then we transition to River, where we hear from Herbie, producer Larry Klein, Robert Glasper, and finally Corinne Bailey Rae, who sings on the album and performed with Herbie a number of times after the album came out.

In this episode, we tackle the third set of records in your VMP Anthology box set: The Piano and Future Shock. These albums represent the breadth of Herbie’s sonic pushing, as The Piano is a solo piano record, and Future Shock was the first album to meld jazz and hip-hop. Both of them groundbreaking in their own way. In the first section of the podcast, we hear from Herbie on how The Piano came to be, and from fello pianist Robert Glasper who talks about the album’s mastery. Then, we hear from Herbie about the making of Future Shock, and close this episode with a lengthy interview with Grandmaster DXT, the DJ and turntablist who invented the sound of scratching on record.

 In this episode, we cover the second set of records in your box, Head Hunters and Live Under the Sky. These albums celebrate Herbie’s landmark move into funk, and his team up with other jazz legends for the supergroup V.S.O.P. In the first segment of this podcast, we hear Herbie talk about Head Hunters, and how it became an unlikely hit, and trying the album out in dance clubs before it was released. Then we get Robert Glasper and Corinne Bailey Rae’s impressions of the album, before Herbie talks briefly about Live Under the Sky, and what he remembers most from those shows.

In this episode, we cover the first two albums in your VMP Anthology box set: Takin’ Off and Maiden Voyage. In this episode we’ll hear how Herbie lying about his draft status helped him get into the Blue Note studio, and stories of making Takin’ Off and Maiden Voyage, and in between we’ll hear from legendary bassist Ron Carter, who played on Maiden Voyage, and singer Corinne Bailey Rae, who shares her love of early Herbie here.

This first episode of Season 7 of the VMP Anthology Podcast introduces some of the folks we’ll hear from this season sharing their thoughts on Herbie Hancock’s artistry, what makes him special, and why he’s such a joy to work with. We start with Wayne Shorter, Larry Klein, and Ron Carter, and hear from Bernie Grundman, who remastered this box set, as well as Robert Glasper and Corinne Bailey Rae.  Without further ado, here’s the Story of Herbie Hancock:

On this final episode, we cover the final three albums in your Anthology box, Voices and Rhythms of the Creative Profile, Reflections in the Sea of Nurnen, and Farewell to the Welfare. These final three albums represent a tantalizing theoretical on where Tribe Records might have gone next if they had stayed in operation. They incorporate more funk, more wild electronics, and more songs you could see breaking through at radio, and represent the freedom in form that came with running your own label. The label would close before the final album in this box could be released, but they show clearly that for a label run often on a shoestring budget, Tribe had an impeccable catalog. 

In this episode, Vibes from the Tribe, devoted to Phil Ranelin, the soft-spoken jazz adventurist, Marcus talks briefly with Phil about the two albums that he is the leader of in your box set: The Time Is Now and Vibes from the Tribe. The two albums feel like different sides of the Phil Ranelin coin, with the Time Is Now being less groove-oriented and more post-bop and free jazz, and Vibes from the Tribe being a beloved record amongst cratediggers for its thick grooves and legendary breakbeats. 

On this episode, An Evening With the Tribe, we’ll cover the first two albums in your box, Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison’s A Message from the Tribe and Wendell’s own An Evening With the Devil.