The release of Rockit

Miles Davis boasted he had changed music five times. Herbie Hancock looks set to beat his old boss's record: every time he buys a new piece of equipment, he invents a new genre. As Hancock wound down the Afro-electrocentric adventures of the Mwandishi band, he predicted bleepy electro with the sequencers of Rain Dance (from 1973's Sextant). Grasping the polyphonic synth with both hands, he masterminded a hugely successful jazz/fusion album, Head Hunters. Hancock then discovered the vocoder, and with Sunlight (1977) made a commercial hybrid of Sparky's Magic Piano and Stevie Wonder-like melodic soul. Next, Hancock armed himself with more electronic kit and brought sampling and scratching together in a monstrous alliance for Rockit, a pioneering, inspiring track for a generation of DJs and musicians who were hardly born when Hancock twiddled his first circuits. A Godley and Creme video featuring nightmarish humanoids was the final, hit-making touch, and jazz infiltrated the TOTP/MTV world once more. Rockit is almost unique: both novelty pop hit and jazz track of lasting influence.