Herbie has had quite an extensive musical history. As a child prodigy, he was playing Mozart piano concertos on stage before he'd even hit puberty. In his 20s was playing for Miles Davis' brilliant quintet for 'ESP' and other albums, and during that time he was already releasing solo albums on blue note records. He recorded with larger ensembles, made exploratory innovative jazz albums, recorded soundtracks... so by the time he gets to "Head Hunters", he's been around the block.
Herbie eschews a lot of his more experimental sounds to investigate a style that is kind-of-funk, kind-of-fusion and arguably the birth of one or two styles of electronic music.
Hancock described it that he'd spent enough time exploring the upper stratosphere of music and he wanted a return to earth. That plays out here, with the rhythm section keeping mostly to tight funky grooves with occasional bursts of wild jazz energy and Herbie ranging about over it all.
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