Herbert Jay Solomon (April 16, 1930 – July 1, 2003), better known as Herbie Mann, was an American jazz flautist and important early practitioner of world music. Early in his career, he also played saxophones and clarinets (including bass clarinet), but Mann was among the first jazz musicians to specialize on the flute and was perhaps jazz music's preeminent flautist during the 1960s.
His most popular single was "Hijack", which was a Billboard Number-one dance hits of 1975 (USA) for 3 weeks.
Herbie Mann was born in Brooklyn, New York. As a teen, he attended Lincoln H.S. in Brighton Beach and was actually failed in a music class. He talks a lot about "the groove." In the 1950s, Mann "locked into a Brazilian groove in the early '60s, then moved into a funky, soulful groove in the late '60s and early '70s. By the mid-'70s he was making hit disco records, still cooking in a rhythmic groove." He describes his approach to finding the groove as follows:"All you have to do is find the waves that are comfortable to float on top of." Mann argues that the "epitome of a groove record" is Memphis Underground or Push Push, because the "rhythm section locked.