Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage

The title cut on Maiden Voyage, Herbie Hancock's 1965 album, is one of my favourite jazz compositions ever. With its meditative, serene qualities and that fantastic piano groove, this composition is a memorable effort that well deserves to be among the sixties jazz classics. The line up for this album is a classic post-Davis line up, with bass, drums, sax, trumpet and piano. In fact, three fifths of the personnel (Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams) is the same as Miles Davis' Second Quintet, with Freddie Hubbard filling in on trumpet and George Coleman replacing Wayne Shorter on tenor. Even though this means the sound is pretty much in the sixties post-bop vein as far as instrumentation (and composition goes), listening to this record offers quite a few subtleties in a way. Herbie Hancock's solos are really advanced and at times you can clearly point his modern classical influences a la Stravinsky, especially during his solo on the third track, "Little One". Ironically enough, the 1978 live version of the album's title track with Chick Corea had a fairly avant-classical Stravinsky esque middle section to it. Of course it goes without saying that any sixties jazz album with the great Tony Williams on drums deserves to be heard.