Herbie Hancock
Maiden Voyage


4.0
excellent

Review

by Fort23 USER (36 Reviews)
July 13th, 2007 | 52 replies


Release Date: 1965 | Tracklist

Review Summary: A modal Jazz record that holds together beautifully, with introspective textures and moods.

Herbie Hancock's Empyrean Isles showed him writing adventurous, sometimes introspective pieces of Modal Jazz. His experimentation with different textures, and moods was realized with it's predecessor, Maiden Voyage.

Herbie Hancock's band was:
Freddie Hubbard — Trumpet
George Coleman — Tenor saxophone
Herbie Hancock — Piano
Ron Carter — Bass
Tony Williams — Drums


On Maiden Voyage, Hancock used his band as his tools in creating his masterpiece. While one of members took the lead, usually either Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, George Coleman on tenor saxophone, or Hancock himself on Piano, the rest of the band would create a solidifying rhythm, that would follow the leads, but not try and top them. The solos run freely with the rest of the band, and aren't constricted by anything the rest of the band does. It created a new dimension of mood and texture to the music that would not be there if everyone in the group was just soldering off into different directions of self-indulgent solos. In this way, it's obvious Hancock was taking notes from his mentor, the great Miles Davis. And while Davis might've loosened things up in terms of leads and maybe even self indulgence, Hancock's textures would've been much less introspective if Davis didn't show him the ropes.

Instead of Freddie Hubbard trying to bring old fashioned playing in and overshadowing the very introspective leads that I've mentioned many times, he adds to the textures and moods, while bringing fast paced solos that often goes straight into the tenor saxaphone. Sometimes they are undistinguishable, and flow together, note by note. All in all, the lead players relent throught the record, and give the rhythm section much to work with.

The piano playing is very relaxed, but at the same time it has a soul. The piano playing is probably the most improvised aspect of the record. It dosen't seem to hold too tightly to what Hancock wrote, but it can also hold together with the rhythm section nicely.

Sometimes, the entire band takes a big leap, and plays together, note by note, and creates some of the most intricate harmonies I've heard. It takes the introspective textures mentioned before and keeps them running ingeniously throughout the record. The fleeting rhythm section of Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums) gives the album a Hard Bop flavor, that Hancock had been digging out since his early days on his first record, Takin' Off, but giving it a fast paced tempos that drove into Hard Bop, even shuttling the term post-bop. The bass playing of Ron Carter playing is fairly bouncy, but mainly stays low and adds precise rhythm even if it is slow in he mix at times. Tony Williams more often finds his rhythm in his cymbals, sometimes overshadowing the rest of the preformance with a overbearing cymbal crash. But he retreats to his bass and snares enough to keep the beat flowing and to show the rhythm an album like this needs.

At times the solos might slip off, and the band might take it too far, but they still find themselves back on track eventually, usually to show off the backing rhythm, or start off another solo. So despite not being as adventurous and as time killing as his previous works, it still proves itself influential for it's introspective textures, harmonies, and solos.



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user ratings (254)
4.1
excellent


Comments:Add a Comment 
JumpTheF**kUp
July 13th 2007


2723 Comments


>: ( I was writing a review for this you 32r*@!Rjf031jh1$.
For some reason this review sounds like you've wiki'd or googled this album and paraphrased the one which sounded the best and which fit most effectively with your opinion. Comparing the way this is written to your posts, it's easy to see a clear difference and either you've been using microsoft word's thesaurus to make it sound better (Quoting Jom, "Sacrosanct synonymy Batman!") or you didn't write it, idk.
And anyway, this review is far too short for such an expansive album.

Zebra
Moderator
July 13th 2007


2647 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

This album is excellent, it's certaintly Hancocks finest accomplishment if you don't include his funk stuff. This review was pretty good however I disagree about Herbie's piano playing being the most "improvised" on the album. The majority of his playing is just simple chords and cadences.

Aficionado
July 13th 2007


1027 Comments


modal album eh? Skim over some of your sentences, some of them are missing words.This Message Edited On 07.13.07

Bron-Yr-Aur
July 13th 2007


4405 Comments


[quote=review]The exceptional rhythm section of Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums)[/quote]

That sentence would suggest so, as its word for word AMG. There are alot of other similarities between AMG's review and this, and it seems that at the very least you used it as a primary reference.

Fort23
July 13th 2007


3775 Comments


Hmmm I compared them and there are a few similiarites. I might have to change this up a bit...

SCLSmarty
July 14th 2007


7 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Not my favorite Hancock record, but its still a realy good listen. The review was realy good too.

KingGhidorah
July 28th 2007


64 Comments


Hancock is pretty damn good, so I'm going to check this one out.

Merkaba33
July 28th 2007


703 Comments


John Hancock...It was Heeeerbie Hancock!
I have Rockit and that's it. I've been wanting to check this album out for a long time though. good review btw.

204409
Emeritus
September 18th 2008


3998 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

Love this album. Does anybody else have an other recommendations for modal jazz?

jefflebowski
October 2nd 2011


8573 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

Probably his best jazz album IMO. Plays a bit like Kind of Blue-lite at times though, not that that's

strictly a bad thing

liledman
October 2nd 2011


3828 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

i like herbies modal stuff better than miles tbh... i mean i dig miles stuff more when he played with hancock/carter/williams/shorter but kind of blue doesnt move me the way this or empyrean isles does.



and i would say empyrean isles is better than this.

sniper
October 2nd 2011


19075 Comments


miles modal stuff is too laid back a lot of the time. the tracks from these sessions get crazy heavy. i'm seeing shorter tomorrow pretty much gonna melt.

liledman
October 2nd 2011


3828 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

fuck yeah who is he playing with?

sniper
October 2nd 2011


19075 Comments


its a quartet featuring no one as old/legendary as himself but who really cares. seriously going to be so rad.

jefflebowski
October 2nd 2011


8573 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

shorter is a god

sniper
October 2nd 2011


19075 Comments


definitely one of if not the greatest surviving player/composer of his or any period of jazz history.

jefflebowski
October 2nd 2011


8573 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

I'd drink to that

sniper
October 2nd 2011


19075 Comments


although there's still chick, herbie and tyner around from his era too so idk. regardless, he's the man.

jefflebowski
October 2nd 2011


8573 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

I always thought Hancock>Corea in terms of his recorded work, if not technical skill. Chick did some awesome stuff, with Return to Forver especially, but I don't reckon it's on the same level as this or Headhunters, or indeed Herbie's work on E.S.P and Jack Johnson

DoubtGin
October 2nd 2011


6879 Comments


have only listened to Head Hunters so far (a classic for me), I should listen to his other acclaimed works as well



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