Herbie Hancock
Maiden Voyage

From the turbulent virtuosity of the violin in Vivaldi's famous Concerto known as "The Sea Storm" to the vastness of the "maaaaaaa... re", directly proportional to the number of "a", evoked by many songs of Ivano Fossati.
From the unsurpassed triptych painted by Debussy in the symphonic poem "La mer", where the listener can easily get lost in the games of wind and waves, to the unsettling feeling of immensity that one experiences in front of the Atlantic, more than noticeable in the music of the Portuguese band Madredeus...

One could go on endlessly citing the sea as a source of inspiration for musicians of all times and genres, given the necessary ambition, since the task of representing it in the form of notes is not one of the easiest. And if the instruments are those of jazz, which by necessity cannot offer the variety of voices and the almost infinite range of nuances of a full orchestra, the challenge seems even more daunting.
But certainly not something to worry an inspired and very self-assured Herbie Hancock, like the one who in 1965 introduced his fantastic "Maiden Voyage" with liner notes that leave no doubt about its nature as a concept-album about the sea and aquatic life.

The very title speaks of the maiden voyage of a ship, the discovery of a magical and unspoiled world (the word "maiden" also carries the meaning of "virgin, untouched") by the crew, which, as in the best "sea novels" by Conrad, becomes one with the ship itself and seems to transmit to it its feelings of wonder and novelty.
The bespectacled pianist from Chicago had every right to be supercharged: he had joined Miles Davis's quintet two years earlier, which is more or less equivalent to a consecration. In "Maiden Voyage" we have the great pleasure of listening to this lineup, with the exception of the trumpet, for which we must "settle" for the excellent Freddie Hubbard in place of the unparalleled Miles. The quintet is completed by George Coleman on tenor sax, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums.

The maiden voyage starts as perfectly as possible, with the piece that, in addition to giving the album its title, decisively directs it towards the aquatic element. In "Maiden Voyage" right from the start, one can appreciate a rhythm with a perfect wave motion, based on the constant repetition of a simple three-note core, with the third note slightly detached. It is like a dull background noise, muffled yet persistent. Initially entrusted to the piano and bass, when Hancock emerges to sprinkle his precious pearly notes, only the bass continues to cradle the ship with the same rocking motion. Enhancing this impression is the great brush work by Tony Williams's drums, with a truly miraculous foam effect, verging on onomatopoeic.
On an already animated background, the warm voices of the trumpet and sax draw elaborate, yet never chaotic, patterns with their phrasing. "The Eye Of The Hurricane" is a concentration of energy: bass and drums impose accelerated cadences and the other instruments keep up admirably, starting with Hubbard's trumpet, whose solo is a whirlwind of notes truly worthy of representing a hurricane. Followed, with almost Coltrane-like fury, by Coleman's nervous sax, and finally Hancock, who from a sparing dispenser of notes has transformed into a machine gun of sounds, always clear and bright.

With a bit of breathlessness, we reach "Little One", strategically placed halfway through the album, like the intermission between two acts of an opera. It is a tribute to Miles Davis, and it is the only piece with no connection to the marine theme, although with a bit of imagination it is not hard to associate this splendid "ballad" with the view of a bay, perhaps in the early morning, with the sea slightly rippled (from Tony Williams's cymbals, which he has now come to enjoy, a faint white foam emerges and dissolves in an instant).
"Survival Of The Fittest" is a Darwinian tableau, if the Holy See allows me the use of this word. Aquatic life shows its most cynical and ruthless side: the big fish swallows the smaller one, the deadly tentacles of octopuses lurk around every corner, and so on. The rhythm is necessarily agitated and uneven; the voices of the various instruments express the anguish of creatures in danger, or the grotesque satisfaction of predators. Phenomenal in this sense is the entrance of Hubbard's trumpet, with a devilish scream that wouldn't be out of place in a thriller film, and in fact, this piece can be considered a kind of aquatic thriller.

This short but splendid gallery closes with the most joyful tableau, "Dolphin Dance", with the imaginative leaps of the most intelligent marine animals, wonderfully described by the solos of Hubbard, Coleman, and Hancock, in strict order of appearance (also because, at this level, establishing a preference order would be really hard). Carter and Williams create a moderately effervescent rhythmic base, enlivened by the now well-established foam effect of the drums. The result is a marvel of refinement and restrained liveliness, if I may use what learned people call an oxymoron. It is difficult to close in a better way this jazz masterpiece, thoroughly enjoyable and conceptually modern, well beyond what one might expect from an album of 41 years ago.