Herbie Hancock
Maiden Voyage

How to find excellent jazz music? The catalog of Blue Note is absolutely fascinating and among the best available. Moreover, acquiring this material is fun. Sometimes it's like a treasure hunt. You browse through the stalls of Naschmarkt (Vienna) or the alleys of Mariahilfestrasse (also in Vienna), where there are dozens of small, chaotic shops with a heap of used material spread out on rudimentary shelves. It's the Viennese style, an environment renowned for its waltzes and classical music, but not forgetting a fascinating undercurrent of jazz enthusiasts. There are venues like Porgy & Bess (named after a Gershwin opera), or Bluebird (owned by Joe Zawinul) where jazz is played to the fullest extent.

With this little premise, I dive into the review of "Maiden Voyage," where pianist Hancock ignites the typical atmosphere of cool jazz-hard bop with his melodies, collaborating with the skillful Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Ron Carter on double bass, the very young Williams on drums, and George Coleman on tenor sax.

The album is from 1965. Hancock is a genius. Even laypeople will remember the legendary disjointed sound of "Watermelon Man" from his debut album. A true classic, right? The melody started with simple catchiness upon which an effective rhythm and blues could be perceived. With later tracks like "Cantaloupe Island," one could enjoy funky tones. And here, with "Maiden Voyage" (Herbie's fifth album as a leader), the inertia is broken again, ending up with something strongly opposing the creative vein (and tempted by success) of the four previous albums.

We are facing a mature professional who decides to embark on new paths, almost impressionistic, and at times it almost seems like there's a desire to recapture the verve, the sound he was used to breathing with Miles Davis's quintet. In fact, the group gathered here is almost the trumpeter's (excluding Coleman) in place of Shorter and logically Davis.

If one really wants to be critical, Hubbard's embellishments aren't up to the great Miles. Williams is as suggestive as always. Coleman, in a word, is human. The king of the session is undoubtedly Hancock. The compositions (5 tracks) are worthy of his fame and compositional ability. Melodic delicacy (in the cool jazz style) and intense harmonic work, offering a truly succulent descriptive ability. There is a sort of return to acoustics, a kind of attempt to smooth the sound and at times (but it's a perception, I assure you) a questionable desire to fall back into commercial forms. But in the end, the album features truly successful episodes, like the intense "The Eye of The Hurricane" or the closing track "Dolphin Dance," and it never falters, never touches banality in the slightest.

For an approach to soft, catchy jazz (but not overly), dive into this work which I consider suitable for (almost) all discerning ears. The exquisite treatment of Hancock on the 88 keys of the acoustic piano is, in this album, again from 1965, probably the last chance to hear him at levels of excellent intuition and creativity.