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Herbie Hanccock: Sextant

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Columbia Records
Released: 1973
Time:
 39:02
Category: Jazz
Producer(s): See Artists ...
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.herbiehancock.com
Appears with: Chick Corea, Jack de Johnette
Purchase date: 2002.01.26
Price in €: 9,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Rain Dance (Hancock) - 9:16
[2] Hidden Shadows (Hancock) - 10:11
[3] Hornets (Hancock) - 19:35

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


HERBIE HANCOCK - Synthesizer, Piano, Keyboards, Electric Piano, Vocals, Clavinet, Arp Echoplex, Mellotron, Clapping

BILLY HART - Percussion, Drums
BENNIE MAUPIN - Percussion, Bass Clarinet, Piccolo, Soprano Saxophone, Wind, Afuche
JULIAN PRIESTER - Bass, Alto & Tenor Trombone, Cowbell
BUSTER WILLIAMS - Percussion, Electric & Acoustic Bass, Wah Wah Guitar
EDDIE HENDERSON - Percussion, Trumpet
BUCK CLARKE - Bongos, Conga
VICTOR DOMAGALSKI - Vocals
PATRICK GLEESON - Synthesizer
VICTOR PONTOJA - Conductor

DELTA HORNE - Vocals
CANDY LOVE - Vocals
SCOTT BEACH - Vocals
SANDRA STEVENS - Vocals

BOB BELDEN - Producer, Liner Notes, Reissue Producer
DAVID RUBINSON - Producer, Remixing
JOHN VIEIRA - Engineer, Mixing
FRED CATERO - Engineer
JEREMY ZATKIN - Engineer
TOM "Curly" RUFF - Digital Remastering
HOWARD FRITZSON - Art Direction
DON HUNSTEIN - Photography
SETH ROTHSTEIN - Project Director
RANDALL MARTIN - Reissue Design
ROB SPRINGETT - Paintings

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


When Herbie Hancock left Warner Bros. in 1971 after releasing three musically sound but critically and commercially underappreciated albums — The Crossing, Mwandishi, and Fat Albert's Groove — he was struggling. At odds with a jazz establishment that longed for his return to his Blue Note sound and a fierce consciousness struggle with free music and the full-on embrace of electricity since his tenure with Miles Davis, Hancock was clearly looking for a voice. Before diving into the commercial waters that would become Headhunters in 1973, Hancock and his tough sextet (including Billy Hart, Julian Priester, Dr. Eddie Henderson, Bennie Maupin, and Buster Williams) cut this gem for their new label, Columbia. Like its Warner predecessors, the album features a kind of post-modal, free impressionism while gracing the edges of funk. The three long tracks are exploratory investigations into the nature of how mode and interval can be boiled down into a minimal stew and then extrapolated upon for soloing and "riffing." In fact, in many cases, the interval becomes the riff, as is evidenced by "Rain Dance." The piece that revealed the true funk direction, however, was "Hidden Shadows," with its choppy bass lines and heavy percussion — aided by the inclusion of Dr. Patrick Gleeson and Buck Clarke. Dave Rubinson's production brought Hancock's piano more into line with the rhythm section, allowing for a unified front in the more abstract sections of these tunes. The true masterpiece on the album, though, is "Hornets," an eclectic, electric ride through both the dark modal ambience of Miles' In a Silent Way and post-Coltrane harmonic aesthetics. The groove is in place, but it gets turned inside out by Priester and Maupin on more than one occasion and Hancock just bleats with the synth in sections. Over 19 minutes in length, it can be brutally intense, but is more often than not stunningly beautiful. It provides a glimpse into the music that became Headhunters, but doesn't fully explain it, making this disc, like its Warner predecessors, true and welcome mysteries in Hancock's long career.

Thom Jurek - All-Music Guide
© 1992 - 2001 AEC One Stop Group, Inc.



Recorded with the sly, space-funky band that Herbie Hancock formed as Mwandishi (check out the two-CD Warner Bros. collection), Sextant is one of those cornerstone jazz CDs. It ranks with the best early, electric fusion for its fuzzing of textures, always used as bedrock for killer, roomy solos. A troika of horn greats can take much of the credit for the solos: trombonist Julian Priester, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, and saxist Bennie Maupin. Each generates great, dense ideas without betraying Hancock's eerie ambience and funky vibe. Yes, this is an aggregation of many 1970s-era ideas: renewed sense of Africanisms (at least in the band's naming), intensified percussive underpinnings, and a heap of rumbly rhythms that give props to everyone in neofunk jazz from Clyde Stubblefield to Funkadelic, albeit in a slowed, methodically rhythmic vein. Hancock's keyboards make fine clouds, as well as slinking shuffles.

Andrew Bartlett - Amazon.com



Sextant wurde mit der cleveren Funk-Band aufgenommen, die Herbie Hancock für Mwandishi zusammenstellte, und ist eine der Ecksteine bei Jazz-Sammlungen. Es gehört wegen seines Verschwimmens von Strukturen zu den besten Beiträgen der frühen Phase von "Electric Fusion" und wird immer als das Urgestein für lange, beinharte Solo-Passagen angesehen.
Eine Troika von Experten am Horn kann bei den Soli einen großen Teil des Ruhms für sich verbuchen: der Posaunist Julian Priester, der Trompeter Eddie Henderson und der Saxofonist Bennie Maupin. Jeder von ihnen schafft große, konzentrierte Ideen, ohne jedoch Hancocks beklemmende Stimmung und dessen von Funk geprägte Ausstrahlung zu gefährden. Ganz sicher, dies ist eine Anhäufung von vielen Ideen der siebziger Jahre: Ein erneuertes Gespür für Afrikanismen (zumindest im Namen der Band), intensivierte Untermalung durch das Schlagzeug und eine Menge von rumpelnden Rhythmen, die als Vorlage für jedermann im Neofunk-Jazz-Bereich gelten sollte - von Clyde Stubblefield bis hin zu Funkadelic, wenn auch in verlangsamter und systematisch rhythmischer Art. Hancock versteht es, seinem Keyboard feine Nebelschleier, aber auch daherschlürfende Shuffles zu entlocken.

Andrew Bartlett - Amazon.de



...Taking his cue from Davis' swirling, anarchic BITCHES BREW and ON THE CORNER, Hancock went even further into outer space....much of SEXTANT, with its twittering, burbling effects, amounts to a primitive version of Nineties ambient music...

Rolling Stone (9/3/98, p.102) - 3.5 Stars (out of 5)
© Copyright 2001 RollingStone.com



Attention all abstract jazz/funk fans! The re-issue of Herbie Hancock's overlooked 1973 gem, Sextant is an experience in psychic space and a vertigo vibe, and the journey begins the moment you push play. Within the first five seconds, the synthesizer's eerie pulse sets the tone for the darkly resonating "Rain Dance". This music is twenty-five years old but sounds like it was recorded by some of today's leading electronica artists. For the more realistic jazz/funk fans, "Hidden Shadows" is the cut. It begins with drums, percussion and guitar, then locks into a groove that gets hips moving and heads bobbing.
The final track, "Hornets," is the marriage of both worlds. Cut from the same cloth as Miles Davis' "On the Corner," which Hancock played on, it's abstract but with a concrete beat. And the band is reminiscent of The JB'S and Ornette Coleman. They jam out for 19 simply amazing minutes, building scat upon scat and improv upon improv...
Sextant has stood the test of time. Hancock must have seen music's future. Nobody would guess that this CD was originally released 25 years ago.

VH1 Online
© 1999 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved.



Before it hardened into fusion, jazz rock was a fertile flux, a general meltdown of musical categories – during its brief, early-Seventies heyday, Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder and Miles Davis were grist for each other's mills. Out of this vortex came jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock's Sextant (1973). Taking his cue from Davis' swirling, anarchic Bitches Brew and On the Corner, Hancock went even further into outer space. Ever the gadget freak, he was an early convert to synthesizers, and much of Sextant, with its twittering, burbling effects, amounts to a primitive version of Nineties ambient music.
A sales flop, Sextant prompted Hancock to own up to his commercial ambitions. In late 1973 he cut the hook-rich Headhunters, one of jazz's all-time best sellers (imagine a jazz album hitting Number Thirteen on today's Billboard album chart!). Remarkably, Hancock hit Number Thirteen again with his follow-up, Thrust. Yet where Headhunters was undergirded by the capable, facile drummer Harvey Mason, Thrust's drummer was jazz-funk genius Mike Clark, a scrawny little fiend who'd rather play music than eat. On extended jams like "Palm Grease" and "Actual Proof," Clark and bassist Paul Jackson are a two-headed computer disgorging off-kilter but irresistibly fat-bottomed licks; Hancock's Fender Rhodes and Bennie Maupin's reeds, meanwhile, dance on the ceiling. Thrust is a great album: brave, risky music making.
Hancock cut a few more albums with Thrust's personnel before he went on his way in 1976. The rest of the band, calling themselves the Headhunters, cut a few first-class funk albums and disbanded. Today, with groove bands like Medeski, Martin and Wood proliferating and hip-hoppers like Mobb Deep sampling Headhunters licks, Hancock has seen fit to give his old mates another shot.
Return of the Headhunters has a surface sheen that Sextant and Thrust (both newly reissued) could never have aspired to but little of those albums' raw fervor. Mike Clark keeps trying to break free, but he's hamstrung by candy-coated synths and generic R&B vocals. Hancock, who guests on four tracks, is content to glide complacently. Live, these guys probably kill. On record (this record, at least), they make you long for the brave experimentation of Sextant, the loose-limbed slip and slide of Thrust.

TONY SCHERMAN - RS 794
© Copyright 2001 RollingStone.com

 

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