Herbie Hancock: Takin' Off (Blue Note 80 series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Blue Note 80 series edition is pressed on 180g vinyl and mastered at Cohearent Audio. "Watermelon Man" became a jazz standard, and every tune is a Hancock original.

This edition

• Blue Note 80 series
• 180g vinyl
• Mastered at Cohearent Audio
• Stereo
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Most pianists ease into a recording career. Herbie Hancock, 22 years old and fresh from Chicago, walked into his first Blue Note session on May 28, 1962, with six original tunes and a front line of tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.

"Watermelon Man" opens the album with a strutting, bluesy groove built on the calls of street vendors Hancock remembered from his childhood, and within a year Mongo Santamaría had taken his own version into the US Top 10. "Three Bags Full" and "Empty Pockets" swing hard in the hard bop style, "The Maze" twists through its changes, "Driftin'" relaxes into a cool midtempo glide, and "Alone and I" is a gentle, thoughtful ballad. Butch Warren on bass and Billy Higgins on drums keep everything springy, Rudy Van Gelder's engineering keeps it all clear, and Gordon's big, warm tenor makes it plain why the young leader wanted him there.

Hancock would revisit "Watermelon Man" in a funk arrangement on Head Hunters in 1973, which says something about a tune that good. Some people's first job is a paper route; his was a jazz standard.

Also at Kops: more Herbie Hancock on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# 7742399), a reissue of the 1962 album.