“The Prisoner reflected the beginnings of my new musical directions,” recalled Herbie Hancock in his 2014 memoir, Prospects. “It was a concept album focusing on the struggle for civil rights.”
The Chicago-born pianist, who had simply left Miles Davis’ groundbreaking quintet when he recorded The Prisoner, had not made a political-themed album earlier than, however the stunning assassination of famous civil-rights chief Martin Luther King, Jr, in 1968, impressed him to make an album that crystallized his ideas in regards to the incident in addition to expressing his emotions for his troubled homeland and its sense of turmoil and deep division. Throughout three classes, held at Van Gelder Studio on April 18, 21, and 23, 1969, Hancock put these concepts to tape and, in doing so, set himself on a brand new artistic path.
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Incendiary volleys of notes
Stylistically, The Prisoner shared sonic similarities with 1968’s Communicate Like A Baby, on which Hancock experimented with the wealthy textures of a three-horn entrance line. On that album, he used a mixture of alto flute, flugelhorn, and bass trombone. It was an uncommon configuration of sounds however imbued the file with vibrant tonal colours. Emboldened to experiment additional, Hancock widened his palette on The Prisoner by writing music for a mixture of six brass and woodwind devices. The horn part included Johnny Coles (flugelhorn), Joe Henderson (alternating between alto flute and tenor sax), trombonist Garnett Brown, flautist Hubert Legal guidelines, and bass clarinetist Jerome Richardson (who additionally doubled on flute).
The glue that held the music collectively, although, was a rhythm part comprising bassist Buster Williams and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, who was the youthful sibling of Fashionable Jazz Quartet bassist Percy Heath and the late tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath.
The Prisoner’s opener, “I Have A Dream,” takes its title from Martin Luther King’s iconic speech delivered at Washington, DC’s Lincoln Memorial in 1963. With its rhythmic ebb and movement and brooding really feel, it’s related in temper to Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” observe from 5 years earlier. The brass and woodwind mix elegantly to enunciate the softly-snaking fundamental theme over Williams’ and Heath’s simmering groove. Solos come from Hancock, Johnny Coles, and the masterful Joe Henderson, whose keening tenor sax strains imbue the piece with an otherworldly dimension.
Residing as much as its title, “The Prisoner” is a febrile and extra pressing post-bop piece that’s nearly filmic in its conception because it shifts from temper to temper. After a short introduction, Albert Heath delivers a brief, explosive drum solo that cues in the remainder of the ensemble. Over Williams’ fast-walking bass, Henderson blows incendiary volleys of notes.
Visceral and ethereal
“Firewater” is the one tune on The Prisoner not written by Hancock. Regardless that its composer is Buster Williams, the tune – which is supremely elegant and options layered horns and woodwind over a lightly-swinging groove – suits with the remainder of the album’s materials. Of the soloists, Joe Henderson is at his magnificent finest, producing an array of sounds which might be by turns visceral and ethereal.
“He Who Lives In Fear” is one other musical portrait of Martin Luther King, however started life as a brief piece conceived for a extra frivolous undertaking: an promoting jingle. “I’d been hired to write music for a TV commercial for Silva Thins cigarettes,” recalled Hancock in his autobiography. “The advertising agency wanted cool, Miles Davis-style music, so I wrote a few bars and recorded it with six horns and a rhythm section.” Although the Madison Avenue fits rejected the music, Hancock couldn’t let his piece go to waste. “I really loved the sound of that jingle – it was intriguing and mysterious – so I decided to repurpose it as a song. I changed the harmonies, title, and tone, and created ‘He Who Lives In Fear.’” There’s a desolate, aching high quality to the observe, whose interwoven, Gil Evans-like brass and woodwind harmonies create an air of suspense as they float above a churning rhythmic undertow.
The brass and woodwind components are fantastically blended on The Prisoner’s hopeful, optimistic closing observe, “Promise Of The Sun,” a sublime Hancock composition that confirmed his ability in writing for bigger ensembles. After the assertion of the opening theme, Williams drives the tune together with his strolling bass, anchoring the tune whereas Hancock embarks on a voyage of exploratory improv.
“I’ve been able to get closer to the real me”
The Prisoner is arguably probably the most missed of Hancock’s Blue Notice albums, maybe as a result of it discovered him at a transitional level in his profession. The pianist himself, nevertheless, perceived it as a important milestone in his evolution as a musician. On the time, he regarded the album as his most authentically private musical assertion: “I’ve been able to get closer to the real me with this album than on any previous one,” he instructed The Prisoner’s sleevenotes author, Herb Wong.
Recalling it a few years later, in 2014, Hancock wrote: “The Prisoner didn’t sell very well, but it’s a record that’s close to my heart, as it was the first one I made after leaving Miles and my first step toward a new, freer style of playing.”
By releasing The Prisoner, Blue Notice Information enabled step one in Hancock’s bid for musical freedom. Regardless of that, it was the final album the pianist recorded for the label; by the tip of the yr, he had a brand new album out on Warner Bros, the place he created a number of the most adventurous music of his profession together with his Mwandishi band. However it wasn’t till he joined Columbia in 1972 and started fusing jazz with funk that Hancock achieved the mainstream acceptance he so badly craved. The curiosity that led him there can, nevertheless, be traced again to The Prisoner, an album the place Herbie Hancock discovered an empowering sense of liberation that might spur him on to make music with out boundaries.
The Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Collection version of The Prisoner is out now.
