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Crossings (180g)
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Much of trademark standard jazz consciousness was here dropped for core elements that would rise and impress listeners from its vastly improved successor, Crossings, onwards. 'Mwandishi' was Hancock's Africanized cognomen in an era when black rebellion was at a peak, many proponents reclaiming a link to long-gone heritages, so the sobriquet was pasted onto the band. The LP's very satisfying - amongst other things initiating a practice of featuring long drawn-out explorations - but was also a trifle too rock oriented. It's rather hard, after all, to do fusion and leave out jazz or rock, but the flavor of the charts was a trifle owing. Also, the disc held more debts to past modes than was quite wanted; the next would be less so. Montrose, contrary to what might have been expected, is barely noticeable, instructed to merely strum damped chords in a proto-wah fashion, while Areas fit in smoothly. The potential for such a jazz-rock crossover was appetizing to Warner label execs, so, though Mwandishi (1971) wasn't at all a big seller, they gambled on it and okayed Crossings (1972)... until hearing it. Hancock was dropped like a bad habit.
That LP's opener, a side-long tune, "Sleeping Giant," commences with an extended percussive/electronic section centered in drummer Billy Hart (Jabali), all members pitching in with accompanying "skinswork." Hancock's electric piano then zooms down from the skies, incandescing to intro a cast ambling back over to their main axes. Keyboards dominate while bassist Buster Williams (Mchezaji) often seems to be playing an entirely different song - not until the transition, a third of the way into the composition, does he seem to figure out what's going on. Reedsmen Bennie Maupin (Mwile), Eddie Henderson (Swahile... later to become Mganga) and Julian Priester (Pepe Mtoto) step in and blow changes, funk rhythms cooking, until a shift transits into a more contemplative aside that first leashes the bounding energy then releases it. Now it's Hancock's turn to flip out and solo through atonalities. For 25 minutes, "Sleeping Giant" partitions itself while maintaining a glistening atmosphere rooted in the sax and electric piano. Patrick Gleeson appears in a minor capacity at first, playing the recently available Moog synthesizer, but expands rapidly, as soon as the B-side starts and "Quasar" revs into gear. The change is hugely noticeable as otherworldly atmospherics charge up the players. Complementing it all, Hancock drags a mellotron through the final moments.
That level of abstraction obviously didn't appeal to Warners, which had been sleeping while Miles was wowing the scene, so, as said, Hancock and troupe were shown the door. Columbia, Miles' home, had no trouble rolling out the red carpet, immediately putting out Sextant (1973) as a kind of a bitch-slab at their competitor. That LP put Gleeson straight to the forefront, concocting Subotnicky weirdnesses, inducing a robotically metalline sheen, as if in a futuristic but mentally unbalanced dance club. The song order was now reversed: two titles on side one and the lengthy "Hornets" on the flip, one of the band's best ever. Hancock was well into his clavinet and the tempo is suggested by the title. The entire thing sounds like tweaked lounge players, plastered sailors, throbbing machinery, and las insectas locas buzzed on Jose Cuervo's finest. It's also the base Priester would tame down to present again in his next year's ECM Love Love disc, retaining Gleeson as a center point. "Hornets" was engaging, eminently twisted as the entire 19:36 wound its way around the living room. To one corner, influences of the Art Ensemble of Chicago begin to peek out as well. |
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ARTISTS
Bennie Maupin (bass clarinet, flute, percussion, piccolo, soprano sax); Billy Hart (drums, percussion); Buster Williams (bass); Eddie Henderson (flugelhorn, percussion, trumpet); Herbie Hancock (mellotron, percussion, piano); Julian Priester (trombone, percussion); Patrick Gleeson (synthesizer); Victor Pantoja (conga) |
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