Customer Reviews

Sextant

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Herbie disbanded his sextet shortly after this recording to form 'Headhunters". Though I'm a big fan of his funk quartet it's a shame that this line of thought wasn't continued. He himself said that there was nowhere else to go with this music and perhaps he's right. However, Sextant stands as a powerful milestone in the post "Bitch's Brew" world. Innovative in just about every respect; instrumentation, composition, use of synthesizers and incredible solos from Herbie and Eddie Henderson et al. Though this is unquestionably avant-garde the earthy (and unearthly) grooves makes it accessible to anyone with an open ear and mind. Though recorded in the early seventies this music is still fresh and futuristic. A wonderful artistic highpoint for Herbie Hancock in a career not lacking in creative highpoints. My highest recommendation!

This has been an underground classic for years; I'm happy to say that this reissue presents us with a strong remastered sound and a quality package.

The music's brilliant and a bit unlike anything else. It's truly musical fusion (fusion of rock, jazz, and funk). The band's playing is top-notch and the musical concepts are ambitious. The overall effect of the music is, as one friend of mine says, similar to watching a fish tank full of flourescent, brightly-colored fish go through their paces. It's basically a real head trip and highly musical. Unfortunately Hancock disbanded Mwandishi subsequent to this recording and never reached for these heights again.

Wow. This album was the last recording of the Mwandishi group before the Headhunters era of funk. However, in these earlier Herbie explorations, you can get lost in the shifting sea of sounds...this music is insanely good! Rain Dance can probably be considered the first ever "techno" song, consisting of open, spacey improvisation around a synth loop. Hidden Shadows is definitely my favorite track-- from its opening to finish, it continuously builds up energy, from the great polyrythmic drums and bass, to Eddie Henderson's scathing trumpet solo, to the constantly shifting psychedelic sounds of Herbie's keys and Dr. Patrick Gleeson's synth contributions, until Herbie takes it one step further on the acoustic piano. Finally, there's Hornets. Well...you might want to burn one before this- 20-minutes of high-energy improvisation, complete with kazoo and the repetitive, driving two-note bassline, and steady drums...sounds beautiful, spacey, funky, and intense in a 70's Miles, On the Corner kind of Way. Get this album, sit back, and enjoy where it takes you!!!!

A lot of what went on in fusion before it became commercial and popularized was experimentation with sound. Armed with new electronic toys, musicians created all sorts of sonic textures and new tensions. The masters of the genre were Joe Zawinul with Weather Report and Herbie Hancock with the Mwandishi group heard here. This album really takes it up a notch from "Crossings," the first to feature Patrick Gleeson on synthesizers. Here, Gleeson is featured much more prominently, and the textures of sounds he creates are unlike anything heard before and superior to most everything since. On "Crossings," the horn players are spotlighted individually, whereas here it's more of a group sound; though soloing takes place, the horns are more for different colors to offset the synthesizers. The resulting album is one that sounds extremely alien to the listening mainstream, even to those who appreciate jazz. But to those with an open ear and mind, this album features some of the most fascinating sound (even more sound than music) ever documented on record. A lot of early fusion like this is searching that takes place on record, and though the searching itself can be difficult to listen to, there are some fantastic moments buried within the extended tracks. My favorite track here is "Hidden Shadows," a very funky (though in a different way) jam in something like 19/8 time. But the other two tracks are fascinating as well. What happened as fusion progressed is a streamlining, taking the gems found in the searching and dispensing with the more difficult, tense sections which lead into the gems. While there is some great later fusion, it never matches the spontaneity found on albums like this.

My suggestion if this description sounds at all interesting: buy some of Hancock's material for Blue Note, like "Empyrean Isles," "Speak Like a Child," and "The Prisoner" which document his more adventurous early work, then check out "Mwandishi: The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings" which led up to this album. If you like it, you'll get caught up in wanting to see where Hancock's music goes next. Herbie Hancock was and is one of jazz's most progressive musicians, and it is vital to understand the various stages of his development. He's one of those figures much like Miles Davis (with whom he worked for the second half of the 60s...THAT is some magnificent music) who has been a barometer for where jazz is going at all times, seeing as how he's one of the artists taking it in new directions. Thus, the music changes a lot over time, though the impeccable musicianship remains a constant. This album is difficult but worthwhile to learn to appreciate.

This album contains few melodies and lots of synthesizer blips and swooshes. If you're a fan of something like Miles Davis' On The Corner you might enjoy this, since it's basically a series of grooves, with a little horn melody here and there. And if you like the sounds of analog synthesizers, you'll be in heaven with this recording. Great ARP sounds from Dr. Patrick Gleeson make this a very spacy, out-there recording, and the synth programming on Rain Dance was probably very state of the art at the time it was recorded. This is definitely not easy listening, and those thinking, "hmm...I need a jazz record to study or relax to," this is not the one.

Sextant is a wonderful sonic voyage. Herbie pioneered music on this album that is just begininng to blossom today. He was thirty years ahead of his time. The music is visual, rich, and imaginative. This album very well may have sown the seeds for techno, electronica, and ambienent. However, the music here is better than most anything I've heard from those genres. Travel back in time to the 70's in order to take a voyage to the future.

This is a wonderful album--musically adventurous and still fresh today. Note that this isn't necessarily an impartial review--I'm the synth player on the album, the second of the two albums Herbie recorded when I was a bandmember. However, I would rate the previous album, Crossings, even a little higher. It's not quite as electronic and not quite as funky, but the writing is probably a little more ambitious (not that Sextant dumbed anything down--it didn't), and it's a beautiful statement of the cross-currents: modal jazz that goes back to Miles' Kind of Blue, afrocentric jazz (the kind of repetitive/trancelike African-influenced beats that were being explored in "legit" music by Steve Reich around this same time), and electronic jazz, which was recorded on Crossings for the first time (although, as I remember, Weather Report's I Sing the Body Electric, with Arp 2500 electronics by Roger Powell, hit retail first). That's another great fusion album by the way--hope it's still in print.

One thing that's just beginning to be realized, I think, is that the period from the late 60's through early 70's was jazz's equivalent of The Elizabethan Age--a short period of time where the milieu, the technology, the audience and the players all reached a level of acceptance and understanding that allowed jazz to flourish both artistically and commercially. Bebop was wonderful, but the audience was limited to a cultural avantegarde and the jazz that came after this record, although interesting, was never, I think, as confidentally experimental. Too bad.
But, again, the analogy with Elizabethan drama holds true: art movements come from nowhere or for no single clear reason and then when it seems that its just going to get better and better, its over. And the music can't ever go there again. For one thing, if an artist sent an album like Sextant to a major label's A&R head today he (or she) would be lucky if the record were even turned down--it'd probably just be ignored as something so obviously uncommercial as not to require actual consideration. So get this album and treasure this music--this is all the music like this you're ever going to get!

Patrick Gleeson (patrickgleeson.com)

Look, it is indeed an innovative recording, and much credit is due Herbie for big ears and hearing what it was I was doing and incorporating it into his band (from Crossings to Sextant and a few guest recording appearances afterward, none of significance after Sextant). But, darnit, they weren't Herbie's innovations, they were mine. I fought my way into the band (even Herbie's rock/funk oriented producer, David Rubinson, initially had doubts), and when I first joined the band, Downbeat slammed Crossings, saying "the less said about the synth player the better," and then a year and a half later nominated me for outstanding new jazz artist and called me a pioneer of electronic jazz--which was literally true: I was the first guy there. But history has apparently decided otherwise (which is why we need better historians) and I've been "disappeared" in favor of a simpler story, where Herbie introduced synths to jazz. Not quite.

(Dr.)Patrick Gleeson (patrickgleeson.com)

Listener beware: this is not your ordinary music fare. I was astonished by Hancock's "Thrust" and "Headhunters" super funk type albums (yes, they were new albums when I was in high school), so I saw this in the racks with the great artwork and thought, "this will be really good". But when I took it home and listened to it I couldn't believe my ears. What am I listening to !? It was totally foriegn to me. Beyond comphrehension. I am SOO GLAD I gave it several listenings. This was a rosetta stone that opened up unknown worlds to me, musically, culturally, and just general thought development. I soon discovered Miles in his electronic period after picking up this album. This "Sextet" group is probably my favorite Hancock period. "Sextant" is part of a very short, underfunded, non-comercial period of electronic experimentation in jazz that only a handfull ventured to. Different than Mahavishnu and Return To Forever's type. Different than Weather Report. This is earthy and abstract, rooted in the ground and exploring the cosmos. Similar albums include "Mwandishi" & "Crossings" by Hancock, and Julian Priester's "Love, Love" (excellent work!). To a more "accessable" pop extent is Eddie Henderson's "Sunburst" and quieter is Bennie Maupin's "Jewel In The Lotus".. . .oh, yeah, "Survival Of The Fittest" by the Headhunters can get tossed in this ring as well, however it is of the more accessable leanings, and I think that's about it! What, four or six albums ? How rare is this music? It was incredable, but it didn't "hit", so the artists moved on. The public wasn't ready for this music when it was heard. Are you?

Even now some 32 years removed from it's original release this recording stands out for it's inventiveness. The precursor to Headhunters. The music hear is inventive, interesting rhythmic, funky, exotic, quirky and clever.

My personal favorite is "Hidden Shadows" It features a dark exotic field to the horn arrangements, funky rhythm and outstanding soloing.

The music hear is a little more abstract than that of "Headhunters" or "Thrust" but not that far off in concept. Yes, those two recordings are more accessible, but this recording is every bit their equals and in may ways better since it is more expansive.

One of the must have recordings in my opinion. An adventurous amalgamation of funk, jazz and R&B elements by one of the modern masters of music.