Herbie Hancock - Speak Like A Child (1985 Japanese Blue Note Vinyl LP Gatefold)

Vinyl: VG+
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: None

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Herbie Hancock - Speak Like A Child | Vinyl LP Gatefold - 1985 Japanese Blue Note Reissue (BNJ 71077, Toshiba EMI)

The concept is in the instrumentation. Hancock wanted to hear colours, not soloists. He chose three instruments from the lower and middle registers (Thad Jones's flugelhorn, Peter Phillips's bass trombone, Jerry Dodgion's alto flute) and wrote parts that blend and shimmer around the piano rather than stepping forward from it. On the title track, the three horns enter together in a soft, sustained chord that sounds like a single instrument with an impossibly wide tonal range. Hancock solos over and through these textures, his piano the only voice that improvises. "Toys" uses the same approach at a faster tempo, the horn voicings thickening behind the melody before pulling back to let the trio breathe. "Goodbye To Childhood" closes side B with Hancock and Carter alone for long stretches, the horns entering sparingly and only to add weight at the piece's most open moments. Jones arranged the horn parts (uncredited on the original release), drawing on the same ear for rich, unusual voicings that made his Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra one of the most distinctive ensembles of the period. Hancock later said his thinking was shaped by listening to Gil Evans, Oliver Nelson and Jones himself.

Three years had passed since Maiden Voyage. Hancock had spent them inside the Miles Davis Quintet with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, and the influence shows. The harmonies on Speak Like A Child are freer and harder to pin to conventional chord progressions. "Riot" (which also appeared on Davis's Nefertiti) opens the album with the most rhythmically aggressive piece, Mickey Roker pushing the tempo in a physical, driving style. "First Trip" is Carter's only composition here, written for his son Ron Jr. "The Sorcerer" closes the album with a piece Hancock wrote for Davis and had already recorded with the Davis Quintet the year before.

This is the 1985 Japanese reissue on Blue Note BNJ 71077, from the Blue Note 4000 Series Original Collection 100, manufactured by Toshiba EMI in a gatefold (Unipack) sleeve.