Herbie Hancock - The Prisoner (1970 US Blue Note Vinyl LP)

Herbie Hancock - The Prisoner | Vinyl LP, 1970 US Blue Note (BST 84321, Liberty Division)

• Hancock’s final Blue Note album as a leader, a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. recorded across three sessions in April 1969, one year after the assassination, with a nonet that expands to eleven pieces on two tracks
• Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone and alto flute, Johnny Coles on flugelhorn, Garnett Brown on trombone, Buster Williams on bass and Tootie Heath on drums, with Hubert Laws, Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque and bass trombonists on the larger arrangements
• Original US pressing on the blue and white Liberty era Blue Note label, with Van Gelder’s stamp in the deadwax

“I’ve been able to get closer to the real me with this album than on any other previous one,” Hancock said of The Prisoner. After seven albums for Blue Note, he had outgrown the hard bop sextet format that produced My Point of View and Empyrean Isles. The ensemble here is larger: a core sextet of Coles, Henderson, Brown, Williams and Heath, with Hancock on both acoustic and electric piano, augmented by flutes, bass clarinets and bass trombones on certain tracks. The effect is orchestral without being heavy. Hancock writes for the expanded group the way Gil Evans wrote for his: voices enter and recede, timbres shift, and the soloists play inside arrangements that breathe around them. “I Have a Dream” opens the album at nearly eleven minutes, dedicated to King. Coles and Henderson both solo with a searching quality that suits the gravity of the subject. Henderson’s tenor playing throughout the album is particularly strong, his lines imbuing the music with an otherworldly dimension.

The programme is all Hancock originals except “Firewater”, composed by bassist Buster Williams. The title track “The Prisoner” and “He Who Lives in Fear” were recorded on April 18; “I Have a Dream” on April 21; “Firewater” and “Promise of the Sun” on April 23. The three-session spread is unusual for Blue Note and reflects the complexity of the arrangements. Duke Pearson produced (Alfred Lion had already retired), and Rudy Van Gelder recorded the sessions at his Englewood Cliffs studio. This is the original US pressing, released January 1970, on the blue and white Liberty era Blue Note label. Pressed by Research Craft with Van Gelder’s stamp in the deadwax. Catalogue number BST 84321.