We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
It ain’t for everybody. I realize that late 60’s-early 70’s fusion jazz is not everyone’s cup of tea. I agree but sometimes this challenging music finds it’s way onto your musical palate and the taste won’t drive you away.
Pianist Herbie Hanock, after leaving Miles Davis’s group put together a sextet to experiment with the growing fusion of jazz, rock, funk and Afro-rythmns.
The thing that stands out about his 1972 LP ‘Crossings” is the infusion of synthesizers to his musical box of colors. Patrick Gleeson was only supposed to set up the synths for Hancock to mess with but Herbie like what Gleeson could do with them and asked him to join the group.
Gleeson would be credited by Hancock with showing him the techniques on how to play the synths. And Hancock took to the electronics, although there is enough of his fine Fender Rhodes playing to satisfy fans as well.
Just three cuts on the LP. Side one is a 25 minute epic Hancock penned track called “Sleeping Giant’ that meanders pleasantly through many different variations including some really funky ones
Side 2 is a couple of tracks written reed man Bennie Maupin (who played on Bitches Brew). The spacy side of the synths are featured in many places here. The other players are Eddie Henderson on trumpet, Julian Priester on trombone, Buster Williams on bass and Billy Hart on drums.
The critics used words like “ground-breaking”, “a mind-trip journey to a strange new musical land”, “an eerie journey of musical landscapes”, “a challenging sonic experience” . He wouldnt have got to the more commerical “Headhunters” without stops like this on the way.
I like this stuff…your taste may vary.
Comments