Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage (1965)

Note: the CD I listened to was the 1999 Rudy Van Gelder Edition.

A stone cold classic with a couple of songs that have since become standards. Hancock, who wrote all the compositions, was only 24 years old when the thing was recorded and it was his fifth album as a leader. Incredible. Over the past 60 years, it's earned many accolades (see below) and deservedly so. If you need an entry point into mid-'60s post-bop jazz, this is just the album you're looking for. Highly recommended.

Hancock - piano
Freddie Hubbard - trumpet
George Coleman - tenor saxophone
Ron Carter - bass
Tony Williams - drums

Much like the earlier Empyrean Isles album, Maiden Voyage was a concept album about the open seas. Also like Empyrean Isles, the album's liner notes were written in prose style by Nora Kelly. It is suspected that the name Nora Kelly was used as a pseudonym but I can't find anything definitive on the matter. In any case, you're better off with the 1999 reissue liner notes by Bob Blumenthal.

Reviews/ratings:

• Downbeat (★★★★★): "This music communicates something good to me."
• The Penguin Guide to Jazz (5th ed., 2000): ♛★★★★
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★★½
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★★

In 2017, Pitchfork ranked this album at #82 on their list of The 200 Best Albums of the 1960s while the uDiscover Music website ranked Maiden Voyage at #7 on its list of The 50 Greatest Blue Note Albums. And in 1987, this album was selected by Blue Note as one of the 25 Best Albums on the label.

In 1999, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Finally, the album is listed in the The New York Times Essential Jazz Library: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings (2002): "Maiden Voyage is a chill-out record and a chilly one; it's got early sixties ennui all over it."

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks, ranked:

1. Maiden Voyage
2. Dolphin Dance
3. Little One
4. The Eye Of The Hurricane
5. Survival Of The Fittest

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:

Best of The Blue Note Years (1988)	Head Hunters (1973)
Round Midnight Soundtrack (1986)	Speak Like A Child (1968)
Lite Me Up (1982)	Empyrean Isles (1964)
Sunlight/Feets Don't Fail Me Now (1978/1979)