Herbie Hancock: Speak Like a Child

Every new release from Herbie Hancock during the 1960s seemed to chart an exciting step forward. On his Speak Like a Child session from 1968, Hancock experiments with the unusual front line of flugelhorn, bass trombone and alto flute. Peculiar idea, huh? Almost like a homework assignment at Berklee? Well, young student Hancock gets an A+ on this track. The horn writing is superb, and the whole track infused with a nostalgic, late night mood that makes you want to play it over and over again. This is Herbie Hancock in an Ellingtonian or Gil-Evans-ish vein, and leads one to speculate what wonders he would have worked had he dug in with a big band for a few years. But Hancock was looking forward not behind, and a few months later he was off to the Warner Bros. label working on his Fat Albert Rotunda project.