Sextant is the eleventh

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of ...

, released in 1973 by Columbia. It is the last album with the Mwandishi-era sextet featuring saxophonist

Bennie Maupin Bennie Maupin (born August 29, 1940) is an American jazz multireedist who performs on various saxophones, flute, and bass clarinet. Biography Maupin was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is known for his participation in Herbie Hancock's Mwandish ...

, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, trombonist

Julian Priester Julian Priester (born June 29, 1935) is an American jazz trombonist and occasional euphoniumist. He is sometimes credited "Julian Priester Pepo Mtoto". He has played with Sun Ra, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock. Biog ...

, bassist

Buster Williams Charles Anthony "Buster" Williams (born April 17, 1942) is an American jazz bassist. Williams is known for his membership in pianist Herbie Hancock's early 1970s group, as well as working with guitarist Larry Coryell, the Thelonious Monk reperto ...

and drummer

Billy Hart Billy Hart (born November 29, 1940) is an American jazz drumming, jazz drummer and educator. He is known internationally for his work with Herbie Hancock's "Mwandishi" band in the early 1970s, as well as with Shirley Horn, Stan Getz, and Quest (b ...

. Synthesizer player Patrick Gleeson and percussionist Buck Clarke also appear.

Background

Released on March 30, 1973, ''Sextant'' was Herbie Hancock's first album on

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

, and the last with his Mwandishi-era group. The album showcased Hancock's early adoption of

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

s and electronic effects. Upon release, the record was considered to be a commercial flop.

Critical reception

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

called the album a "gem" which features "a kind of post- modal, free impressionism that traces the edges of

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

wrote that, "taking his cue from ilesDavis' swirling, anarchic ''

Bitches Brew ''Bitches Brew'' is a studio album by the American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was recorded from August 19 to 21, 1969, at Columbia's Studio B in New York City and released on March 30, 1970, by Columbia Records. I ...

'' and ''

On the Corner ''On the Corner'' is a studio album by the American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Davis. It was recorded in June and July 1972 and released on October 11 of that year by Columbia Records. The album continued Davis' exploration of ...

'', Hancock went even further into outer space ..much of ''Sextant'', with its twittering, burbling effects, amounts to a primitive version of Nineties

ambient music Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes Musical tone, tone and atmosphere over traditional Musical form, musical structure or rhythm. Often "peaceful" sounding and lacking Musical composition, composition, beat, and/or structured melod ...

." The album was called an "uncompromising

avant-funk Avant-funk (also called mutant disco in the early 1980s) is a music style in which artists combine funk or disco rhythms with an avant-garde or art rock mentality. Its most prominent era occurred in the late 1970s and 1980s among post-punk and ...

masterpiece" by

Paste Magazine ''Paste'' is an American monthly music and entertainment digital magazine, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with studios in Atlanta and Manhattan, and owned by Paste Media Group. The magazine began as a website in 1998. It ran as a print publi ...

Track listing

Personnel

* Mwandishi (

) – piano,

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

clavinet The Clavinet is an electric clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds with rubber pads, each matching one of the keys and respond ...

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which causes a length of magnetic tape to contact a Capstan (tape recorder), capstan, which pulls i ...

ARP 2600 The ARP 2600 is a subtractive synthesizer first produced by ARP Instruments in 1971. History Developed by a design team headed by ARP namesake Alan R. Pearlman and engineer Dennis Colin, the ARP 2600 was introduced in 1971 as the successor to ...

ARP Pro Soloist The ARP Pro Soloist was one of the first commercially successful preset synthesizers. Introduced by ARP Instruments, Inc. in 1972, it replaced the similar ARP Soloist (19701971) in the company's lineup of portable performance instruments. Histor ...

Moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer ( ) is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog's company, R. A. Moog Co., produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer ...

* Mwile (

) – soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, piccolo, afuche * Mganga ( Eddie Henderson) – trumpet, flugelhorn * Pepo (

) – bass trombone, tenor trombone, alto trombone, cowbell * Mchezaji (

) – bass guitar, double bass * Jabali (

) – drums * Patrick Gleeson –

* Buck Clarke – percussion

References

External links

*
Sextant
' at

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

{{Authority control 1973 albums Columbia Records albums Herbie Hancock albums Albums produced by Dave Rubinson Albums recorded at Wally Heider Studios Albums with cover art by Mati Klarwein Jazz fusion albums by American artists Funk albums by American artists Jazz-rock albums