Mwandishi

About

Not long after yielding the piano chair in the Miles Davis Quintet to Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock began what is now known as his <i>Mwandishi</i> period, the beginning of a short but significant affiliation with Warner Bro. (He’d ended his Blue Note run on an adventurous note in 1969 with <i>The Prisoner</i>.) The rise of Black consciousness in the early 1970s led the eminent pianist to adopt a Swahili name, Mwandishi, which then became the de facto moniker of this influential sextet. The other members took new names as well, including trumpeter Eddie Henderson (Mganga); bass clarinet, flute, and piccolo master Bennie Maupin (Mwile); trombonist Julian Priester (Pepo Mtoto); bassist Buster Williams (Mchezaji); and drummer Billy Hart (Jabali). To dispense with formality: This was one of the coolest bands ever, with <i>Mwandishi</i> laying out a whole new exploratory vision for the Fender Rhodes electric piano. There’s no acoustic piano on the album, nor is there saxophone. But Maupin’s bass clarinet—so central to the sound of Miles Davis’ epochal <i>Bitches Brew</i>—is a constant force on <i>Mwandishi</i>, while his alto flute recalls the kind of wind textures Hancock explored on <i>Speak Like a Child</i>. (Maupin would stick around for Hancock’s next project, The Headhunter.) .

via Apple Music

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