Pressed play this morning before seven, and ten minutes later the title track was already on the second pass.
The first ten seconds of "Maiden Voyage" is the best opening on any jazz record from the 1960s, and I'll fight on this.
Ron Carter goes first with two notes on the bass that sit on the same pitch but swing, Tony Williams comes in on the ride cymbal not crashing, just shimmering, and then Hancock plays one chord. It's suspended, it doesn't resolve, and it floats, and ten seconds in the horns haven't shown up yet.
When Freddie Hubbard and George Coleman finally do come in, you've already been told the whole album. You're on the water, and the chord never gives you a destination.
The record is from 1965, Blue Note 4195, cut by Rudy Van Gelder at his Englewood Cliffs studio on March 17. Hancock was 24, he'd been with Miles for two years, and the rhythm section of Carter and Williams was the Miles second quintet rhythm section, so they knew each other cold.
That's why the opening works. They're not playing a song, they're playing a feel, and anyone with less trust would be filling the space, but they just hold it.
I keep coming back to this one for the commute because it doesn't ask anything of you. There's no big band hit and no barnburner solo five seconds in, so you can drink coffee through it, but you can also lock in, and there's something to find every time.
The opening is also the only opening I know that sounds like the title. "Maiden Voyage" is supposed to be a ship pulling out of harbor, because Hancock wanted that on purpose, where the shimmer is the water, the two note bass is the engine, and the suspended chord is the horizon.
That sounds like one of those things you write and then back away from, but the sea concept is the stated point of the record. The whole album is built around it, with "The Eye of the Hurricane," "Dolphin Dance," and "Survival of the Fittest," and Hancock wrote the music to fit.
What gets me is the restraint. Hancock is 24 and he could have shown off on the opening, but he doesn't, he plays one chord and lets it ring, and that's a mature decision from a kid.
Coleman on tenor is the unsung part. Wayne Shorter had already taken over the tenor chair in Miles's band by the time this was cut, but Hancock called Coleman for the date, and he plays exactly what the record needs, which is calm, lyrical, no extra notes, fitting the water theme without forcing it.
Hubbard is louder, brighter, more himself, and that's fine because the contrast is the point.
If you haven't sat with this album in a while, give it a Monday morning. Start the car, let the first ten seconds happen, don't skip to the solos, don't think about your inbox, and just let it ride.
The short version is this. Hancock made a record that opens with bass, cymbal, and one chord, and sixty years later it still tells you exactly where you're going. That's the trick, and he didn't oversell the start.