Herbie Hancock
Piano Solo on
The Maze

About

Herbie Hancock's piano solo is the closing of 3 solos on this recording, following Dexter Gordon's tenor sax. Spanning five choruses of the 8-Bar form at a medium-up 177 BPM with a swing feel in E, the solo runs approximately 54 seconds. "The Maze" captures the young Hancock pushing against the conventions of the hard bop format, hinting at the more experimental directions his music would soon take. Herbie Hancock was 21 to 22 years old at the time of this 1962 recording. The harmony features cycles of half-diminished and altered dominant chords that wind through shifting tonal centers, giving the piece a sense of searching restlessness rather than simple resolution.

Herbie Hancock was 21 to 22 years old at the time.