Pianist, composer and NEA Jazz Master Herbie Hancock is one of the most successful and influential musicians in the history of jazz. Very little of his significant contribution to music hasn’t been either widely loved or hugely popular. Except one: His all-too brief Mwandishi phase. This is, perhaps, the least appreciated aspect of his nearly seven decade career. But it is also one of his most experimental, far-reaching and continuously compelling parts of his musical experience.
Mwandishi, the Swahili word for “The Composer” that Hancock himself adopted in 1969, was the unofficial name of a band that evolved from Hancock’s 1968 sextet. The band went through several incarnations and developed in performances throughout much of 1969 and 1970.
Writer, pianist and composer Bob Gluck, in his definitive account of the Mwandishi band, “You’ll Know When You Get There” (The University of Chicago Press, 2012), cites several key Hancock recordings that are particularly formative – or informative – in his Mwandishi concept, including Joe Henderson’s Power to the People (1969), Hancock’s own Fat Albert Rotunda, Miroslav Vitous’ Infinite Search (a.k.a. Mountain in the Clouds), Albert “Tootie” Heath’s Kawaida, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew and Freddie Hubbard’s Red Clay (all 1970).
The band eventually comprised Hancock on various keyboards, with reed player Bennie Maupin, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, trombonist Julian Priester, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart. Each adopted a Swahili name and all the members of the band played various percussion instruments. Eventually, Patrick Gleeson was added to the group on electronics.
The group eventually outgrew jazz clubs and started playing rock venues, particularly as those places could handle the amount of electricity required by Hancock’s keyboards and Gleeson’s electronic effects. The audiences liked the music. But, for whatever reason. they weren’t buying the records.
The Mwandishi band issued only three discs – Mwandishi (1971), Crossings (1972) and Sextant (1973) – before disbanding, due to a total lack of money in early 1973 (Hancock was pretty much financing the group himself throughout its brief two-year tenure). Each of these was revelatory and ground-breaking in their way and greatly shepherded by producer David Rubinson, famed for his rock productions of such groups as Santana. But nothing here was crossing over.
Various “ad hoc” amalgams of the group extended into 1974, with such recordings as Eddie Henderson’s Realization (1973) and Inside Out (1974), Julian Priester’s Love Love (1974) and Bennie Maupin’s The Jewel in the Lotus (1974). The Mwandishi band was briefly captured in a reunion that is briefly heard on the 1977 Herbie Hancock double-disc release V.S.O.P. (1977).
But drummer Norman Connors eventually entered the fray. The Philadelphia-born and Julliard-trained drummer Connors (b. 1947) had his first brush with notoriety when he was all of 16 and sat in for Elvin Jones during a three-night stand at Philadelphia’s Pep’s Musical Lounge for the John Coltrane Quartet.
Connors relocated to New York several years later, playing in the bands of Marion Brown, Archie Shepp (The Magic of Juju), Sun Ra and Jackie McLean (the drummer was featured on an unreleased Blue Note date of McLean’s from 1968). Connors was also in Pharoah Sanders’ group for two years when he launched his own solo career in 1972.
At the time, it was an audacious move for a jazz drummer to lead his own group. Already known for keeping pretty heady company, Connors was able to assemble a group of real heavy hitters, including reed players Carlos Garnett and Gary Bartz, trumpeter Marvin Peterson, a pre-Return to Forever Stanley Clarke on bass, organist Larry Young (at the time billing himself as Khalid Yasin) and percussionist Nat Bettis.
His first few records had no shortage of jazz A-listers either, with such players as Cecil McBee, Airto Moreira, Alphonse Mouzon, Hubert Laws, Dee Dee Bridgewater and several prominent members of the Mwandishi band, notably Herbie Hancock, on board.
That’s not to say, however, that these records were in any way like the Mwandishi records. Mostly, they were not. They were more like an evolution of what in later years became known as “spiritual jazz,” the sort of trade Connors was plying with Pharoah Sanders at the time.
After signing to the Buddah label in 1974, Connors’ records gradually became more radio-friendly and R&B-oriented. Connors achieved a Top 40 hit in 1976 with “You Are My Starship” (beautifully sung by former Miles Davis bassist Michael Henderson), and he moved further in that direction thereafter.
Connors scored other R&B hits over the next few decades, while he produced recordings of his own for such collaborators as Jean Carn and Phyllis Hyman and, later, for saxophonist Marion Meadows (Keep it Right There, Forbidden Fruit). Today, Connors’ jazz work is little remembered, but maintains a cult appeal, particularly among spiritual-jazz fans and listeners of his sidemen’s work. Here, though, is a just sample of the Mwandishi side – or sides – of Norman Connors.
“Blue”: This Mwandishian Stanley Clarke original was recorded in June of 1972 with Mwandishi members Herbie Hancock on modified Fender Rhodes, Eddie Henderson on trumpet and Billy Hart on percussion. Also on board are Art Webb on flute, Gary Bartz on soprano sax, Clarke on bass, and Alphonse Mouzon and Airto Moreira on percussion. Webb, Henderson and Hancock solo, while Clarke and the percussion team boldly handle rhythm duties. It’s also possible that Hart and/or Mouzon double on drums.
DownBeat was positively beaming in its remarkable five-star review of Connors’ debut album, noting that the drummer’s 21-minute title track, a thick slice of spiritual jazz in the Pharoah Sanders tradition, was worthy of five stars itself. The review also called out “Blue” as a particularly “moving tune. With Webb’s flute and Clarke’s beautifully executed bass lines, this tune becomes another indication that above all these men believe in love. Blue feels good.”1
Given that this is the first time Herbie Hancock and Stanley Clarke recorded together, “Blue” might well serve as a sort of tribute to the Mwandishi sound. (I can find no evidence that Clarke recorded the tune again, at least with this title.) Hancock and Clarke would pair up six months later for Joe Farrell’s CTI classic Moon Germs (Hancock takes a notably Mwandishi solo on Clarke’s riveting “Bass Folk Song”2) and six years after that on drummer Tony Williams’ The Joy of Flying (1979).
“Revelation”: Herbie Hancock’s “Revelation” originally served as the title track to Eddie Henderson’s terrific 1973 solo debut. It was the only Hancock original to appear on a Mwandishi-related record that was not ever on a Hancock-led disc.
Recorded in February 1973, just as Mwandishi was winding down, Henderson’s Realization is also the only one of the non-Hancock Mwandishi records recorded while the band was still officially together. Henderson’s record is only missing Julian Priester from the band, while Lenny White (Bitches Brew, Red Clay) was added on drums.
Kicking off side one of his third solo release, Love From the Sun (1974), the Connors take on “Revelation” is considerably expanded to allow for more solos. Here, Mwandishi is represented by Herbie Hancock, Eddie Henderson and bassist Buster Williams. This “Revelation,” though, is something of a Mwandishi crossover, with more of a soulful, spiritual vibe befitting the song’s title.
Hancock arranges this version for more horns (including Hubert Laws, Eddie Henderson, Gary Bartz and Carlos Garnett) and percussion (Bill Summers and others) as well as the addition of voice (Dee Dee Bridgewater). Solos are heard from Laws on flute, Henderson on trumpet, (likely) Gary Bartz on soprano sax and Herbie Hancock on Fender Rhodes. Buster Williams is especially commanding on bass, appropriately suggesting John Coltrane’s “Acknowledgement” on occasion.
Norman Connors would perform “Revelation” with a quintet featuring Eddie Henderson, Gary Bartz, Elmer Gibson and Reggie Workman at a 1975 concert in Japan that was captured on a disc issued in Japan only in very limited quantities, titled Dance of Magic – Live at Nemu Jazz Inn 1 (1975). The record is credited to “Bartz-Henderson-Connors.”
Years later, Henderson would also include an acoustic version of “Revelation” (with Mwandishi drummer Billy Hart) on his “comeback” disc – after a decade-long absence from music – Think On Me (1990).
“Dreams”: Eddie Henderson’s “Dreams” originally appeared on the trumpeter’s second album Inside Out (1974). Like Henderson’s previous record, Realization, Inside Out not only featured six of the seven Mwandishi band members – all except Julian Priester – the disc maintains that group’s integrity and strategy.
Connors featured his version of “Dreams” on Slewfoot (1975), the fourth of his solo albums. While Connors offers a not-altogether unexpected spiritual take on John Coltrane’s “Welcome,” the remainder of the record moves him into solid R&B territory. Many of the tunes here are hard-hitting funk grooves of the sort that could be heard in Blaxploitation movies of the period. Even Slewfoot‘s cover looks like it came out of a Blaxploitation movie.
“Dreams” is something altogether different. This is creative jazz at its finest. This could easily be described as Mwandishi Mach Two. It’s as though Mwandishi was the template, a launch pad for something even bolder. No arranger is credited here, but the song has clearly evolved from Henderson’s original version.
Henderson is the only Mwandishi man on board this time out. This might go some distance in explaining why the song feels so transformed. Perhaps another reason is the surprising presence of two new names in Connors’ universe: upright bassist Ron Carter and electric guitarist Reggie Lucas.
Carter, of course, was in Miles Davis’ “Second Great Quintet” (1964-68) with Herbie Hancock (the two were still frequently working together), while Lucas was in Miles Davis’ group at the time of this recording.
Other players include Hubert Laws (who, like Carter, was on CTI at the time) on flute, Gary Bartz and Carlos Garnett on saxes, Elmer Gibson on Fender Rhodes, and Dom Um Romão (who had recently left Weather Report), Skip Drinkwater, and Lawrence Killian (percussion). Featured soloists include Henderson, a somewhat jarring in this context Lucas, Gibson, and a rather backgrounded Laws.
There is an engaging energy to this “dream” that seems to be lacking in Henderson’s original. Yet, even at a little over six minutes, the song seems like it’s missing something. Or, maybe we just want more.
Eddie Henderson has since revisited “Dreams” several times over the years, including on pianist Kenny Barron’s Live at Fat Tuesdays (1988, as a CD bonus track) and with fellow Mwandishi bandmate Billy Hart’s Rah (1988), also with Buster Williams) as well as his own Reemergence (1998) and Collective Portrait (2015, also with Gary Bartz).
“Kwasi”: This Norman Connors and Onaje Allan Gumbs original appears on the drummer/bandleader’s 1975 album Saturday Night Special. On such a funk-fueled album (the title track is killer), “Kwasi” really stands out. Like other sessions from the album, Tom Lord, in The Jazz Discography, lists this as a May 1975 recording. But Bob Gluck suggests – correctly, I think – that “Kwasi” originates from the same October 1973 session that yielded “Revelation” above.
The song opens with an extended drum solo – similar in nature and length to “Give the Drummer Some” from Connors’ 1972 debut Dance of Magic (and probably the reason Connors gets a composition credit) – before percussion and bass kick in. This ushers in the modulated, Mwandishi-styled Fender Rhodes of Onaje Allan Gumbs, followed shortly thereafter by Herbie Hancock on acoustic piano.
When the two keyboard players are introduced, the song seems as though it might be going somewhere, until it just fades out as little more than just an off-the-cuff jam. It suggests what might have been if Norman Connors, himself, was a Mwandishi member.
One year after the release of Saturday Night Special, though, would see Norman Connors’ breakout release, You Are My Starship, his sixth as a leader. Even though the album featured a cover of Pharoah Sanders’ jazz hit “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” the title track went on to reach number four on the R&B charts and number 27 on Billboard’s Hot 100. It was here that Norman Connors left the jazz building.
Afterword: It’s worth noting that “You’ll Know When You Get There” author, professor, pianist/keyboardist and band leader Bob Gluck led a quintet featuring both Mwandishi members Eddie Henderson and Billy Hart for a tribute disc titled Infinite Spirit: Revising Music of the Mwandishi Band (2015).
Endnotes: