Crossings (Herbie Hancock album)

1972 studio album by Herbie Hancock

Crossings

Studio album by

Herbie Hancock

Released

May 1972^[1]

Recorded

February 15–17, 1972

Studio

Pacific (San Mateo)
Different Fur (San Francisco)

Genre

Avant-garde jazz, jazz fusion

Length

46:21

Label

Warner Bros.

Producer

David Rubinson

Herbie Hancock chronology

Mwandishi
(1971)

Crossings
(1972)

Sextant
(1973)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	^[2]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide	^[3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings	^[4]

Crossings is the tenth album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, released in 1972.

It is the second album in his Mwandishi period, which saw him experimenting in electronics and funk with a sextet featuring saxophonist Bennie Maupin, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, trombonist Julian Priester, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart. The album is the band's first to feature synthesizer player Patrick Gleeson, originally hired as a technician to help set up Hancock's Moog synthesizer; Hancock was so impressed with Gleeson that he "asked Gleeson not only to do the overdubs on the album but join the group."^[5]

Crossings, along with Fat Albert Rotunda and Mwandishi, was reissued in one set as Mwandishi: The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings in 1994 and as The Warner Bros. Years (1969-1972) in 2014.

Track listing

Side A
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Sleeping Giant"	Herbie Hancock	24:38
Total length:			24:38

Side B
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
2.	"Quasar"	Bennie Maupin	7:27
3.	"Water Torture"	Maupin	14:04
Total length:			21:21

Personnel

Herbie Hancock – piano, electric piano, mellotron, percussion
Eddie Henderson – trumpet, flugelhorn, percussion
Bennie Maupin – soprano saxophone, alto flute, bass clarinet, piccolo, percussion
Julian Priester – tenor and alto trombones, bass, percussion
Buster Williams – bass guitar, double bass, percussion
Billy Hart – drums, percussion

With:

Patrick Gleeson – Moog synthesizer, Mellotron^[6]
Victor Pantoja – congas
Candy Love, Sandra Stevens, Della Horne, Victoria Domagalski, Scott Beach – voices

References

External videos
Herbie Hancock - Sleeping Giant
Herbie Hancock - Water torture

^ Billboard May 27, 1972
^ Allmusic review
^ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. U.S.: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 94. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
^ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 642. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
^ Stuart Nicholson's notes for the 2001 Warner Bros. CD reissue.
^ Opperman, Derek (May 27, 2015). "Wearing A Really Different Fur: How Patrick Gleeson introduced the synthesizer to Herbie Hancock and changed jazz in the process". Red Bull Music Academy. Retrieved May 8, 2023.