Quad LP/Tape Poll Hancock, Herbie: Sextant [SQ/Q8]

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Rate "Sextant"

  • 8

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 7

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 6

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5: So-so

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3

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  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1: Bad Mix, Bad Sound, Bad Content

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    13

EMB

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Since 2002/2003
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Great jazz/fusion album from 1973(evocative cover art, too!), and a real 'Born to be Quad 'title! This was Herbie's first Columbia album after several years with Warner Bros. Up to this point, Herbie was best known for his work with Miles Davis; scoring Michelangelo Antonioni's great BLOW-UP; and for authoring "Watermelon Man," a hit in '63 for Mongo Santmaria(and which Herbie would revive for his next album, HEAD HUNTERS).

Tracks:

Side 1:

1. Rain Dance
2. Hidden Shadows

Side 2:

Hornets
 

Attachments

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This has got to be one of the most satisfying quad mixes that I have ever heard on q8. The music itself is definitely not for everybody, but if you like spacey, way out (yet somehow coherent) electric jazz even a little bit, then this is a must-have! (y)

I have the sq record as well, but even with a TATE, the sq doesn't touch the q8.

Very, very psychedelic! :smokin
 
Yes, agreed: one of my fave Q8's, very well done! This kind of exotic fusion was perfect for four-channel, wish we'd gotten many more like it!

ED
 
Try listening to this one at night, with the lights out. It just has that kind of vibe. This is out there... way out there. But, if you're in the right mood it is a fantastic recording. There is lots going on, being in quad it's easy to pick which elements you want to listen to at different times and let the rest carry it along.

This is the reason that I found myself with vintage quad software. I looked around for a DTS conversion, but couldn't find one. Q8 seemed like an expensive way to go, so I picked up the SQ lp and converted it with Adobe Audition. It sounds pretty discreet to me, but I haven't heard the Q8.
 
zabble said:
This has got to be one of the most satisfying quad mixes that I have ever heard on q8. The music itself is definitely not for everybody, but if you like spacey, way out (yet somehow coherent) electric jazz even a little bit, then this is a must-have! (y)

I have the sq record as well, but even with a TATE, the sq doesn't touch the q8.

Very, very psychedelic! :smokin
The q8 must be absolutely incredible, because to my ears the SQ version is one of the most discrete lp's within the format.
 
The q8 must be absolutely incredible, because to my ears the SQ version is one of the most discrete lp's within the format.


OK, I'm reviving this thread cause at last I listened to my conversion of the SQ LP and I was totally blown away.

Far out stuff that sounds like random jamming but it's very organized -I would've loved to see the charts for these songs :mad:@::mad:@::mad:@:
It sort of reminds me of a very early incarnation of John Zorn's "Naked City" regarding the looseness of the music (NOT the energy , Zorn's cd is for listeners with specially adapted ears and brains, since your head may explode while listening to it)

"Rain Dance" is my favorite; synth bops and squeals with a bit of "Naked City" sections with the metronome at 240+.

"Hornets" just drags on for way too long with the same motif, but still interesting...

Surround wise , it's a real treat, great panning of instruments and reverb and EXTREMELY discrete; several elements are anchored in the corners and remain so EVEN WITH other instruments in other channels. I have had very good results with the AA 2.0 script and I can hear plenty of separation in dbs-(especially in my "Caravanserai" SQ LP conversion in which the bass is totally isolated in LF with almost no leakage).

I must also say that I got a great looking LP which would have fooled me: no spindle marks, no scuffs , much less hairlines(!),
BUT,
It was a B*TCH to clean up!!!
Dang , those Columbia pressings were ...how can a say this?...not good??...
The same happened with my MDavis "Bitches brew" SQ LP I bought SEALED and I'm not even halfway done with the cleaning up, what a crappy pressing. It looks as though Columbia had to save $$$ so they used the SQ stampers way longer than they should have...

I personally like to clean my LP clicks/pops manually because all of the "signal cleaning" programs I've tried take out a lot of the music along with the noise.

Anyway, my conversion sounds heavenly and I'm very proud of it... :smokin:smokin:smokin

Now I can't wait to clean up "Thrust"...it'll probably be done by next year ;)
 
In an obvious way, SEXTANT looks back while looking forward. Side 1 is really the next progression of a sound and style Herbie developed at Warner Bros. with such albums as MWANDISHI and CROSSINGS. Side 2, on the other hand, looks forward to HEAD HUNTERS' "Chameleon," THRUST, and MAN-CHILD. Whether this shift was good or bad, I'm not sure, although I prefer the style of Side 1 of SEXTANT, which seemed to me more eclectic and exploratory, 'spacey' in the way Sun Ra's best music is, without the more obvious Ra flamboyance.

In the event, a superb mix and essential quad for any collector of MC music.

ED :)
 
In an obvious way, SEXTANT looks back while looking forward. Side 1 is really the next progression of a sound and style Herbie developed at Warner Bros. with such albums as MWANDISHI and CROSSINGS. Side 2, on the other hand, looks forward to HEAD HUNTERS' "Chameleon," THRUST, and MAN-CHILD. Whether this shift was good or bad, I'm not sure, although I prefer the style of Side 1 of SEXTANT, which seemed to me more eclectic and exploratory, 'spacey' in the way Sun Ra's best music is, without the more obvious Ra flamboyance.

In the event, a superb mix and essential quad for any collector of MC music.

ED :)

I'm listening to a lovely transfer of the SQLP and I felt compelled to drag this thread out of cryogenic storage to chip in. Ed - your comment has stood the test of time, this is cracking stuff.

Great mix and extraordinary invention abound within a quad field that delights throughout.
 
Yes, cracking stuff indeed...:smokin Not least if you were familiar with not just his WB albums but his work with Miles, and also with Blue Note and the soundtrack to Antonioni's film BLOW-UP. The early, pre-Miles Herbie was a talented but rather conventional cat, adventurous as so many jazzers were back then but still, in their own niche and (it later seemed to me, anyway) content to do their thing without a lot of stretching the boundaries, as it were. With Miles, of course, stretching and invention were par, so you really had to be good--and quick--to keep him happy. The BLOW-UP soundtrack might have been the last cool but obvious music Hancock would do for a long time. Certainly, when he moved to Warners you could hear the Coltrane-like experimentation, the Miles-like search for a new musical place to go. SEXTANT somehow sounds like the last WB album instead of the first Columbia; it's kinda transitional. I thought, though, as Herbie got funkier on Columbia he lost some of the probing nature that informed SEXTANT and the WB albums, though it was also obvious he was having a lot of fun exploring whatever parameters he had set for himself, as HEAD HUNTERS and THRUST, among others, made clear. They're fine in their way, but it seemed to me that fusion was best when it kept distance from soul and funk (or even disco) influences and worked better with elements of rock sprinkled about as long as the rock didn't take control of the jazz.

Needless to say, you've made me go back and pull out my old SQ yet again. Still sounds good but is getting worn, who knows how many times I've played it since it came out (it's also one of the few quads I own where I never really listened to the original stereo mix after hearing the 4-channel version. Not sure why).

ED :)
 
I have to add, this has been a favorite for decades now, and after hearing the DVD-A (SQ) transfer, was completely blown away. This was a really heady time for Herbie, and his band was amazing, the Priester, Henderson and Maupin "horn" section is perfect for this music. Gleeson's synths add some great effect, and Herbie just kills on this album. A real milestone of an album, and an officially mixed surround release (if only) would be amazing. This certainly does the trick for now.
 
I just used the "internets" to make sure I could hear Thrust, glad I did. "Actual Proof" is all I could have hoped for in 4.0, nicely done. One of the best fusion riffs of it's time, pretty cool quad mix on first listen for the entire album. Is there a thread for Thrust?
 
I give this an 8 for the content and a 10 for the mix. This might be one of the best quad mixes ever! But content-wise, let's just say I wouldn't want to listen to this very often in stereo.
 
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