The Prisoner (album)


The Prisoner is the seventh Herbie Hancock album, his final on the Blue Note label, released and recorded in 1969. His next record would be on Warner Bros. Records. It is dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King. Hancock suggested in 1969 that he had been able to get closer to his real self with this album than on any other previous. Hancock praised flute player Hubert Laws on the album, suggesting that Laws was one of the finest flute players in classical or jazz music.

Composition

Like his ambitious Speak Like a Child, The Prisoner purports to stand as a "social statement written in music". The title track seeks to express "how black people have been imprisoned for a long time." The piece was first heard live in 1968, during a performance at the University of California Jazz Festival. "Firewater" represents 'the social duality of the oppressor and the oppressed: the fire symbolises the heat in violence and power, whilst the feeling of water recalls Martin Luther King. "He Who Lives in Fear" also alludes to King, since he "had to live in an atmosphere charged with intimidation". Continuing the album's apparent theme, the "Promise of the Sun" symbolises "how the sun promises life and freedom to all living things, and yet blacks are not yet free."

Track listing

All compositions by Herbie Hancock, except where noted.
  1. "I Have a Dream" – 10:58
  2. "The Prisoner" – 7:57
  3. "Firewater" – 7:33
  4. "He Who Lives in Fear" – 6:51
  5. "Promise of the Sun" – 7:52
Bonus tracks on CD reissue
  2. "The Prisoner" – 5:47
  3. "Firewater" – 8:38
Recorded on April 18, April 21 and April 23, 1969.

Personnel