I apologize in advance for not representing this album in as good a light as it deserves. For you see, I promised to review “Speak Like a Child” a month ago, in an attempt to recommend a few albums for the beautiful Autumn season. By now the season is long gone. Instead of shades of beautiful orange, red and yellow, everything is brown. And muddy. And cold. And dark. A season much better suited for sonic alternate-rock or something, but oh well. I have no one but myself to blame for my own short-sightedness.

If you didn’t know it, Herbie Hancock is one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time. He played with Miles Davis, released dozens of really awesome records, and even won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, having only the second jazz album to win the award.

So, “Speak Like a Child”. It was Herb’s second to last release on the jazz giant, Blue Note Records, and it’s pretty much everything you’ve come to expect from him during this wonderful period of time; tight hard bop compositions that are excellent with deadly accuracy. Only exception to his previous work being that on the surface this album sounds so generic that you’d think that some cynical studio executive made it, unlike his prior work which was more straight forward with it’s creative ambitions. However, as you dig deeper toward the core you’ll realize that it’s far from being generic. Every note, chord and beat ooze of soul and class, and the fact that this is something that you’re likely to hear during a hotel dinner is nothing more than a compliment to the hotel.

Speaking of which, the album works both as shallow background music and as deep and thoughtful art-music, and in my opinion there lies it’s true brilliance. Unlike The Dave Brubeck Quartet album I recommended two weeks ago, “Speak Like a Child” is only as sophisticated and intelligent as you need it to be which makes it more accessible to anyone on (almost) any day of the year.

by Saku