While most people gravitated to Hancock’s recording of “Watermelon Man” on his 1962 debut album called “Takin’ Off,” there were many other tracks that were equally powerful on the platter. Together, the lineup of Dexter Gordon on saxophone, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Butch Warren on bass and Billy Higgins on drums, created one of the greatest jazz albums of the 1960s defining the cool sound of hard bop. I like “The Odd Couple” feel that many of the early Hancock tracks have as if they could have been the basis for the theme to that classic TV show. Here’s what Hancock had to say about this tune in the liner notes to the album: “The tune seems to go along the bent paths of a maze, to which the final solution is never reached – notice that the performance does not have a real tonic ending.” Indeed, it is a track that can take you places without ever leaving your comfy chair.
