Herbie Hancock

The Prisoner is the seventh album by Herbie Hancock, his final on the Blue Note label, released and recorded in 1969. His next record would be on Warner Bros. Records. Hancock confessed in 1969 that he had been able to get closer to his real self with this album than on any other previous ones. The Prisoner stands as an example of ''social statement written in music''. The title track wants to express ''how black people have been imprisoned for a long time.'' The piece was first heard live in 1968, during a performance at University of California Jazz Festival. ''Firewater'' should represent the social duality of the oppressor and the oppressed: the fire symbolises the heat in violence and (abuse of) power, whilst the feeling of water recalls Martin Luther King. ''He Who Lives in Fear'' too is connected to King's life, since he ''had to live in an atmosphere charged with intimidation''. A rough arrangement of said piece was initially used as a jingle for a Silva Thins cigarette TV commercial. Ultimately, ''Promise of the Sun'' is a tune that symbolises ''how the sun promises life and freedom to all living things, and yet blacks are not yet free.

• 1 I Have A Dream
• 2 The Prisoner
• 3 Firewater
• 4 He Who Lives In Fear
• 5 Promise Of The Sun