Herbie Hancock debuted as a leader in 1962, starting a Blue Note streak that would come to include such 1960s classics as Inventions & Dimensions, Empyrean Isles, and Maiden Voyage. The next album in this historic run, 1968’s Speak Like a Child, would represent another triumph of imagination, melodic acuity, masterful pianism, and sheer band chemistry. At the heart of it all is a trio featuring Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Philadelphia legend Mickey Roker on drums. That’s a solid musical foundation—one that Hancock augmented with an unusual section of warm, chamber-like brass and winds, featuring Jerry Dodgion on alto flute, Thad Jones on flugelhorn, and Peter Phillips on bass trombone. This configuration, influenced in part by Gil Evans, had a mysterious aura, one that set the stage for the bass clarinet and alto flute of Bennie Maupin in Hancock’s first major post-Blue Note ensemble, the Mwandishi band. Ron Carter’s original “First Trip,” a solidly bluesy midtempo workhorse that remained in Hancock’s book for years, is one of two Speak Like a Child tracks to feature the trio without the chamber group. The other is “The Sorcerer,” previously recorded in 1967 on the Miles Davis quintet album Sorcerer. Hancock takes it a good 20 clicks slower on the metronome, giving the tune’s complex changes a satisfying lilt as the trio shreds mightily. The horns paint with dark and vibrant colors on the opening track, “Riot” (which appeared on Davis’ Nefertiti album the very month Hancock recorded this version). It’s just one of several standout cuts here, alongside the glorious “Speak Like a Child,” the eerily chromatic “Toys,” and the richly contrapuntal ballad “Goodbye to Childhood.”