Guitarist Lionel Loueke has carved a creative path with his mixing of West African sounds and beats with post bop jazz in a plethora of settings, ranging to sessions as a sideman with Terence Blanchard, Herbie Hancock and Luciana Souza to his own creative trio albums. This time out, he goes completely solo, an alluring proposition on its own, but he then goes the extra mile by interpreting material from his inspiration Herbie Hancock, resulting in a fascinating kaleidoscope of sounds.
There are a pair of tunes composed by Loueke himself, but still inspired by the keyboardist, with the cleverly titled “Voyage Maiden” mixing acoustic strings and funk and pretty drapery picked out on ‘Homage to HH”. Loueke covers all periods of Hancock’s career, with gentle droplets of dew heard on “Tell Me A Bedtime Story”, plenty of electronic wacka wooka on “Cantaloupe Island”, as well as pedal pushing on the wild and free “One Finger Snap”. Loueke’s voice is used as either a harmonic countermelody or a means of percussion, as on “Drifitin’” or the taping “Actual Proof” and “Come Running To Me”, getting sleek on “Butterfly”. Even the electronic hit “Rockit” gets a do-over, with Loueke’s fingers sliding up and down the neck like he’s waxing a funky surfboard. The idea was an inspiration, the spartan setting a work of brilliance and the delivery a gift for the ages.