1973’s Sextant was the last LP with the so-called Mwandishi-era sextet: Bennie Maupin, Eddie Henderson, Julian Priester, Buster Williams, and Billy Hart. It was also his debut on Columbia after Blue Note and Warner Bros. Columbia would also release Head Hunters later the same year.

Great, funky collection – side 2 is one track, the 19:35 “Hornets.” Hancock plays Fender Rhodes, Mellotron, and ARP and Moog synthesizers and there’s lots of complex percussion and instrumentation.

My copy is the Dec 2023 Vinyl Me Please Essentials (VMP E132) reissue, marketed as the 50th Anniversary Edition, on “Lunar Marble” vinyl with listening notes by Marcus J. Moore (who wrote High and Rising, the first biography of De La Soul).