Editing Herbie Hancock (section)

=== ''Fat Albert'' (1969) and Mwandishi era (1971–1973) ===
[[File:Herbie hancock 1970.png|thumb|Hancock {{circa}} 1970]]
Hancock left Blue Note in 1969, signing with [[Warner Bros. Records]]. In 1969, Hancock composed the soundtrack for [[Bill Cosby]]'s animated prime-time television special ''[[Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497624/fullcredits|title=Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert (TV Movie 1969)|website=IMDb.com|access-date=July 1, 2018|archive-date=November 16, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201116192107/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497624/fullcredits|url-status=live}}</ref> Music from the soundtrack was later included on ''[[Fat Albert Rotunda]]'' (1969), an [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]]-inspired album with strong jazz overtones. One of the jazzier songs on the record, the moody ballad "Tell Me a Bedtime Story", was later re-worked as a more electronic sounding song for the [[Quincy Jones]] album ''[[Sounds...and Stuff Like That!!]]'' (1978).

Hancock became fascinated with electronic musical instruments. Together with the profound influence of Davis's ''[[Bitches Brew]]'' (1970), this fascination culminated in a series of albums in which electronic instruments were coupled with acoustic instruments. Hancock's first ventures into [[electronic music]] started with a sextet comprising Hancock, bassist [[Buster Williams]] and drummer [[Billy Hart]], and a trio of horn players: [[Eddie Henderson (musician)|Eddie Henderson]] (trumpet), [[Julian Priester]] ([[trombone]]), and [[multireedist]] [[Bennie Maupin]]. [[Patrick Gleeson]] was eventually added to the mix to play and program the synthesizers.

The sextet, later a septet with the addition of Gleeson, made three albums under Hancock's name: ''[[Mwandishi]]'' (1971), ''[[Crossings (Herbie Hancock album)|Crossings]]'' (1972) (both on Warner Bros. Records), and ''[[Sextant (album)|Sextant]]'' (1973) (released on [[Columbia Records]]); two more, ''[[Realization (Eddie Henderson album)|Realization]]'' and ''[[Inside Out (Eddie Henderson album)|Inside Out]]'', were recorded under Henderson's name with essentially the same personnel. The music exhibited strong improvisational aspect beyond the confines of jazz mainstream and showed influence from the electronic music of [[contemporary classical music|contemporary classical]] composers. Hancock's three records released in 1971–73 later became known as the "Mwandishi" albums, so-called after a [[Swahili language|Swahili]] name Hancock sometimes used during this era ("''Mwandishi''" is [[Swahili language|Swahili]] for "writer"). The first two, including ''[[Fat Albert Rotunda]]'', were made available on the two-CD set ''Mwandishi: the Complete Warner Bros. Recordings'', released in 1994. "Hornets" was later revised on the 2001 album ''[[Future2Future]]'' as "Virtual Hornets".

Among the instruments Hancock and Gleeson used were [[Fender Rhodes]] piano, [[ARP Odyssey]], [[ARP 2600]], [[ARP Pro Soloist]] Synthesizer, a [[Mellotron]] and the [[Moog synthesizer]] III.