Jazz debuts don't come much more impressive or memorable than this, Hancock's Takin' Off, cut just after the pianist's 22nd birthday and including the original version of what was soon to be a jazz anthem, ‘Watermelon Man’. They also don't come much more widely known or, crucially, more consistently available. Indeed, who doesn't already own a copy of this? For those that may not, well, here's a new edition of what is a major album in every regard; a Blue Note that does everything you'd expect from the label, marrying compositional adventurousness (‘The Maze’), moody ballads (‘Alone and I’) and danceable grooves (the aforementioned ‘Watermelon Man’) and a to-die-for frontline of Gordon and Hubbard. There's no filler, no fluff and no sense of this being an ‘early’ effort from the leader. It's a classic. Period. Still, being Jazz Images, there are some odd touches (hang on, am I repeating myself here?); the familiar cover art is gone and, as a ‘bonus’, they've seen fit to include a whole Blue Note album by another artist (Hubbard's Hub-Tones, albeit with Hancock featured). This is all valuable music, naturally, but I'm pretty sure Hubbard never intended his album to be a makeweight to that of someone else. Blue Note's are standalone classics, as we all know. But I guess that's the quandary of ‘public domain’ issues – neither artist nor original label has any say in how their ‘product’ is disseminated.