Dolphin Dance is a composition by Herbie Hancock from his 1965 Blue Note album Maiden Voyage. The track helps establish the album’s oceanic concept, using space and a modal post-bop mood to evoke sea air and movement; it was inspired by Count Basie’s Shiny Stockings. Recorded on March 17, 1965 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the personnel includes Hancock on piano, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, George Coleman on tenor sax, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. The piece runs 9 minutes 16 seconds and appears on side two of the album as track five. Dolphin Dance has become a jazz standard and Hancock re-recorded it for Dedication (1974) and again on later projects, helping it endure in jazz education and real books such as Hal Leonard’s New Real Book vol. 2.
