Watermelon Man
Watermelon Man is one of the jazz pianists Herbie Hancock first time in 1962 on the album Takin 'Off published composition . Watermelon Man is one of the most popular jazz standards and is often played at jam sessions because, although 16 bars, it resembles the three-level blues form . Gloria Lynne wrote a text for the song in 1964.
Watermelon Man was initially a hit for Mongo Santamaría in 1963 ; the Cuban reached number 10 on the US pop charts. The composition was re-recorded in 1973 on Hancock's bestseller Head Hunters in a modern six-minute form in funk / fusion style .
The composition
(Example of the first motif run.)
Herbie Hancock tells about the creation of the piece that the melody comes from the exclamation of a watermelon seller that he heard in his youth: “ When I thought about my childhood, I remembered the call of the watermelon man who did his rounds in the smaller streets and lanes of south Chicago turned. "
Watermelon sellers were a typical Black American way of life at the time and thus the piece has references to the roots of African American culture, although Herbie Hancock comes from more affluent and more educated circles: “ I was born in Chicago in 1940, my parents were not professional musicians, but my father was a bathtub singer and my mother jumbled on the piano. I was always interested in music as a young child and I started taking music lessons when I was seven. Four years later I performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “Musically, with Watermelon Man , he met exactly the black American musical taste. Freddie Hubbard plays a very understandable bebop or hardbop solo with his beautiful trumpet tone and Dexter Gordon plays an ingeniously simple solo that is directly reminiscent of a watermelon seller who varies his reputation. Hancock himself only plays a short solo with gospel-like interjections.
shape
The melody of the call is started on the tonic, then repeated on the subdominant and ended with a diatonic dominant pattern. The harmonic form of the piece is an expanded blues. The accompanying pattern of the tonic and subdominant, which shapes the character of the piece, moves diatonic and uses Hammerings . The dominant part controls the dominant and subdominant through a chromatic upper secondary note and uses a voice leading with chord notes . The strong gospel and funk-like mood and rhythm of the piece were decisive for the success.
Other meanings
A vodka- based cocktail exists under the name Watermelon Man .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The liner notes of the album Takin 'off by Leonard Feather quote Hancock