Watermelon Man

Hancock re-recorded the tune for Head Hunters (1973), combining synthesizers with a Sly Stone and James Brown funk influence, adding an eight-bar section. Hancock described his composition "Chameleon", also from Head Hunters, to Down Beat magazine in 1979: "In the popular forms of funk, which I've been trying to get into, the attention is on the rhythmic interplay between different instruments. The part the Clavinet plays has to fit with the part the drums play and the line the bass plays and the line that the guitar plays. It's almost like African drummers where seven drummers play different parts"; "Watermelon Man" shares a similar construction. A live version was released on the double LP Flood (1975), recorded in Japan.

On the intro and outro of the tune, percussionist Bill Summers blows into a beer bottle imitating hindewhu, a style of singing/whistle-playing found in Pygmy music of Central Africa. Hancock and Summers were struck by the sound, which they heard on the ethnomusicology LP, The Music of the Ba-Benzélé Pygmies (1966), by Simha Arom and Genviève Taurelle.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Herbie Hancock
• Watermelon Man
• Jazz
• Funk
• Keyboard
• clavinet
• saxophone

[Jamwoww]

Herbie writes the dopest shittt

[tardsk8r]

reminds of the forest temple in zelda ocraina of time

[karlkronborg]

Trippin'

[karlkronborg]

Tippin'

[KilermonstauYa]

I listen to this when i'm feeling down.

[dojufitz]

great bass...

[sanegamer123]

@tardsk8r Dude, when my music instructor showed us this, I instantly thought ablout LoZ. :)

[DUBARTIFY]

Imagine BIG rapping on this shit, i know you will hate but just imagine

[lvuicga]

I see a blunt under the wiews number.....!!!

[albertobusto1]

alucinante