"Watermelon Man" | |
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![]() US single of the 1963 Herbie Hancock recording | |
Instrumental by Herbie Hancock | |
from the album Takin' Off | |
Released | 1962 |
Genre | |
Length | 7:09 |
Label | Blue Note |
Songwriter(s) | Herbie Hancock |
Producer(s) | Alfred Lion |
"Watermelon Man" is a jazz standard written by Herbie Hancock for his debut album, Takin' Off (1962).
Hancock's first version was recorded in a hard bop style, featuring solos by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and saxophonist Dexter Gordon. [1] A single release reached the Top 100 of the Billboard pop charts. Afro-Cuban percussionist Mongo Santamaría subsequently released a version which became a surprise hit, reaching No. 10 on the pop chart. [2] Santamaría's recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. Hancock later recorded a funk version of "Watermelon Man" for the album Head Hunters (1973). [1]
Hancock wrote the piece to help sell his debut album as a leader, Takin' Off (1962), on Blue Note Records; it was the first piece of music he had ever composed with a commercial goal in mind. The popularity of the piece, due primarily to Mongo Santamaría's version, paid Hancock's bills for five or six years. Hancock did not feel the composition was a sellout, however, describing it as one of his strongest pieces structurally. [3]
"Watermelon Man" is written in a sixteen-bar blues form. Recalling the piece, Hancock said, "I remember the cry of the watermelon man making the rounds through the back streets and alleys of Chicago. The wheels of his wagon beat out the rhythm on the cobblestones." [4] The tune drew on elements of R&B, soul jazz, and bebop. [5] Hancock joined bassist Butch Warren and drummer Billy Higgins in the rhythm section, with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and Dexter Gordon on tenor saxophone. [5] Hancock's chordal work draws from the gospel tradition, while he builds his solo on repeated riffs and trilled figures. [6]
"Watermelon Man" | |
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Single by Mongo Santamaría | |
from the album Watermelon Man! | |
B-side | "Don't Bother Me No More" |
Released | February 1963 |
Recorded | 1963 |
Genre | |
Length | 2:00 |
Label | Battle |
Songwriter(s) | Herbie Hancock |
After pianist Chick Corea left Afro-Cuban jazz percussionist Mongo Santamaría's band, Hancock served as a temporary replacement for a weekend engagement at a nightclub in The Bronx. During this engagement, Hancock played "Watermelon Man" for Santamaría at Donald Byrd's urging. Santamaría started accompanying him on his congas, the rest of the band joined in, and the small audience slowly got up from their tables and started dancing. Santamaría later asked Hancock if he could record the tune. On December 17, 1962, he recorded a three-minute version, suitable for radio, where he joined timbalero Francisco "Kako" Baster in a cha-cha beat, while drummer Ray Lucas performed a backbeat. [7] With the enthusiasm of record producer Orrin Keepnews, the band re-recorded the song and released it as a single under Battle Records. [8] [9] The single reached number 10 on Billboard in 1963. [10] Santamaría subsequently included the track on his album Watermelon Man! (1963). Santamaría's recording is sometimes considered the beginning of the boogaloo genre, a fusion of Afro-Cuban jazz and R&B. [11]
Chart (1963) | Peak position |
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US Billboard Hot 100 [12] | 10 |
Hancock re-recorded "Watermelon Man" for Head Hunters (1973), combining synthesizers with a funk beat influenced by James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone, [13] adding an eight-bar section. Hancock described his approach 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 plays 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". [14] A live version of this arrangement was released on the double LP Flood (1975), recorded in Japan.
On the intro and outro of the tune, percussionist Bill Summers blows into beer bottles in an imitation of 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 album The Music of the Ba-Benzélé Pygmies (1966) recorded by Simha Arom and Geneviève Taurelle. [15]
This version was often featured on The Weather Channel's Local on the 8s segments. It was also played in the 2018 movie mid90s .
"Watermelon Man" has become a jazz standard, and has been recorded over two hundred times: [4]
Hancock's recording has been sampled in:
Takin' Off version:
Head Hunters version:
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, using a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, Head Hunters.
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop musicians who successfully explored funk and soul while remaining a jazz artist. As a bandleader, Byrd was an influence on the early career of Herbie Hancock and many others.
Soul jazz or funky jazz is a subgenre of jazz that incorporates strong influences from hard bop, blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues. Soul jazz is often characterized by organ trios featuring the Hammond organ and small combos including saxophone, brass instruments, electric guitar, bass, drums, piano, vocals and electric organ. Its origins were in the 1950s and early 1960s, with its heyday with popular audiences preceding the rise of jazz fusion in the late 1960s and 1970s. Prominent names in fusion ranged from bop pianists including Bobby Timmons and Junior Mance to a wide range of organists, saxophonists, pianists, drummers and electric guitarists including Jack McDuff, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Grant Green.
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Boogaloo or bugalú is a genre of Latin music and dance which was popular in the United States in the 1960s. Boogaloo originated in New York City mainly by stateside Puerto Ricans with African American music influences. The style was a fusion of popular African American rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul music with mambo and son montuno, with songs in both English and Spanish. The American Bandstand television program introduced the dance and the music to the mainstream American audience. Pete Rodríguez's "I Like It like That" was a famous boogaloo song.
Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría Rodríguez was a Cuban percussionist and bandleader who spent most of his career in the United States. Primarily a conga drummer, Santamaría was a leading figure in the pachanga and boogaloo dance crazes of the 1960s. His biggest hit was his rendition of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. From the 1970s, he recorded mainly salsa and Latin jazz, before retiring in the late 1990s.
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The discography of the American jazz artist Herbie Hancock consists of forty-one studio albums, twelve live albums, sixty-two compilation albums, five soundtrack albums, thirty-eight physical singles, nine promo singles and four songs not released as singles, but that charted due to downloads. This article does not include re-issues, unless they are counted separately from the original works in the charts, furthermore because of the enormous amount of material published, this discography omits less notable appearances in compilations and live albums. The discography shows the peak weekly main chart positions of eight selected countries: United States, France,[a] Germany, Japan,[b] Netherlands, Sweden,[c] Switzerland and United Kingdom. Positions also listed on United States are R&B / hip hop, dance / club, jazz[d] and bubbling under charts.[e] The peaks do not refer necessarily to the position that a record reached when it was first released. Also included are certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)[f] and the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI).[g]
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