Music Appreciation

appalachiablue

(41,145 posts) Sun Jan 29, 2023, 11:48 PM Jan 2023

Herbie Hancock - Watermelon Man

- Herbie Hancock explains how he composed Watermelon Man and how Mongo Santamaria, the Afro- Cuban Latin jazz percussionist influenced it. Hancock then performs both the original 1962 and the 1973 Headhunters version.

A master performance by a superbly talented musician and great Trio! 🎹
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- Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (b. April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, 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, utilizing 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.

Hancock's best-known compositions include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man", "Maiden Voyage", and "Chameleon", all of which are jazz standards. During the 1980s, he enjoyed a hit single with the electronic instrumental "Rockit", a collaboration with bassist/producer Bill Laswell. Hancock has won an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for his 2007 Joni Mitchell tribute album River: The Joni Letters, becoming only the second jazz album to win the award after Getz/Gilberto in 1965.

Since 2012, Hancock has served as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He is also the chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz (formerly known as the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz until 2019... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie_Hancock