#I was futzing about with the new elf ear lighting (found out that being right up against a light source was nightmare fuel)

[whatsthisascianbullshit]

New story arc, same two adventurers

Match Munroe: @a-soul-full-of-stars

[onejazztrackaday]

Chameleon

The 1973 album Head Hunters was a turning point in Herbie Hancock’s career. It had all of the sensibilities of jazz, particularly in the way it wound off into long improvisations, but its rhythms were firmly planted in funk, soul, and R&B, giving it a mass appeal that made it one of the biggest-selling jazz albums of all time. Jazz purists, of course, thought it was rubbish, like Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew three years earlier, but this heresy was thought of more as a commercial sellout than pretentious experimentation. Practicing Nichiren Buddhism, Hancock spent hours chanting, meditating on the question of where he should take his music next. One day his chant literally drifted into the lyrics of Sly and the Family Stone’s Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). The images that he saw while meditating made him uncomfortable and he began questioning his snobbish attitude to other music.

“I decided to ask myself a few simple questions: Was there anything wrong with funky music? No. Was it somehow worse to play funk with my own band than with someone else’s? No. Then why was I feeling dismissive of the idea? I had certainly been listening to a lot of funk music, including Sly Stone. And funk was related to jazz, and it was related to the black experience as a whole. I had to face my own prejudice — or as Buddhist practice says, face the negativity of my fundamental darkness — and defeat it. And that’s the moment I decided to start a funk band.”

Herbie promptly disbanded his band Mwandishi and formed a new one. They started jamming and working on funk based fusion, and the first fruit of this new endeavour is today’s track, Chameleon. It is probably the definitive jazz-funk fusion* tune and has become standard repertoire in many small jazz ensembles In this song, nothing is what it first seems. The signature bass line is played on an ARP Odyssey synthesizer***. The guitar-sounding riff is played on a bass in the altissimo register. Hancock plays his Clavinet like Hendrix comping time with a wah-wah pedal. I’ve linked to the full-length 15:44 version from the album’s first release**. Only in the 15 minute version can one appreciate the various phases of the song. It starts with a pure funk – tight horns, scratchy guitar and throbbing bass. Hancock’s keyboard solo in part two sounds distinctly futuristic. The last half, returns to Hancock’s jazz foundations. Rapid but light keyboard notes compliment Mason’s furious drumming, lending an air of sophistication to the jam. Then to bring it all home, it returns to its 1970s soul roots, taking us back to the groove that will stick in your head all day – for which I make no apologies. Chameleon – Herbie Hancock – Bozzie 🎷 * I can’t think of jazz-funk fusion without being reminded of that Robin Williams line at the end of the 2005 movie Robots

Yo, it’s a fusion of jazz and funk. It’s called junk.

** The later 9:41 edit omits an “out-of-tune” segment, features a new bassline added in at around 6:40 and new instruments added in post-production. I don’t know whether it was Herbie’s vanity or some studio exec who thought they could improve on what turned out to be accidental genius.

About six minutes and 55 seconds into “Chameleon,” as Hancock solos on his Arp Odyssey, he lands on a four-note phrase that’s about a half-step away from the key of the song. It is a phrase that pulls your shoulders up to your ears, makes you put your hands up to your face to block the punch. It is the single funkiest, unholiest, nastiest moment on the record, and it was a complete mistake. Hancock was futzing with the manual pitch bender on the synthesizer during his solo and didn’t realign it. He was playing the wrong notes, but the right notes were coming out.

*** I nearly met Herbie Hancock in 1988 when I was working in R&D at Fairlight Instruments, and the legendary Hancock visited our offices to check out the Series III Fairlight CMI. I found all sorts of errands to go on around the company in the hope of accidentally bumping into him. I did see his entourage as they left, but sadly never got to actually meet the man.