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© Think You?! The Proceedings of the Bay Honors Research
Symposium, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Rocking the Jazz World: A Cultural Exploration and Musical
Analysis of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon”
by Mariva H. Aviram, City College of San Francisco
Mentor: Frederick Vincent and Omar (Sami) Kudsi
Figure 1 — Head Hunters album cover designed by Victor
Moscoso
Head Hunters When visionary musician and composer Herbie Hancock
released Head Hunters in 1973, he changed the history of music.
Hancock was by this time a seasoned musician of great renown in the
jazz world, having already released eleven studio albums. Head
Hunters challenged the conventions of jazz and forged new territory
in the emergent genre of jazz fusion.
Head Hunters was recorded in San Francisco from August through
September 1973 by Fred Catero and Jeremy Zatkin at Wally Heider
Studios and by Dane Butcher and John Vieira at Different Fur
Trading Co. Columbia Records released it as LP KC-32731 only a
month later on October 26, 1973.1 The album went Certified Platinum
and was celebrated as the number one hit on the jazz billboard
1 Head Hunters,
https://HerbieHancock.com/music/discography/album/673/.
https://HerbieHancock.com/music/discography/album/673/
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chart, number two on the R&B chart for 46 weeks, and number
thirteen on the pop chart for 47 weeks.2 In 2003, Rolling Stone
ranked the album at number 411 on its “500 Greatest Albums of All
Time” list.3
Head Hunters had a huge impact on jazz and funk and on the
melding of the two genres. To better understand these genres, a
little background on classification is required. Dr. Rickey Vincent
teaches From Funk to Hip Hop, an African American Studies class at
City College of San Francisco. In his authoritative tome on the
subject, Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One,
Dr. Vincent classifies the eras of Black American music from the
1960s through the 1990s into dynasties. Herbie Hancock's influence
spans decades: his music falls into the Jazz-Rock category of the
First Dynasty (late 1960s), the Jazz-Funk categories of the Second
Dynasty (early to mid-1970s) and the Third Dynasty (late 1970s),
and, finally, the experimental Black Noise category of the Fourth
Dynasty (1980s).
Head Hunters was clearly influenced by the first and second funk
dynasties. Hancock explained, “I knew that I had never heard any
jazz players really play funk like the funk I had been listening
to. Instead of getting jazz cats who knew how to play funk, I got
funk cats who knew how to play jazz.”4 The biggest hit of the
record, “Chameleon,” integrated a jazz bass line with a funk
beat.
Then, in turn, the album influenced those same dynasties (jazz
and funk) and expanded perceptions and definitions of the genres.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine in a review for AllMusic wrote:
Head Hunters was a pivotal point in Herbie Hancock’s career,
bringing him into the vanguard of jazz fusion. Hancock had pushed
avant-garde boundaries on his own albums and with Miles Davis, but
he had never devoted himself to the groove as he did on Head
Hunters. Drawing heavily from Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, and James
Brown, Hancock developed deeply funky, even gritty, rhythms over
which he soloed on electric synthesizers, bringing the instrument
to the forefront in jazz. 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 the biggest-selling jazz album of all
time (a record which was later broken). Jazz purists, of course,
decried the experiments at the time, but Head Hunters still sounds
fresh and vital decades after its initial release, and its
genre-bending proved vastly influential on not only jazz, but funk,
soul, and hip-hop.5
The traditional jazz establishment at the time was resistant to
the changes in the genre. Jazz in their view was supposed to be
purely instrumental, not electronic. It certainly wasn’t supposed
to feature a funk beat that drives “get down” danceability. Nor was
it supposed to mix recognizable melodies with space-age weirdness.
Herbie Hancock, and his mentor Miles Davis before him, upended
these conventions. They embraced the massive changes in the
culture, both political and creative, as well as in technology,
that inevitably influenced the world of music. The jazz purists
were about to be left behind.
2 Ibid. 3 https://SongFacts.com/facts/herbie-hancock/chameleon.
4 https://SongFacts.com/facts/herbie-hancock/chameleon. 5 Stephen
Thomas Erlewine, “Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters,” AllMusic,
https://AllMusic.com/album/head-hunters-mw0000649551.
https://SongFacts.com/facts/herbie-hancock/chameleonhttps://SongFacts.com/facts/herbie-hancock/chameleonhttps://SongFacts.com/facts/herbie-hancock/chameleonhttps://SongFacts.com/facts/herbie-hancock/chameleon
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The multi-talented jazz aficionado Bob Belden was a saxophonist,
band leader, composer, arranger, and producer. He was also a music
historian, record label executive, and writer.6 As a
super-connector in the jazz world, Belden won the honor of penning
the copious and eloquent liner notes for the 2013 Sony Box Set of
The Complete Columbia Album Collection, 1972-1988.7 In these liner
notes, he crystallized the way in which Head Hunters revolutionized
jazz:
Head Hunters was on the cutting edge of the revolutionary
changes that jazz music was going through in the early ‘70s. Jazz
players were moving from the smaller clubs to larger arenas. The
sound became electric. “Why not? Jazz is eclectic. Why can’t it
borrow from rock ‘n’ roll? Some musicians decided to incorporate
some of the rock elements into jazz. That brought about what was
later called ‘fusion’.” Herbie’s Head Hunters also added the colors
of Africa to their music. “I don’t think we’d have rock ‘n’ roll or
pop music in any form without Africa. The roots of the music came
from there.” The impact of Herbie’s recordings with The Head
Hunters Band changed the world of jazz by opening up the mindset of
both jazz musicians and the listening public to the fact that music
could have the power of communicating to a larger set of minds and
voices yet retain its musical complexity, quality, and integrity.
The band had a string of hits that have become part of the global
vocabulary of musicians (“Chameleon,” “Actual Proof,” “Hang Up Your
Hang Ups”) and raised the bar for production standards.
Head Hunters also had an important cultural impact on global
society, starting with the Black community in the U.S. In the Sony
Box Set liner notes, Belden wrote, “The impact of the recording
started on Black College radio and campuses (particularly at Howard
University in Washington, D.C.), and exploded all over the U.S.,
Japan, and Europe.”
“Chameleon” The two most successful pieces on this album were
“Watermelon Man” and “Chameleon.” Of the two, “Chameleon” was the
longest lasting hit. It became one of the most beloved and revered
pieces of jazz and jazz fusion music, and certainly of Hancock’s
60-year career.
The five-member band that produced Head Hunters comprised
musicians who were all stellar in their own right. Some of them had
been members of Hancock’s previous Mwandishi8 Band. They
comprised:
keyboardist, producer, and composer Herbie Hancock (from
Chicago) on ARP Odyssey and Minimoog Bass synthesizers and Fender
Rhodes piano
reedist Bennie Maupin (from Detroit) on tenor and soprano
saxophone bassist Paul Jackson (from Oakland) on electric bass and
electric guitar drummer Harvey Mason (from Los Angeles)
Afrocentric, multicultural percussionist Bill Summers (from New
Orleans) on conga
6 Jeff Tamarkin, “Bob Belden—Musician, Producer, Arranger,
Writer, Historian—Dies at 58: Heart attack claims multi-faceted
jazzman,” Jazz Times, May 20, 2015,
https://JazzTimes.com/features/tributes-and-obituaries/bob-belden-musician-producer-arranger-writer-historian-dies-at-58/.
7 Bob Belden, “Liner Notes,” The Complete Columbia Album
Collection, 1972-1988, Sony Box Set, 2013,
https://HerbieHancock.com/2017/01/08/essay-chameleon-the-life-and-music-of-herbie-hancock/.
8 Mwandishi is Hancock’s Swahili name. It means “Composer.”
https://JazzTimes.com/features/tributes-and-obituaries/bob-belden-musician-producer-arranger-writer-historian-dies-at-58/https://JazzTimes.com/features/tributes-and-obituaries/bob-belden-musician-producer-arranger-writer-historian-dies-at-58/https://JazzTimes.com/features/tributes-and-obituaries/bob-belden-musician-producer-arranger-writer-historian-dies-at-58/https://HerbieHancock.com/2017/01/08/essay-chameleon-the-life-and-music-of-herbie-hancock/
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Aviram 3
All five band members were credited with having composed
“Chameleon.” This is not surprising, because the piece sounds like
a collaboration of great minds.
My long-time friend Geoff Duncan,9 a professional studio session
musician and audio producer, has been in the music business since
the 1980s. When we met at Oberlin College, which is both a liberal
arts college and a music conservatory, we bonded over talking shop
about music and poring over guitar sheet notation. We spent hours
discussing songs, artists, instruments, sounds, genres, and musical
influences—and we occasionally jammed together.
Geoff has always been a big fan of Herbie Hancock. When gushing
about the complex appeal of “Chameleon,” Geoff said, “It cast a
really long shadow over musical culture. It grabs listeners with a
powerful hook and takes them along for the ride.” We
enthusiastically agreed that “Chameleon” was unique, innovative,
ahead of its time—and it remains relevant to this day.
Note that because “Chameleon” is fully instrumental and does not
have lyrics, it’s referred to as a piece rather than as a song. And
this piece is looooong, clocking in at 15 minutes, 45 seconds.
That’s roughly four times the length of an average pop song.10
Listening to it feels like taking an aural journey through a
musical landscape of both danceable rhythm and strange but
compelling grooves.
Musicality The original version of “Chameleon” that appears on
Head Hunters is divided into three sections, each with a
distinctively different sound and feel:
1. Section A: funk 2. Section B (starting at 7:42): George
Clintonesque Afrofuturistic psychedelic 3. Section C (starting at
12:03): jazz11
The entire piece sounds cohesive, because the instrumentalists
transition seamlessly from one section to the next. Sometimes they
cycle back again to the groove at the beginning, a technique that
jazz musicians call “going back to the head.”
The specific elements of “Chameleon” progress throughout the
piece according to this timeline:
9 More information about Geoff Duncan is available at
Quibble.com. 10 Kelsey McKinney, “A hit song is usually 3 to 5
minutes long. Here’s why,” Vox, January 30, 2015,
https://Vox.com/2014/8/18/6003271/why-are-songs-3-minutes-long. 11
Kit O’Toole, “Herbie Hancock’s ‘Chameleon’: The jazz pioneer
impacted modern hip hop, R&B, and funk in this 1973 classic,”
Blinded by Sound, August 22, 2017,
https://BlindedBySound.com/features/deepsoul/deepsoul-herbie-hancock--/.
https://Vox.com/2014/8/18/6003271/why-are-songs-3-minutes-longhttps://Vox.com/2014/8/18/6003271/why-are-songs-3-minutes-long
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time audio channel12 left
audio center audio channel right
0:00 Minimoog bass line
0:12 drum set 0:31 lead electric
guitar with wah pedal
0:51 “extremely clean” rhythm electric guitar with wah
pedal—or a clavinet13
1:29 tenor and soprano sax with synth following it (At this
point, each part is distinctly different! Every instrument plays
its own part, except for the two saxes.)
2:06 “clean”-sounding cymbal crash
2:53 instruments synchronize and the melody shifts
2:55 short sax riff 2:59 occasional bass
synth sound, like the sound of
shuffling a deck of cards—all
that’s heard is the filter
3:23 Tempo slows with horns drawn out. Bass synth sound with a
slow decay, which sounds like a low-pitched wowwwww
3:28 drum fill with rack and floor toms
3:37 new bass riff 3:46 new electric
rhythm guitar riff
4:04 high-pitched keyboard synth
12 Paul White, “Making the Most of the Stereo Panorama: Mix
Processing Techniques,” Sound on Sound, March 2009,
https://SoundOnSound.com/techniques/making-most-stereo-panorama. 13
Geoff Duncan was stumped. If this wasn’t actually a clavinet, then
Geoff was impressed by how clean the sound of this electric guitar
was. He barely detected a guitar pick scratch.
https://SoundOnSound.com/techniques/making-most-stereo-panorama
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4:57 high-pitched keyboard synth reverberates
6:04 cymbal ride 7:05 beep-beep, boop-
boop synth sound original melody
alternates with high-pitched keyboard synth
7:28 complex drum fill 7:34 melody winds
down with synth drawn out
7:38 2-bar drum fill (no other instruments
7:42 SECTION B starts with the bass coming back in
8:00 wah-wah electric guitar
8:32 Fender Rhodes electric piano solo with ARP Odyssey strings
underneath, electric bass guitar, and “busier” drumming
(high-quality jazz vamp drumming, not a funk beat that emphasizes
the One)
9:05 high-pitched synthetic string melody produced by the ARP
Odyssey
10:28 little stabs of high-pitched synthetic flute sound
produced by the ARP Odyssey
little stabs of high-pitched
synthetic flute sound produced
by the ARP Odyssey14
10:44 sustained supporting
chords of synthetic strings (ARP Odyssey)
11:36 shorter sustained supporting
14 Audio that sounds as though it’s simultaneously coming from
extreme opposite directions is created by separate recordings. The
channels don’t sound exactly the same, which means that the
instruments were played separately. There two notes on each
channel, which would typically mean that four tracks in total were
recorded with two on each side—except in the case of the ARP
Odyssey, which can produce two sounds simultaneously with each key
depression, which would then only require two tracks.
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Aviram 6
chords of synthetic strings (ARP Odyssey)
11:45 conga jumps out noticeably
11:52 “extended turnaround” (the tag on SECTION A)
12:03 SECTION C that’s related to both SECTIONS A and B. It’s
structurally different from SECTION B, although drums are similar.
SECTION C briefly shifts to 6/8 time signature.15 Herbie performs a
solo on the Fender Rhodes electric piano.
13:16 2-bar drum fill (no other instruments)
13:20 “returns to the head” (SECTION A)
13:39 sax solo 15:15 fade out begins,
including on the grooving sax
Table 1: A timestamped analysis of “Chameleon.”
Hancock and his band mates played with tempo, dramatically yet
barely noticeably. Referring to the start of Section C at 12:03,
Geoff Duncan observed:
Notice the tempo is much faster now. It’s common for bands doing
extended funk jams to wind up 20 BPM faster than their starting
tempo. The tempo accelerates the whole way through, but the
acceleration is unnoticeable. Fluid time like this is the mark of a
good band. They’re not locked to a metronome.
The approximate tempo at the beginning of the piece is 90 BPM,
which is slow even for funk! Toward the end, however, it gains
about 30 BPM, clocking in at a pop song pace of 120 BPM.
Geoff also elaborated on the unusual harmonization in Section
C:
Here the band is playing eight bars of a simple B-flat-to-D-flat
chord change, establishing a busy groove under these changes. (The
whole piece is in the key of D-flat major, which is B-flat minor.)
Then they play another eight bars of big whole-measure chords.
These are preplanned
15 Alain Rieder, “Rhythmic Modulations in Herbie Hancock’s
‘Chameleon’,” Time Manipulation Drum Blog, October 17, 2019,
https://TimeManipulation.com/en/tmblog/?post=rhythmic-modulations-in-herbie-hancock-s-chameleon.
https://TimeManipulation.com/en/tmblog/?post=rhythmic-modulations-in-herbie-hancock-s-chameleon
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chords, and the band alternates between the sets of eight bars,
like a typical 32-bar A-A-B-A jazz structure. Herbie relies on the
band, particularly the bass player—which he himself might actually
be, because the “bass” is the Minimoog synthesizer—to lay down the
harmonic foundation. Then he goes into “orbit” while the other
players maintain the melody. He’s “Herbie-izing”—playing giant
extended wishy-washy “Herbie chords.” Technically, it’s broadly
extended harmony and substitution. These are major 7ths, 9ths, and
even 11ths that sound like typical “smooth jazz” grooves. Herbie’s
harmonic language is advanced, putting context on chords that can
sound very fresh, unexpected, or “outside.”
How did Hancock develop his unique method of harmonization? It
started by a quirky accident when he was playing with the jazz
fusion pioneer Miles Davis. He thought he heard Miles Davis tell
him not to play the “butter notes.” He didn’t know what that meant,
so he started avoiding the principle defining notes of a chord and
focusing almost exclusively on “color” tones.16
In a jazz piano context, this means omitting the root (because
Hancock is a piano player), the fifth (because those are almost
always dropped), and even the thirds and sevenths as well. For
example, the chord Cmaj7 normally comprises the notes C, E, G, and
B, ascending—but Hancock was playing none of those. While this is
not unique (other players and composers have done very similar
things), this technique changed Hancock’s approach to composing
music and harmony.17
The kicker? What Miles Davis actually said was not to play the
“bottom notes.” If Hancock had heard him correctly, the history of
jazz fusion might have turned out very differently.
Influences and Cultural Impact On the broad influence of Miles
Davis, Hancock explained, “One of Miles’ greatest abilities was to
be able to take a composition apart and take all the fat off of it,
leave the lean, and leave a lot of room for improvisation. Like
‘Chameleon,’ there’s not a lot in there. There’s a lot of
space.”18
“Chameleon” has been covered and reimagined by many musicians,
including Hancock himself. Hancock later evolved the piece and
performed many different versions of it. It was also covered by
other musicians, like, for example, bassist Stanley Clarke, who was
the inventor of the tenor bass.
The studio and label released a shorter version (of Section A)
for commercial consumption. Most covers only include Section A—in
fact, Section A is now considered both a jazz and a funk
standard—although serious jazz students sometimes challenge
themselves with Sections B and C as well. Accessible even to
beginning players, “Chameleon” can be played in various styles,
including bebop, blues, funk, and smooth jazz. As adaptable as the
color-changing reptile itself, “Chameleon” has thus been embraced
by the broad jazz community over the last several decades. One
particularly delightful interpretation is Josh Cohen’s solo bass
arrangement. Cohen simultaneously plays the bass
16 Herbie Hancock, “The Wisdom of Miles Davis” lecture, Norton
Lectures, Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University, February
3, 2014,
https://MahindraHumanities.fas.Harvard.edu/content/set-1-wisdom-miles-davis.
17 Conversation with Geoff Duncan, November 15, 2019.
18 Head Hunters,
https://HerbieHancock.com/music/discography/album/673/.
https://MahindraHumanities.fas.Harvard.edu/content/set-1-wisdom-miles-davishttps://HerbieHancock.com/music/discography/album/673/
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Aviram 8
part and at least two of the lead parts on a six-string bass.19
This is the sort of “silliness” that often gets done with
“Chameleon.”
Some of the many artists who covered “Chameleon” include:
Buddy Rich (a talented musician but apparently not a pleasant
man) Maceo Parker, who’s played it for years Gov’t Mule (a bunch of
white guys!) took a shot at it War Re-Birth Brass Band Jesse
Fischer & Sly5thAve “looper kids” who would set up on street
corners Herbie Hancock himself, who played with it and even sampled
from it20
In addition to the myriad covers, there is also widespread
sampling and borrowing. For example, Beck based the groove of his
“Cellphone’s Dead” on “Chameleon.”21 At current count, there are at
least 43 recorded songs that integrate samples of “Chameleon.”22
Notable songs with samples include:
“Greggery Peccary” by Frank Zappa (1978) “Mega-Mix” by Herbie
Hancock (1983) “Underwater Rimes (Remix)” by Digital Underground
(1988) “Can’t Do Nuttin’ for Ya Man (Dub Mixx)” by Public Enemy
(1990) “No Vaseline (Original Version)” by Ice Cube (1991) “Words
of Wisdom” by 2Pac (1991) “Kiss My Ass” by Busy Bee (1992) “Get Up
Get Down” by Coolio, WC and 40 Thevz, featuring Malika, Shorty, and
Ras Kass (1995)
If you listen to enough Herbie Hancock music, it comes as no
surprise that his work is so widely covered, reworked, and sampled.
Its mix of sounds from a wide range of genres and musical
influences has provided raw material for audio creatives around the
world. The music is both complex and accessible for many styles and
forms: jazz, funk, fusion, rock, disco, hip hop, dance pop, EDM,
trance, you name it. While his compositions and melodies are
recognizable, the feel and textures are easily open to change. This
changeability is chameleon-like, if you will. (Interestingly, many
musicians observe this phenomenon only after they’ve played
“Chameleon” a number of times.) In fact, Hancock was often asked
whether he viewed himself as a chameleon, in terms of his musical
adaptability. Diplomatically evading the question, he explained his
open-minded approach to composition and performance:
19 Josh Cohen, “Herbie Hancock’s ‘Chameleon’—Solo Bass
Arrangement by Josh Cohen,” themusicofjoshcohen, March 2, 2015,
https://Youtube.com/watch?v=T90-aKvgnkE. 20 “Versions of
‘Chameleon’ by Herbie Hancock,” SecondHandSongs,
https://SecondHandSongs.com/performance/8172. 21 Kit O’Toole,
“Herbie Hancock’s ‘Chameleon’: The jazz pioneer impacted modern hip
hop, R&B, and funk in this 1973 classic,” Blinded by Sound,
August 22, 2017,
https://BlindedBySound.com/features/deepsoul/deepsoul-herbie-hancock--/.
22 https://WhoSampled.com/Herbie-Hancock/Chameleon/sampled/.
https://Youtube.com/watch?v=T90-aKvgnkEhttps://SecondHandSongs.com/performance/8172https://BlindedBySound.com/features/deepsoul/deepsoul-herbie-hancock--/.22https://BlindedBySound.com/features/deepsoul/deepsoul-herbie-hancock--/.22https://WhoSampled.com/Herbie-Hancock/Chameleon/sampled/
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Aviram 9
I always enjoy working with new forms, new idioms. I take them
on as a learning experience, a challenge . . . . It’s just like
learning to speak a few different languages. Someone might want to
write a novel in French because French might be fitting for their
concept of the novel. Or they might want to write in Spanish
because of a certain concept they have. It’s the same type of
thing. If you can use several means of expression, you can choose
which one you want to use at any given moment. It’s not so much
coming back to this or coming back to that, or leaving this or
leaving that. It’s just that there are several choices
available.23
Hancock also revealed the eclectic range of his own influences:
“If you looked at my record collection, you would see everything
from Bach and Beethoven to Parliament-Funkadelic and John Coltrane.
Those are just the different types of music I like, and I might put
on any one of those records at any time.”24 These are the origins
of Hancock’s raw material. With regard to mixing genres in his own
music, Hancock detailed his inspirations:
Two things. One was my own background living in Chicago, which
is a blues town. When I was a kid, even though my parents would
play classical music on the radio, they also played jazz records,
and of course I heard R&B records, which were a part of my
generation at that time growing up in the ‘40s. So that was my
roots. . . . But also there was Sly Stone with “Thank You
(Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and James Brown that I was listening
to in the early ‘70s. At a certain point I felt the need to play
music that was more tethered, something that was more earthy. It
was certainly a new approach for me and I didn’t realize that I was
carving out new territory.25
Instrumentation The essential element that gives “Chameleon” its
distinctive flavor is its instrumentation. Throughout his career,
Hancock has experimented with state-of-the-art technology for
composition, performance, and production. In fact, he set the bar
for synth soloing. Many keyboardists have emulated him and tried to
follow in his groundbreaking footsteps.26 At the time of Head
Hunters, two ARP synthesizers27 proved useful in creating new and
interesting sounds:
1. The Odyssey was often used as an accompaniment instrument to
fill the space where an organ or orchestra might play. The original
Odyssey had two oscillators, which meant that it could play two
notes at once—a radical innovation. Most synths of this era were
monophonic: they played only one note at a time.
2. The Soloist was perfectly named, as it excelled for soloing.
Unlike the Odyssey, the Soloist’s single oscillator created a
monophonic (one note at a time) sound—but these single notes really
packed a punch. The knobs of the Soloist were immediately
accessible for tweaking while playing live, which enabled the sound
to cut through everything else.
23 Bob Kenselaar, “Herbie Hancock: The Chameleon Shows His
Colors,” All About Jazz, March 6, 2012,
https://AllAboutJazz.com/herbie-hancock-the-chameleon-shows-his-colors-herbie-hancock-by-bob-kenselaar.php.
24 Ibid.
25 Interview in Uncut,
https://SongFacts.com/facts/herbie-hancock/chameleon.
26 Jerry Kovarsky, “The Art of Synth Soloing: Mr. Hands Himself,
Herbie Hancock: Learn to play synth solos like Herbie Hancock,”
Keyboard, published November 12, 2015, updated November 29,
2017.
27 Conversation with Geoff Duncan on December 8, 2019.
https://AllAboutJazz.com/herbie-hancock-the-chameleon-shows-his-colors-herbie-hancock-by-bob-kenselaar.phphttps://SongFacts.com/facts/herbie-hancock/chameleon
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Aviram 10
Synthesizers at the time used ADSR (attack, decay, sustain,
release) filters in combination with simple electronically
generated waveforms to produce various sounds. The distinctive
bow-bow-bow sound, for example, is produced by closing down the
tone (removing its high frequency) at the end of the note. This
closing down happens fast, on the attack, and it lasts no matter
how long the note is held. The decay is also quick, and the sustain
is low. In conjunction, this is what makes the note sound like bow.
Because it happens quickly, this sound is designed only to be
played staccato.28
As new and exciting as this was at the time, there were many
limitations of synths that have since been overcome. For example,
there were no synths that sounded like a guitar. Guitar effects
came from stomp boxes such as the wah pedal. All the effects were
analog, mostly inline before the amp, maybe with some reverb
after.
What affects guitar sounds, in order of importance, are:
1. the amp 2. the player 3. everything else (guitar tones,
strings, pedals)29
The exceptionally clean sounds of the bass and the wah guitar on
“Chameleon” were produced by the illustrious bassist Paul Jackson.
In fact, Jackson is the composer of the iconic twelve-note bass
line.30 “Using the Afro-Cuban clave mixed with deep Funk
anticipation,”31 this grooving bass line has become one of the most
recognizable among musicians and listeners. Its repeating phrase is
memorable, hummable, and danceable.
This is the music notation for the rhythm section of
“Chameleon,” comprising synth bass and drums:
Figure 2 — musical transcription by Ethan Hein
28 Conversation with Geoff Duncan on December 8, 2019. 29
Conversation with Geoff Duncan on December 8, 2019. 30 “Jazz / Funk
Bass Master,” Paul Jackson, the Headhunter,
https://PaulJacksonBass.com. 31 Ibid.
https://PaulJacksonBass.com
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Aviram 11
Because these twelve notes repeat, a creative way to visualize
the notation is as a closed circle32:
Figure 3 — musical transcription by Ethan Hein
Conclusion To fully appreciate the complexity of this piece,
it’s important to understand each of these elements: the many genre
influences, Hancock’s history, composition, harmonization,
instrumentation, time signatures, and tempo changes. More could be
gleaned and written, of course. Already, countless hours have been
devoted to Herbie Hancock, and to “Chameleon” in particular, in
terms of listening, performance, musical adaptation, written
essays, lectures, and discussions.
“Chameleon” is undeniably a masterpiece and well worth listening
to time and again. In fact, every time I listen to it, I hear
something new that I hadn’t noticed previously; this piece of music
is that rich and complex. It’s been a joy to listen to this piece
with an active ear and to research, analyze, and discuss it. It
retains a special place in my permanent listening repertoire, and I
look forward to hearing it in later stages of my life.
32 Ethan Hein, “Deconstructing the bassline in Herbie Hancock’s
‘Chameleon’,” The Ethan Hein Blog, February 17, 2017,
https://EthanHein.com/wp/2017/deconstructing-the-bassline-in-herbie-hancocks-chameleon/.
https://EthanHein.com/wp/2017/deconstructing-the-bassline-in-herbie-hancocks-chameleon/