Watermelon Man: Blending Rhumba and Jazz

[luisam]

Herbie Hancock was a child prodigy; he started learning classical piano from age seven and performed a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age eleven.

Having become interested in jazz when in high school, he double-majored in music and electrical engineering at Grinnell College. He acquired formal education in music and composition and by 1962 he had earned solid reputation as an excellent jazz pianist. He recorded his first solo album Takin' Off in 1962, which would be his starting step as a promising talent in jazz.

One of the tracks of this album was a jazz standard titled Watermelon Man. It was released as a single but had only moderate success, reaching the top 100 of the pop chart. 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." Hancock wrote the piece to help sell his debut album; it was the first piece of music he had ever composed with a commercial goal in mind and certainly, the result was better than he ever could imagine. The popularity of the piece, due primarily to Mongo Santamaria, paid Hancock's bills for five or six years.

When Herbie Hancock was composing the now soul jazz classic Watermelon Man for his debut album Takin’ Off, he realized that he had presented himself with a problem. On the one hand, the then 22-year-old wanted to mesh experiences from his own life into his work, and the rolling, rackety sound of a watermelon seller’s horse-drawn wagon doing the rounds of Hancock’s Chicago South Side 1940s childhood was a powerful memory refracted into the tune’s core.

On the other, the image of a grinning piccaninny happy with his watermelon slice was then a horribly dominant racist caricature, and in the rising civil rights temperature of the times Hancock knew the song could misfire.

“So... I asked myself two questions,” Hancock later recalled in his autobiography, Possibilities. “Is there anything wrong with watermelons? No. Is there anything inherently wrong with the watermelon man? No... By naming my song Watermelon Man, I wanted to reclaim the image.”

The album was completed in a single session after a day’s rehearsal and, unusually for a newly signed artist, each of its six instrumental compositions were originals. “The wheels of the wagon beat out the rhythm on the cobblestones,” recalled Hancock on the original album’s sleeve note. The cry of the watermelon man was carried in the melody and the wagon’s lopsided lurch was perfectly captured by interlocked piano bass and drums.

 

Ramón "Mongo" Santamaria Rodríguez (April 7, 1917 – February 1, 2003) was a rumba “Quinto” master and an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussionist and bandleader. His nickname “Mongo” has no relationship with Flash Gordon or some ethnia from Congo; it is for “Ramon” and it was given him by his father. He is most famous, even before featuring his cover of Watermelon Man, for being the composer in 1959 of the jazz standard Afro Blue, recorded by John Coltrane among others. In 1950, he moved to New York City where he played with Perez Prado, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader, Fania All Stars, etc. He also was one of a handful of Cuban "conga players" who came to the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. Like other drummers of his generation, Santamaria learned rumba as a kid in the streets of Havana, by observing different drummers.

By 1962 he was playing in a New York nightclub with his “charanga” orchestra “La Sabrosa”. His pianist Chick Corea had given notice and Santamaria needed one to fill in for the upcoming weekend gigs. Herbie Hancock got the temporary job.

Recalls Hancock: "Jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd came to this supper club to see how I was doing. Anyway, during one of the intermissions, Donald had a conversation with Mongo, something about, ‘What are the examples of the common thread between Afro-Cuban or Afro-Latin music and African-American jazz?’ Mongo said he hadn’t really heard a thing that really links it together, he was still searching for it. And I wasn’t paying much attention to that conversation, it was a little too heavy for me at the time. But then all of a sudden Donald Byrd says, ‘Herbie, why don’t you play ‘Watermelon Man’ for Mongo?’ And I’m thinking, ‘What does that have to do with the conversation they’re talking about?’ I thought it was a little funky jazz tune. So I started playing it, and then Mongo, he got up and he said, ‘Keep playing it!’ He went on the stage, and playing his congas, and it fit like a glove fits on a hand, it just fit perfectly. Then his band joined in, the bass player looked at my left hand for the bass line, and he learned that. Little by little, the audience was getting up from their tables, and they all got on the dance floor. Pretty soon the dance floor was filled with people, laughing and shrieking, and was having a great time, and they were saying, ‘This is a hit! This is fantastic!’ It was like a movie! So after that, Mongo said ‘Can I record this?’ I said ‘By all means.’ And he recorded it, and it became a big hit. That’s how it happened”

After Hancock had fine-tuned the song with Mongo Santamaria, a three-minute version, suitable for radio, was recorded by Santamaria on December 17, 1962. Hancock played piano on this version, where he joined timbalero Francisco "Kako" Baster in a cha-cha beat, while drummer Ray Lucas performed a backbeat. The tune was released as a Latin pop single and became a surprise hit for 1963, reaching #10 on the pop charts.

 

Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man was a gigantic hit for Mongo Santamaria, doing for him in the '60s what Pérez Prado's big mambo hits did for him in the ‘50s. It propelled Santamaría into his niche of blending Afro-Cuban and African American music. It set the stage for more songs blending elements of Cuban music and soul, which became a popular combination in the next few years but it was the only tune of Mongo Santamaría to reach the top of the pop charts. Santamaria went on recording Cuban-flavored versions of popular R&B and Motown songs. Watermelon Man was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 but it was Santamaria's recording, not the one by Herbie Hancock,

Hancock's carrier took off from here. He joined Miles Davis' band and made groundbreaking music on his own, including his 1964 album Maiden Voyage and 1965 set Cantaloupe Island. Royalties from Watermelon Man gave him the freedom to experiment, and he did, moving into fusion in the '70s and taking a turn at electronic music in the '80s, which resulted in the hit song Rockit.

His original version of Watermelon Man quickly became a jazz standard after being released. Having been recorded by lots of artists, it is one of the most important songs in the history of jazz and popular music.  Hancock released a perhaps even better-known version of the song in the 70’s on his Head Hunters album. The new “Watermelon Man” was a far cry from the original. The melody is stretched over prowling funk rhythms and an African-inflected introductory motif is the hook. Made by percussionist Bill Summers blowing into a beer bottle, the sound imitated hindewhu, a style of vocals incorporating a reed whistle found in some pygmy music in Central Africa. Hancock’s memories of his Chicago childhood were gone.

 Today, 55 years later, it is still a very cool composition which is recognized all over the world.

In this YouTube video you can enjoy de narration of Herbie Hancock, the original version played by himself and the Head Hunters version

 

 

Watermelon Man is an instrumental and lyrics are reduced to the cry “watermelon man”. Soul singer Gloria Lynne added lyrics to this song in 1965, taking it to a modest  #62 position of the US charts. The words, which she wrote, are all about how much she digs the watermelon man. It's a sultry vocal, but it seems she just likes his fruit.