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Dedicated to Chameleon (jazz standard)

(Picture: album cover)

(Picture: ICM)

Chameleon

(20.-21.8.2023) The soundcheck was definitely taking too long, and there was silence on the radio. Not complete silence, but no concert yet, and these strange noises instead, of musicians plugging in cables, or somehow preparing for the concert and wasting time on the radio. And this was not something to be done on the radio in the 1980s, and not something to be done in Montreux on stage, since also the crowd seemed to become rather impatient. Tense atmosphere, and odd noises coming out of the radio. But suddenly there was the voice of Herbie Hanconck declaring, with some wit, warmth and with the authority of a classic: ›I will not give you junk – I will give you funk!‹. Which worked like a magic spell and was enough to relax everyone, and which, if I am thinking about it now, was the only thing that could be said in that situation, and the only thing that had to be said. Which is why I am recalling it now, when writing about Chameleon, the session tune, the session standard par excellence, and one of the immortal Herbie Hanconck classics.

(Picture: Kimi95)

1) Bass Lines Generally Are Underrated

The Roland D-50 synthesizer was not in the reputation of offering a good piano sound. No, it did not, and I am not regarding this as a flaw anymore, but as a strength. It did not offer imitations of classical instruments either (one could imagine its sounds to be such, but they weren’t), but the Roland D-50 could replace a whole armada of other keyboard instruments, and even if you would think that the originals sounded better, the Roland D-50 was the ideal instrument to study a whole lot of things. And the Roland D-50 was, even if you never might have heard about that, the ideal instrument to study Herbie Hanconck stuff.
Basslines generally are underrated, but not among musicians. The Roland D-50 could perfectly provide you with a bass sound for the bass pattern, the bass line of Chameleon, and since the D-50 offered split sounds, it could also provide you with dynamic brassy or more guitar-like sounds, to play over that bass pattern (that you might have played with one hand), and this was all you needed.
In case you wanted to do a solo as Herbie Hanconck did on a Fender Rhodes for example, you could switch to a very good and dynamic Fender sound, and the string-like carpets that you might like or not in Chameleon – this was almost too-easy a task for the D-50. Yes, like Liszt could be Chopin, if he wanted, Chopin could not be Liszt (and did probably not even wanted to be). In other words: What the D-50 could do, the Yamaha DX-7 series probably could not, and – he, he – the D-50 could be a DX-7 if he wanted, but the DX-7 could not be a Roland D-50. That’s all there is to be said on that.
Anyway. What is important here, is that the bass pattern of Chameleon, the platform for the platform of a tune, a session, a song or a composition, is what the musician has to focus on first and primarily.
Technically speaking it is an interpretation of the II-IV harmonic change (in Ab it is Bb-Minor7; Eb-Major7), again and again, but its secret seems to be that it provides a good mix of relaxed eigth-notes-pulse and (very little) syncopated disturbance of that pulse (Herbie Hancock tells in his autobiography that a producer and manager (who was also a drummer) inspired that syncopated element). If one plays it on a piano, one will notice immediately that you have to make choices as to articulation. The synthesizer bass offers short notes per se, a laconic plop for each note, laconic as a frog might jump into a pond, and while playing Chameleon on a piano, one will learn that it is the articulation that makes much of the sound. Not only the bass has to be played with short (but not staccato) notes, also the first pattern (the verse, if one does like so) does need a light and relaxed articulation. The brass motif (the refrain, on some level) has to be played less playfully, and with more force and decidedness, as has to be the descending line, the third pattern, which makes this song. And these ingredients make the basis for playing with or on Chameleon, as for example in a session.

2) On the Effect of Basslines

The simplicity, the mix of pulse and a moderate amount of syncopation, make Chameleon an ideal mood elevator or morale booster. And this is meant completely literally. It goes without saying that, if you enter a session as a keyboarder (perhaps even a session only with a drummer), you will cheer up the drummer immediately with only beginning to play the bass pattern of Chameleon. Because all the funky complexity this the drummer might be capable of suddenly makes sense musically, and not only in terms of sheer virtuosity. The simplicity of Chameleon sets a frame for excursions into almost any territory, and there is not more needed than a drum set and a Roland D-50. And even merely to play the basic elements of the compostion works is satisfactorily, it works perfectly well and effectively in probably any surrounding.
But the morale boosting quality of the bassline goes deeper. Dark moods might be the lack of inner pulse, activity, vitality and movement that strives to do things, and dark moods do not simply disappear. But the bass pattern of Chameleon seems to be a sensible invitation to begin with a simple eigth-note pulse, plop, plop, plop, plop, jump, in, with the jump in being the invitation to do a syncopated effort to enter into a movement again. Thus the manager of Herbie Hancock has to be credited with having helped not only with inventing a bass pattern, but on some sort also with helping to have invented a mood elevator. And it is hardly possible, if you go on to play the bass pattern for yourself, let’s say for some ten minutes, not to be affected by that pulse plus a little syncopation, or brief: by that groove, and this is what music can do – being not only music (in terms of mere musical structures).

(Picture: ToucanWings)

3) From Montreux to Versailles

Apart from speaking about Chameleon (song) in his autobiography, Herbie Hancock takes inspiration from the chameleon (animal) also when describing his musical career, his output:
»My musical output had gone through a chameleonlike evolution, from classical to jazz to funk to hip-hop and beyond, but now, in my seventies, I was coming back around full circle.« (p. 342)
This might inspire to think also a little about music in terms of adaptation.
Montreux, for example, is not the birthplace of jazz, but it has become a host of jazz (as well as of other genres). Did jazz adapt, chameleonlike, to Montreux? Or did Montreux adapt to jazz?
Does the song Chameleon adapt to places, if it is heard, played, in diverse places?
This question might inspire funny walks in a number of places, and since I do recall having walked the park of Versailles while being completely into music (and with not much seeing of the park of Versailles, at least not very consciously), I do imagine a virtual walk through the park of Versailles now, a walk while listening to the fifteen minutes original version of Chameleon, or while playing, drumming, this standard, endlessly in my mind, while walking the park of Versailles.
Herbie Hanconck, by the way, while playing with Miles Davis, did once chose a Miles-Davis-muted-trumpet-keyboard sound to play a solo. Which Miles Davis seemed to have liked, indicating to Herbie Hancock that he wanted him to continue that solo with that sound. Which is why I am imagining the park of Versailles, instead of expecting baroque music to be played, also demanding that this particular funk classic might sound and melt with the geometries of the park. The song, on his part, is being played in a baroque arrangement or as a fugue (the bassline would work well as the subject of a fugue). But only in the beginning, as a polite gesture. Only to turn into its characteristic pulse, with the syncopated element, highlighted by the sound of the snare drum, and the syncopated bass drum following. And this is it: the flow of being, being in movement, inner movement, outer movement, but also taking in visual impressions now, such as the geometries of Versailles. Which are working well together with this kind of, well, elegant geometries of funk.

(Picture: ToucanWings)

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