Stories of Standards: “Cantaloupe Island” – Herbie Hancock

Studio Club Members: Please contact Arvida arvida@kuvo.org to reserve seats for you and a guest.

Tune in to Jazz with Victor Cooper – weekdays from 6-9 a.m. MT – for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of this song all week long, November 12 through 16, presented by Rodney Franks!

Stories of Standards is sponsored by ListenUp - If you love music, you’ll love ListenUp.

A prodigy if there ever was one, Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940, and named for Herb Jeffries “The Bronze Buckaroo”) picked up the piano at age 7 and soloed with the Chicago Symphony at age 11.  By 1961 Hancock had a solo contract with Albert Lions’ Blue Note Records. In May of 1963, Hancock joined Miles Davis’ “Second Great Quintet,” and continued playing with Miles for five years, while recording his own work.

Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island” was one of just four tracks on the 1964 LP “Empyrean Isles” (Hancock’s fourth solo record for Blue Note). His quartet at that time would today be considered a supergroup: Hancock on piano, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Ron Carter at bass and a drummer known as “Anthony” Williams.

This modal jazz masterpiece is built on just three cords. Ted Gioia writes in The Jazz Standards, “Because of the simple chord structure and slow pace of harmonic movement – the chords each last for at least four bars – this is a suitable song to teach student musicians.”

“Cantaloupe Island” found its way into a hybrid hip-hop/jazz dance track by the London group US3 in 1993. Called “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia),” the song powered its way to number 9 on the Billboard “Hot 100” chart in the US, reintroducing the melody to a new generation. At the December 2013 Kennedy Center Honors, Snoop Dogg said to Hancock, “Thank you for inventing hip-hop.”

Hancock, the UNESCO Ambassador for Intercultural Dialogue, has directed International Jazz Day global concerts around the world since 2012. In November 2018, the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz voted to change its name to the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz.