“Chameleon” by Herbie Hancock

"Chameleon" sprawls across more than 15 minutes of Head Hunters, Herbie Hancock's 1973 album for Columbia, and it's the sound of jazz diving headfirst into funk. Hancock wrote it with the men who cut it with him, Bennie Maupin, Paul Jackson and Harvey Mason, and the whole thing rides a two-chord vamp and a funk beat beneath a sticky 12-note bass line that Hancock played himself on an ARP Odyssey synthesizer.

He takes one keyboard solo on the ARP and another on the Rhodes, Maupin gets his turn too, and Jackson's bass, Mason's drums and Bill Summers' crate of hand percussion keep the pot boiling. Hancock produced it with David Rubinson. It has since become one of the most widely known jazz standards, a staple for small jazz groups.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.