Herbie Hancock - Solo on ‘Dolphin Dance’
From The Album
’Maiden Voyage’ 1965
Selected Analysis/What Can We Learn
Freddie Hubbard (tr), George Coleman (sax), Ron Carter (b), Tony Williams (dr)
This recording is one of the pivotal recordings of the 60’s. What a great band, all but
one (Freddie Hubbard) members of the Miles Davis Quintet at the time (although
George Coleman was already replaced by Shorter at this time). Being a concept
album, all the songs are related to the sea, and all the tracks have a spacious,
oceanic vibe.
As a composition, Dolphin Dance is a perfect one. First 4 bars of the theme are never
repeated, the form skips them starting from the solos (a compositional trick Hancock
used throughout the 60’s). The song is not entirely modal or tonal, having elements
from both; brilliant pedal points bringing out different modal sounds from beautiful
lydian modes to more dissonant ones, separated by tonal cadences circling around
key of G major.
1. Language
As always, first I want to point out the jazz language used in the solo. Herbie Hancock
is a perfect pianist to learn from, his music and improvising is deeply rooted in the
tradition, and at the same time he always pushed forwards finding new modern
sounds and ways to bring the music to a new level.
Bar 14
A very common bebop melody over a II V, circling around the tonic’s 3rd.
Here another common melody, starting the same way as the previous one with
moving from dominant’s root (Eb) down, maj 7 to b7, the chord tones 9th, #11, 13th to
5th.
2. Triplets
Hancock’s way of using triplets in this medium tempo is something to definitely learn
from. Not only he combines triplets nicely with 8’ notes throughout the solo, he plays
them in 2 or 4 note groups, creating a feel of metric modulation. Here examples:
Bar 4
Over a II V to C-, Hancock has 2-note groups climbing up using a some kind of
a hybrid dominant scale, starting with G altered and moving to C melodic
minor.
Bars 35-38
Here he is using 4-note groupings, emphasizing the first notes by playing them
together with left hand.
Melodically he clearly brings out the different modal colors, first Ebsus sound
with Dbmaj (Bb-9) arpeggio, then Bb dominant diminished sound over Eb by
using a common diminished pattern, triads with both major and minor thirds
(here G, E and Db triads), in the next bar C7#9 arpeggio to C triad with b9 (Db)
and further a b6 (Ab), and in the last bar Eb triad over the II V to C-, which of
course creates the G7 altered sound throughout the bar.
If you want to check out more material on the subject of diminished patterns
and triads, go to
https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/diminished-patterns-licks-improvisation/
https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/triad-pairs-in-improvisation/
3. Motivic Improvising
One great perspective to improvising are motifs; where you use rhythmic, melodic or/
and same structure of a voicing repeatedly, and develop the idea from there on.
Hancock uses this brilliantly in this solo, for example
Bars 19-24
Bars 31-34
In both situations he uses the same rhythm and in intervallic structure, while
establishing the harmonic progression with the changes in the melody.
4. Left Hand response
As I have mentioned earlier, piano player’s left hand is an important part of creating
groove while the right hand is soloing. Hancock uses his left hand not only as a
rhythmic support, but also as a response to his melodic ideas of the right hand.
Here example:
Bar 7
Where he finished his melodic thought on C-7, continuing over the chord changes
with the left hand, as responding to the melodic thought, thus concluding the idea
before continuing with the next phrase.
Here two other examples:
Bars 11-12
Bars 26-27
While keeping this in mind when practicing/playing solo will also help you leave more
space and makes your solo ‘breathe’ in a more natural way.
Enjoy!
