"Work Song" is a work song and jazz standard [1] by American trumpeter Nat Adderley and writer Oscar Brown Jr. It was first featured in Adderley's 1960 studio album of the same name, which was met with high praise and acclaim. [2] [3] "Work Song" is one of Adderley's best known compositions. [4]
The song was originally only an instrumental, but Oscar Brown Jr. included lyrics in a cover released the following year on his album, Sin & Soul. [5]
"Work Song" was inspired by Nat Adderley's childhood experience of seeing a group of convict laborers singing while they worked on a chain gang, paving the street in front of his family’s home in Florida. [6]
The song is a 16 bar form in F minor. It is a minor blues. [7]
F-7 | 𝄎 [a] | 𝄎 | 𝄎 |
𝄎 | 𝄎 | C7 | 𝄎 |
F-7 | 𝄎 | 𝄎 | 𝄎 |
F7 | Bb7 | G7 C7 | F-7 |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz states: "'Work Song' is the real classic, of course, laced with a funky blues feel but marked by some unexpectedly lyrical playing." [8] In a musical analysis of Adderley's improvisational bebop style, Kyle M. Granville writes that the song is "connected to the soul-jazz style that Nat Adderley and his brother Cannonball Adderley immersed themselves into during the mid-1960s." [9]
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
"Work Song" is a work song and jazz standard [1] by American trumpeter Nat Adderley and writer Oscar Brown Jr. It was first featured in Adderley's 1960 studio album of the same name, which was met with high praise and acclaim. [2] [3] "Work Song" is one of Adderley's best known compositions. [4]
The song was originally only an instrumental, but Oscar Brown Jr. included lyrics in a cover released the following year on his album, Sin & Soul. [5]
"Work Song" was inspired by Nat Adderley's childhood experience of seeing a group of convict laborers singing while they worked on a chain gang, paving the street in front of his family’s home in Florida. [6]
The song is a 16 bar form in F minor. It is a minor blues. [7]
F-7 | 𝄎 [a] | 𝄎 | 𝄎 |
𝄎 | 𝄎 | C7 | 𝄎 |
F-7 | 𝄎 | 𝄎 | 𝄎 |
F7 | Bb7 | G7 C7 | F-7 |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz states: "'Work Song' is the real classic, of course, laced with a funky blues feel but marked by some unexpectedly lyrical playing." [8] In a musical analysis of Adderley's improvisational bebop style, Kyle M. Granville writes that the song is "connected to the soul-jazz style that Nat Adderley and his brother Cannonball Adderley immersed themselves into during the mid-1960s." [9]
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)