"Work Song" is a

work song A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either one sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or one linked to a task that may be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. An example is " I ...

and

jazz standard Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive List ...

by American trumpeter

Nat Adderley Nathaniel Carlyle Adderley (November 25, 1931 – January 2, 2000) was an American jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It ...

and writer

Oscar Brown Jr Oscar Brown Jr. (October 10, 1926May 29, 2005) was an American singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, actor, and civil rights activist (Brown was African-American). Brown discovered The Jackson 5. Aside from his career, Brown ran unsuccessfully ...

. It was first featured in Adderley's 1960 studio album of the same name, which was met with high praise and acclaim.Yanow, S.

Allmusic Review AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the data ...

accessed February 17, 2010. "Work Song" is one of Adderley's best known compositions. 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''.

Background

"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 A chain gang or road gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging work as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include repairing buildings, building roads, or clearing land. The system was nota ...

, paving the street in front of his family’s home in

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

Musical composition

The song is a 16 bar form in

F minor F minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature consists of four flats. Its relative major is A-flat major and its parallel major is F major. Its enharmonic equivalent, E-sharp ...

. It is a minor blues. 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." In a musical analysis of Adderley's improvisational bebop style, Kyle M. Granville writes that the song is "connected to the

soul-jazz Soul jazz or funky jazz is a subgenre of jazz that incorporates strong influences from hard bop, blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues. Soul jazz is often characterized by organ trios featuring the Hammond organ and small combos including sax ...

style that Nat Adderley and his brother

Cannonball Adderley Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928August 8, 1975) was an American jazz Alto saxophone, alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley is perhaps best remembered by the general public for the 1966 soul ...

immersed themselves into during the mid-1960s."

Notes

References

{{authority control Jazz standards Jazz compositions in F minor 1960s jazz standards Blues songs Soul jazz songs