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Bobby Hutcherson tribute at SFJAZZ Center

By David Becker

Bobby Hutcherson tribute SFJAZZ Center jny: San Francisco CA January 21, 2017 I still can't quite believe he's gone. No, not that contemporary American icon. I'm talking about Bobby Hutcherson, one of the greatest practitioners ever of the curious art of making the vibraphone sing and a jazz composer of unparalleled wit and invention. Hutcherson laid his mallets down for good last August, and the world has seemed a measurably ...

Bobby Hutcherson: A Life In Jazz

By AAJ Staff

This interview was first published at All About Jazz in February 1999. Listen to any one of Bobby Hutcherson's albums for Blue Note during the mid-'60's and '70's, he made well over thirty, and you will see just why he is the best vibraphonist in jazz. Dialogue with Andrew Hill, Components with a fiery Joe Chambers, and Live at Montreux, all superb. It was a personal honor to get an opportunity to sit down and chat with Hutcherson. ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Somewhere In The Night

By Dan Bilawsky

The elder statesman of the vibraphone and the fastest gun in organ town don't seem like ideal partners on paper, but on record they gel quite well. Blue Note vibraphone icon Bobby Hutcherson and the fleet-fingered Joey DeFrancesco initially teamed up for the organist's Organic Vibes (Concord, 2006), and their chemistry was so strong that they couldn't just let that be a one-off pairing. Somewhere In The Night finds them sharing stage space while entertaining adoring fans at ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Wise One

By Ken Dryden

Recently named NEA Jazz Master, Bobby Hutcherson has an extensive discography, though opportunities to record as a leader have slowed a good bit since the dawn of the 21st century. Hutcherson is still very much an important vibraphonist, as this excellent tribute to John Coltrane reveals. All nine songs were either written or recorded by Coltrane, though Hutcherson's choice of instrumentation deliberately moves away from the jazz master's typical groups. Guitarist Anthony Wilson takes the place of a second reed ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Pushing The Vibes Forward

By Robert Iannapollo

Grachan Moncur III Evolution Blue Note 1963 John Coltrane / Archie Shepp New Thing At Newport Impulse 1965 Bobby Hutcherson Head On Blue Note 1971 Bobby Hutcherson is now comfortably ensconced in jazz history as one of the great vibraphonists of the post-Milt Jackson generation. He ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Head On

By Chris May

A brilliant addition to Blue Note's Connoisseur series, Head On not only resuscitates vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson's fascinating but obscure 1971 album of the same name, it also--with 43 minutes of previously unissued material--reveals another album altogether, made during the second half of the same three-day session, of the same high quality but with a markedly different feel.

Both albums feature Hutcherson's regular quintet of the time--with tenor saxophonist Harold Land and trumpeter Oscar Brashear--augmented by horns and percussion ...

Bobby Hutcherson: For Sentimental Reasons

By Jerry D'Souza

Bobby Hutcherson says that he always wanted to record an album of ballads and love songs. That dream has been realized with this recording, which he calls his love record. It comes across as more; it is a love-in for the listener as well.

Hutcherson is a player who makes every note count, whose every touch of the mallet makes the vibraphone sing. His instinct makes the music glow as he fills it with his fervent passion without letting the ...

Bobby Hutcherson: For Sentimental Reasons

By Mark Corroto

How easy is it to fall for this gentle recording of ballads and love songs? Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson chooses cherished songs from his youth to deliver one gorgeous session of music.

The jazz faithful know many sides of Hutcherson. There's the Blue Note sideman of the 1960s sprinting with the hard bop young lions Hank Mobley, Grant Green and Freddie Hubbard. Then there is the “new Thing maverick, accompanying Andrew Hill, Eric Dolphy and Jackie McLean. There are ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Mosaic Select 26

By Joel Roberts

The 1970s are often disparaged as an era dominated by fusion and disco, which is largely true. But there was also some excellent, innovative jazz being made. Unfortunately, owing to the commercial realities of the day--and many subsequent days--some of the best '70s jazz has remained unreleased or available only to the most intrepid of fans. Case in point: Bobby Hutcherson's mid-1970s output for Blue Note, much of which has never been issued on CD in the ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Mosaic Select 26

By John Kelman

Among the relatively small community of vibraphonists, Bobby Hutcherson is not only one of the most influential, he's clearly the most widely versed and consistent too. In a career now nearing its sixth decade, Hutcherson has played mainstream to Third Stream and soul jazz to free jazz. A mainstay of the Blue Note label in the 1960s and 1970s, he released ten discs as a leader between 1965 and 1969, and also played on albums by artists including Eric Dolphy, ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Youthful Exuberance

By Terrell Kent Holmes

Watching vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson play his instrument is like dropping in on someone jiving with a dear old friend. He banters with the vibes as he plays, weaving his lanky body to the rhythm he's laying down. Suddenly he will frown down at the board, appearing to question its tone as though it were an insolent child or has made an odd statement with which he disagrees. But then Hutcherson will grin mischievously at something shared only between him and ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Happenings

By Chris May

Recorded in 1966, and here with a 24-bit remaster by original engineer Rudy Van Gelder, Happenings heralded a new, less structurally adventurous approach from avant-garde standard-bearer and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. As such it is, inevitably if rather unfairly--the individual performances are outstanding--less of a headline affair than the work which came before it.

Happenings is the first album to present Hutcherson as the featured soloist fronting a conventional rhythm section, instead of amongst the experimentally-inclined sextets and quintets he'd led ...