RIP
I had no idea. I think he had the second longest stint with Blue Note (including the reconstituted label), after Horace Silver. Had to be the preeminent vibes artist of the last half century (I like Gary Burton, too, but not to the same degree), inheriting the mantle from the likes of Lionel Hampton and Milt Jackson. Gifted instrumentalist, great chops, inventive, played with taste and restraint, not only many leader dates but enhanced countless other sessions in a sideman capacity.
Bio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Hutcherson
"Bobby's thorough mastery of harmony and chords combined with his virtuosity and exploratory intuition enabled him to fulfill the function that is traditionally allocated to the piano and also remain a voice in the front line. He did this to perfection in the bands of Dolphy, McLean, and
Archie Shepp. His approach to the vibes was all encompassing; it was pianistic in the sense of melody and harmony and percussive in rhythmic attack and placement. He brought a fire and a passion back into the instrument that had been lost since the prime of
Lionel Hampton. He was firmly rooted in the be bop tradition, but constantly experimenting and expanding upon that tradition."
—
Michael Cuscuna
"AllMusic contributor Steve Huey stated that Hutcherson's "free-ringing, open chords and harmonically advanced solos were an important part of Dolphy's 1964 masterwork
Out to Lunch!", and called
Dialogue a "classic of modernist post-bop", declaring Hutcherson "one of jazz's greatest vibraphonists". Huey went on to say: "along with
Gary Burton, the other seminal vibraphone talent of the '60s, Hutcherson helped modernize his instrument by redefining what could be done with it – sonically, technically, melodically, and emotionally. In the process, he became one of the defining (if underappreciated) voices in the so-called "new thing" portion of Blue Note's glorious '60s roster."
[2]
In his liner notes to the 1980 release of
Medina, record producer Richard Seidel (
Verve,
Sony Masterworks) wrote that "of all the vibists to appear on the scene contemporaneous with Hutcherson, none have been able to combine the rhythmic dexterity, emotive attack and versatile musical interests that Bobby possesses." Seidel concurred that Hutcherson was "part of the vanguard of the new jazz developments in the Sixties. He contributed mightily to several of the key sessions that document these developments."
"In an April 2013 profile for
Down Beat magazine, Dan Ouellette wrote that "Hutcherson took the vibes to a new level of jazz sophistication with his harmonic inventions and his blurring-fast, four-mallet runs... Today, he's the standard bearer of the instrument and has a plenitude of emulators to prove it." Ouellette quoted
Joey DeFrancesco as saying "Bobby is the greatest vibes player of all time... Milt Jackson was
the guy, but Bobby took it to the next level. It's like Milt was
Charlie Parker, and Bobby was
John Coltrane."
Discography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Hutcherson_discography
Obits
Bobby Hutcherson, Vibraphonist With Coloristic Range of Sound, Dies at 75
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/arts/music/bobby-hutcherson-dies-jazz.html?_r=0
"He released more than 40 albums and appeared on many more, including some regarded as classics, like “Out to Lunch,” by the alto saxophonist, flutist and bass clarinetist Eric Dolphy, and “Mode for Joe,” by the tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson.
Both of those albums were a byproduct of Mr. Hutcherson’s close affiliation with Blue Note Records, from 1963 to 1977. He was part of a wave of young artists who defined the label’s forays into experimentalism, including the pianist Andrew Hill and the alto saxophonist Jackie McLean. But he also worked with hard-bop stalwarts like the tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon, and he later delved into jazz-funk and Afro-Latin grooves."
Mr. Hutcherson had a clear, ringing sound, but his style was luminescent and coolly fluid. More than Milt Jackson or
Lionel Hampton, his major predecessors on the vibraphone, he made an art out of resonating overtones and chiming decay."
"Mr. Hutcherson, who took piano lessons as a child, often described his transition to vibraphone as the result of an epiphany: Walking past a record store one day, he heard a recording of Milt Jackson and was hooked. A friend at school, the bassist Herbie Lewis, further encouraged his interest in the vibraphone, so Mr. Hutcherson saved up and bought one. He was promptly booked for a concert with Mr. Lewis’s band.
“Well, I hit the first note,” he recalled of that performance in
a 2014 interview with JazzTimes. But, he added, “from the second note on it was complete chaos. You never heard people boo and laugh like that. I was completely humiliated. But my mom was just smiling, and my father was saying, ‘See, I told you he should have been a bricklayer.’”
Mr. Hutcherson persevered, eventually working with musicians like Mr. Dolphy, whom he had first met when Mr. Dolphy was his sister’s boyfriend, and the tenor saxophonist and flutist Charles Lloyd. In 1962, he joined a band led by a pair of Count Basie sidemen, the tenor saxophonist Billy Mitchell and the trombonist Al Grey, and it brought him to New York City for a debut engagement at Birdland.
The group broke up not long afterward, but Mr. Hutcherson stayed in New York, driving a taxicab for a living, his vibraphone stashed in the trunk. He was living in the Bronx and married to his high school sweetheart, the former Beth Buford, with whom he had a son, Barry — the inspiration for his best-known tune, the lilting modernist waltz “
Little B’s Poem.”
Mr. Hutcherson caught a break when Mr. Lewis, his childhood friend, came to town and introduced him to the trombonist Grachan Moncur III, who in turn introduced him to Mr. McLean. “One Step Beyond,” an album by Mr. McLean released on Blue Note in 1963, featured Mr. Hutcherson’s vibraphone as the only chordal instrument. From that point on, he was busy.
The first album he released as a leader was “Dialogue” (1965), featuring Mr. Hill, the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and the saxophonist and flutist Sam Rivers. Among his notable subsequent albums was “Stick-Up!” (1966), with Mr. Henderson and the pianist McCoy Tyner among his partners. He and Mr. Tyner would forge a close alliance.
"After his tenure on Blue Note, Mr. Hutcherson released albums on Columbia, Landmark and other labels, working with Mr. Tyner, the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins and — onscreen, in the 1986 Bertrand Tavernier film “
Round Midnight” — with Mr. Gordon and the pianist Herbie Hancock."
"Speaking in recent years, Mr. Hutcherson was fond of citing a bit of insight from an old friend. “Eric Dolphy said music is like the wind,” he told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2012. “You don’t know where it came from, and you don’t know where it went. You can’t control it. All you can do is get inside the sphere of it and be swept away.”
Bobby Hutcherson, jazz master of the vibraphone, dies at 75
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/bobby-hutcherson-jazz-master-of-the-vibraphone-dies-at-75/2016/08/16/2b2d15b0-63be-11e6-8b27-bb8ba39497a2_story.html
Bobby Hutcherson: five standout performances by the jazz great
Hutcherson, who died this week, transformed the role of the vibraphone in jazz – here are five recordings to remember him by
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/aug/17/bobby-hutcherson-five-great-performances-jazz-vibraphone
Select Discography
Leader
The Kicker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPura4s90bo&list=PLA4B6B56EDBBAC42F
Dialogue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHcmTwoa51A&list=PL1A75BB6A4ED6F638
Components
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DnRjV_tU9E&list=PLE0B0C43AD332C14E
Happenings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKH5aGvoQl8&list=PL2E5BFB4C28421363
Stick-Up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdzTWHEdTLQ&list=PL75A0F152E4F61843
Oblique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01tZ2QvVKpY&list=PLhoS73lM8EEsu9R85btgpxDz-lfiR5hqo
Sideman
Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh0dQoYJhdI
Grant Green's Street of Dreams and Idle Moments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUMKVh45KYE&list=PLB5355B9DEDF4B342
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOOUCoGAnHk
Tony Williams Life Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFwgXlEoRNs&list=PL3395C69FF30E6746
Jackie McLean's One Step Beyond and Destination... Out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlvAlQV6CqA&list=PL719A3A76FDC755DE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D03_Hcgyk_4
Grachan Moncur III's Evolution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGX2g-vAPFk&list=PL2091C4247219B395
Joe Henderson's Mode For Joe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bAaAD1BAwg&list=PL267268162F327F4E
John Patton's Let 'em Roll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_odMI0T2zA&list=PL286EC94068DBF189
Donald Byrd's Ethiopian Knights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtgArenn7Ls&list=PLvBo0ESxEIJGQ8k2OXD6-mliZlc-TO0My
Herbie Hancock's Round Midnight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxYFAGIKIAI&list=PL8eK2Ek-HETmVHQITm2D0_HpBmbahHAwf
* You can see Hutcherson perform in the outstanding jazz film Round Midnight starring sax legend Dexter Gordon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMyFtjaSSAU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_Midnight_(soundtrack)
90 minute doc on Hutcherson collaborator Eric Dolphy - Last Date
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueHqxKEbQd4
