{"id":7982,"date":"2016-08-17T18:34:40","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T18:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=7982"},"modified":"2016-08-18T21:16:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T21:16:29","slug":"bobby-hutcherson-brought-spiritual-questing-and-down-home-allure-to-the-vibes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=7982","title":{"rendered":"Bobby Hutcherson brought spiritual questing and down-home allure to the vibes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"bobby<\/p>\n

The late vibes and marimba player Bobby Hutcherson. Courtesy www.nga.ch<\/em><\/p>\n

On another sultry but beautiful day yesterday, I had to get away from the computer and outside in the afternoon. So I went out to nearby Kern Park and shot some baskets and, because I was the only one with a ball, I attracted a few other guys and we ended up getting into a game of hustle that included one 6 foot 2 dude who could dunk the ball, another built like a linebacker, and an 11-year-old who consistently sunk high school three-pointers from beyond the top of the key! It was great fun and then I did some grocery shopping in my sweaty shirt, and when I came home I did not want to go back to the computer or Facebook.<\/p>\n

So I didn\u2019t learn about vibes and marimba player Bobby Hutcherson\u2019s death until I peeked at Facebook at about 10 PM and noticed Howard Mandel\u2019s recommendations for listening to Hutcherson albums. My heart sank because I figured he\u2019d been prompted by Hutcherson dying. I scroll down and found a few more posted tributes and then Nate Chinen\u2019s New York Times<\/em> obit. The great musician had died Monday at age 75, at his home in California, after years of struggling with emphysema.<\/p>\n

Although I studied piano, Hutcherson was the guy who, more than anyone, had me fantasizing about playing the vibes, from time to time.<\/p>\n

Last night I immediately thought back to one of the very first phone interviews I ever did when I began covering jazz for The Milwaukee Journal<\/em> in the fall of 1979. It was with Bobby Hutcherson, who was to be performing at the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery, and I still have the cassette recording of the interview because he so impressed me when a hung up the phone. I thought to myself, this was one of the most musically dedicated and spiritual persons I have ever spoken to.<\/p>\n

Part of that openness to the spiritual or psychic or the subconscious arose in an anecdote he related to me about the great wind multi-instrumentalist, Eric Dolphy, with whom he had spent time playing and recording with in the 1960s for Dolphy\u2019s premature death.<\/p>\n

Hutcherson recalled: \u201cEric used to call me up, maybe 4 o\u2019clock in the morning, tell me his dreams. He\u2019d say,\u2019 Bobby, write this down.\u2019 Things like, \u2018one, six, eight, 17.\u2019 You know, numbers and letters. He dreamt these things as if they might mean something, like intervals or scales or chords.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next morning he met me at my house and we would try to figure out what it meant, and try to play something from that dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the interview, Hutcherson also said: \u201cI want to play some tunes that people can hum, you know, just as long as I can still make a living being true to myself and giving something to people. They can respect you for digging into the music. Like there\u2019s still some hope in this or it lasts, because it\u2019s for real. It helps to destroy some of the plasticity of this world.\u201d<\/p>\n

You sensed in the man and his playing the desire to create beauty but also to press ahead with an insistent sense of what was musically possible and that might change things for the better, at least a bit.<\/p>\n

I was also fortunate to have just heard, in person at the Jazz Gallery, Hutcherson\u2019s greatest inspiration vibist Milt Jackson, a few weeks before I interviewed Hutcherson. And there was no doubt that the great Jackson showed that he was the master of both the blues as expressed in through this ostensibly non-blues-friendly instrument, and the king of vibes swinging, against and around the rhythm.<\/p>\n

Then Hutcherson played Milwaukee in late October, 1979, and looking back at my review (in the anthology of Milwaukee Jazz Gallery press coverage published by the Riverwest Artists Association) I noted an affinity with another great jazz musician that he would collaborate with quite often, pianist McCoy Tyner. The review headline is \u201cJazz Storm has Serene Center.\u201d I wrote: \u201cThe effect is precisely that rare sense of drama that can be found these days in the group of McCoy Tyner, but with no saxophone for easy ascent. Hutcherson struggles and thrashes, reaching, reaching. But he never quite gets to the note, even if you heard it.\u201d That was the sense of purpose and ever-driving momentum and ultimately questing that gave a backbone to Bobby Hutcherson\u2019s stylistic beauty and spiritual balance.<\/p>\n

Just a few days before his death, I had been thinking about Hutcherson and had pulled out a few of his CDs to listen to, including one of his later and lesser-known Blue Note albums called Patterns <\/em>(1968), which is marvelous and a bit challenging with James Spaulding\u2019s bracing alto. But there\u2019s also plenty of color, texture and pattern with Spaulding\u2019s flute and, of course, Hutcherson\u2019s vibes and Joe Chambers\u2019s artful percussion play.<\/p>\n

Here is Hutcherson’s stately but swinging title tune\u00a0Patterns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are a number of other excellent Hutcherson albums including his heady Blue Note debut Dialogue<\/em> with pianist Andrew Hill and the great Madison, Wisconsin bassist Richard Davis, recorded shortly after Hutcherson and Davis had collaborated with Eric Dolphy on his masterwork album Out to Lunch<\/em>. There is also the meaty Stick Up!<\/em> with Tyner and saxophonist Joe Henderson, and the ambitious nine-musician album Spiral<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"hutch<\/p>\n

Hutcherson’s ambitious debut on Blue Note, “Dialogue.” diskunion.net<\/em><\/p>\n

By contrast, also recall Hutcherson playing on guitarist Grant Green’s languid soul-jazz classic Idle Moments. <\/em><\/p>\n

Then there are two albums that feature Hutcherson\u2019s warmly alluring marimba as well: Components<\/em>\u00a0from 1965 with \u201cLittle B\u2019s Poem\u201d — \u201cthe lilting modern waltz written for his son Barry,\u201d as Chinen notes, and Hutcherson\u2019s best-known tune.<\/p>\n

Another notable marimba-colored album is Blue Note’s 1966\u00a0Happenings, <\/em>a quartet date with Herbie Hancock that includes Hutcherson\u2019s gorgeous meditation \u201cBouquet\u201d and a superb reading of Hancock\u2019s modern standard \u201cMaiden Voyage\u201d and the weirdly witty free-jazz piece “The Omen.”<\/p>\n

Also consider the album Oblique, <\/em>another quartet with Hancock, which includes the pianist\u2019s theme from the classic French new wave film Blow Up. <\/em>The theme\u2019s intoxicatingly catchy chordal vamp can get you dancing but also carry you someplace.<\/p>\n

My most specific appreciation, however, will be reconsidering one of Hutcherson\u2019s most personal recordings (on Contemporary\/OJC) which I just listened to again. It\u2019s called Solo\/Quartet <\/em>recorded in 1982 with McCoy Tyner, Herbie Lewis and Billy Higgins.<\/p>\n

\"Solo\/Quartet\"<\/p>\n

“Solo\/Quartet” is one of Hutcherson’s most personal projects. allmusic.com<\/em><\/p>\n

It opens with three pieces that Hutcherson recorded solo, with multi-track overlays. The first is \u201cGotcha,\u201d wherein the marimba takes the improvised solo, conveying the intense repetitive patterns of Hutcherson\u2019s kind of the blues feel, but also a sense of spiritual wonder. He\u2019s \u201cgotcha\u201d — caught you in the resounding percussive melodic web layered here by multi-tracking. It\u2019s simple but complex in its charms.<\/p>\n

Then comes \u201cFor You, Mom and Dad,\u201d a humble but radiant lyrical theme with the sort of resonating and questing peak notes that were part of Hutcherson\u2019s characteristic open-mindedness, his sense of possibility. Again his marimba takes the improv lead and its warm, woody wit is elevated into stunning arpeggios circling to a climactic high note, and then he sustains intensity while revisiting the theme with tubular bells backing it. Hutcherson had managed with nothing but the striking of metal and wood instruments to create a spiritual vibe that is nevertheless, down-to-earth enough to be understood as a song tribute to his parents. As if to say, look, mom and dad. This is what I\u2019ve been able to create partly because you were there, and supported me all the way. Even though his dad wanted him to be a bricklayer.<\/p>\n

I love Chinen’s story about Hutcherson driving a cab during hard times in New York with his vibraphone in the taxi trunk.<\/p>\n

What the wouldn’t-be bricklayer built was a new way for the vibraphone, in a mode different from what his great contemporary Gary Burton did with his four-hammer virtuosity.<\/p>\n

The following solo tune on Solo\/Quartet<\/em> \u201cThe Ice Cream Man,\u201d is another example of this musician\u2019s balance between playful earthiness and psychic wonder. He\u2019s clearly mimicking some of the sounds recalled from the bell-ringing, neighborhood-trolling ice cream trucks of his youth, but the sound of the note decay of the vibraphone is perhaps the key to the piece. This sostenuto<\/em> effect opens the mind up, even as the melodic and rhythmic patterns beneath it engage you. The repeated playing of the theme is not tiresome; rather something you tend to savor, like every lick of an ice cream bar on a hot summer day. It keeps you rolling with the truck\u2019s chiming melody, and in Hutcherson\u2019s aura. The total effect is enchanting and transporting and yet he\u2019s taking us back to familiar experience, like the best memoirists.<\/p>\n

Hutcherson does this all by himself because his own personal life and experience is being relived and transmuted into a vivid almost cinematic environment. I know of no vibist who has accomplished so much all by himself on a recording.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s last three tunes re-unite the Stick-Up!<\/em> rhythm section, the great McCoy Tyner on piano, Hutcherson\u2019s long-time friend, bassist Herbie Lewis, and the wondrously dancing drummer Billy Higgins.<\/p>\n

\u201cLa Alhambra\u201d is a Hutcherson piece of brief ascending and descending rhythmic phrases with very shapely chord changes implying a classic Latin rhythm, with bass and drums percolating beneath. Tyner\u2019s astonishing, muscular, supercharged energy comes cascading out of the chute, but he fully honors spirit of his friend\u2019s composition with its Latin rhythmic allusions.<\/p>\n

Solo\/Quartet<\/em> is also remarkable because, as producer John Koenig explains in his liner notes, \u201cduring the album\u2019s planning stages Bobby had an almost tragic mishap with a power lawn mower in which he sustained an injury to the index finger of his right hand which nearly ended his career.\u201d<\/p>\n

During this convalescence, Hutcherson had time to reflect on what he really wanted to say in such a personal project, and thus the true quality and depth of Solo\/Quartet<\/em> was born.<\/p>\n

The next two tunes are two of the finest old standards in the repertoire book, both soulful vehicles that singers usually make the best of. But Hutcherson feels rightly that his vibes can do songful justice to both \u201cOld Devil Moon\u201d and \u201cMy Foolish Heart.\u201d And he\u2019s absolutely right.<\/p>\n

Again, it is his combination of swirling pattern-making and eloquent melodic phrasing that lifts the songs as high as an old devil moon and as deep as a heart, foolish though it may be.<\/p>\n

The album closes with Hutcherson\u2019s \u201cMessina,\u201d a characteristic melding of subtlety and whirling, surfing rhythmic momentum, the sort of tune he might\u2019ve dreamed up watching the powerful ebb and flow of the Pacific Ocean near the home he built in the coastal town of Montara, California, which is his native state.<\/p>\n

Solo\/Quartet<\/em> is such a marvelous record also because Tyner is a very kindred musician and this quartet swings deeply in a very modern ways, shifting and sifting through phrasing implied by the melodic changes. Clearly Hutcherson learned a lot from Milt Jackson about swinging, then found his own way to do it.<\/p>\n

In 1986, Hutcherson also has an interesting brief apprearance in a wonderful feature film Round Midnight<\/em> by Bertrand Tavernier which stars saxophonist Dexter Gordon as a dying jazz great in Paris. Hutcherson plays a sort of expatriate but down-home cooking connoisseur in an amusing role. Yet it fits in with the man\u2019s aesthetic for finding the good, beautiful and soulful — even in the most unlikely or displaced of places.<\/p>\n

\"bobby<\/p>\n

Bobby Hutcherson. Courtesy media.npr.org<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, since the passing of other great California modern jazz giants like saxophonists Art Pepper and Joe Henderson, big-band leader and composer Gerald Wilson, and now Hutcherson, the historic role of the West Coast, in post-bop and modern jazz is beginning to become clearer, set against the somewhat East Coast-centric focus of modern jazz. West Coast cool jazz was a contrast to East Coast energy, but as a summation of the region the label always fell short. All these deceased musicians, and others like Horace Tapscott, Arthur Blythe, and The Bobby Bradford-John Carter Quartet embodied West Coast creative fire, as finely calibrated as theirs could be.<\/p>\n

The brilliant SFJAZZ Collective, with Hutcherson-influenced vibist Warren Wolf, exemplifies that West Coast modernism today, as both a repertory band and a vehicle for its members\u2019 original compositions. Hutcherson co-founded the collective. Don\u2019t be surprised if they honor him with a recording of his compositions.<\/p>\n

Let us always think in such larger terms when we consider the qualities of such a wide and deep art form as jazz, and the great musicians who brought contrasting and complementary sensibilities to advancing it.<\/p>\n

Hutcherson’s long, gleaming vibes tones will always radiate, like a Pacific lighthouse beacon in the darkness, through the music’s history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The late vibes and marimba player Bobby Hutcherson. Courtesy www.nga.ch On another sultry but beautiful day yesterday, I had to get away from the computer and outside in the afternoon. So I went out to nearby Kern Park and shot … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[120,123,115,126,117,124,125,121,118,116,119,122],"class_list":["post-7982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com","tag-andrew-hill","tag-billy-higgins","tag-bobby-hutcherson","tag-dexter-gordon","tag-eric-dolphy","tag-grant-green","tag-herbie-hancock","tag-james-spaulding","tag-joe-henderson","tag-mccoy-tyner","tag-milt-jackson","tag-richard-davis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-24K","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7982"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8006,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7982\/revisions\/8006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}