Bobby Hutcherson Blow up

Bobby Hutcherson & Harold Land - Blow Up (1969) {Jazz Music Yesterday JMY1005-2 rel 1990}
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© 1969, 1990 Jazz Music Yesterday | JMY 1005-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Modal Music / Vibes / Saxophone

The Hutcherson-Land Quintet has long been one of my favorite jazz groups. Great compositions, excellent soloing with everyone interacting as a cohesive unit. Always lots of sparks & fire in an open, relaxed feel. Never over-bearing or pretentious. This live date from 1969 is a great addition to their discography. Joe Chambers, the usual drummer, is here in even greater than usual form, one of the most outstanding (and under-recognized) drummers ever. Reggie Johnson contributes solidly on bass and the always stimulating Stanley Cowell on piano make this an especially interesting configuration. Four tunes well over 10 min. ea., exploring these pieces in a way much like Miles' '65-'68 quintet (and doing Hancock's "Maiden Voyage").

Bobby Hutcherson's second quartet session, Oblique, shares both pianist Herbie Hancock and drummer Joe Chambers with his first, Happenings (bassist Albert Stinson is a newcomer). However, the approach is somewhat different this time around. For starters, there's less emphasis on Hutcherson originals; he contributes only three of the six pieces, with one from Hancock and two from the typically free-thinking Chambers. And compared to the relatively simple compositions and reflective soloing on Happenings, Oblique is often more complex in its post-bop style and more emotionally direct (despite what the title may suggest). The latter is especially true on the two opening Hutcherson pieces, the sweetly lilting "'Til Then" and the innocent, childlike theme of "My Joy," which is reminiscent of "Little B's Poem" (save for its multi-sectioned structure)…

Bobby Hutcherson - Oblique (1967) {2014 Japan SHM-CD Blue Note 24-192 Remaster UCCQ-5016}
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© 1967, 2014 Universal Japan / Blue Note | BN 75th The Masterworks | UCCQ-5016
Jazz / Post Bop / Vibraphone

Reissue. Features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (fully compatible with standard CD player) and the latest remastering (24bit 192kHz). Bobby Hutcherson's second quartet session, Oblique, shares both pianist Herbie Hancock and drummer Joe Chambers with his first, Happenings (bassist Albert Stinson is a newcomer). However, the approach is somewhat different this time around. For starters, there's less emphasis on Hutcherson originals; he contributes only three of the six pieces, with one from Hancock and two from the typically free-thinking Chambers. And compared to the relatively simple compositions and reflective soloing on Happenings, Oblique is often more complex in its post-bop style and more emotionally direct (despite what the title may suggest).

Bobby Hutcherson - Oblique (1967) [2005 RVG Remaster]
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Jazz, Post Bop | Blue Note/ Capitol Records | EMI Catalog # 7 2435 63835 2

This album, recorded in 1967, had to wait 13 years to be released. But when it was, it was hailed as one of the greatest albums in this great vibist's long career. The quartet tackles both attractive and challenging material contributed by Hancock and Chambers as well as the leader.

Oblique is one of only two quartet sessions the great vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson recorded for Blue Note (the classic Happenings being the other). Both albums featured the seminal pianist Herbie Hancock and drum master Joe Chambers, with the only variable in the line-up here being bassist Albert Stinson. Hutcherson’s breezy opener “‘Til Then,” Hancock’s tremendous “Theme From Blow Up,” and Chambers’ adventurous “Oblique” are standouts of a session that, taken as a whole, is an incredible journey from hard bop grooves to exploratory sonic tone poems. Recorded in 1967, the album wasn’t first released until 1979.

Jonny King is a talented advanced hard bop player whose playing on this early release finds him performing in a group that recalls the Bobby Hutcherson/Harold Land quintet of the early '70s. King sometimes sounds here like McCoy Tyner or Mulgrew Miller, and he contributed six of the eight numbers – all but the standard "Mean to Me," which is taken as a tasteful piano-vibes duet, and Herbie Hancock's "Blow Up," with the closing calypso "Las Ramblas" being the most memorable. Steve Nelson's vibes (influenced by Hutcherson) are a key voice both in the ensembles and as a soloist. Joshua Redman is in excellent if conventional form on tenor while showing on the hyperactive "Caffeine" that his soprano playing is coming along. With bassist Peter Washington and drummer Billy Drummond offering solid support, this is a fine modern mainstream date.

One might assume that bassist Christian McBride's CD Kind of Brown would be a tribute to Ray Brown. Au contraire – in fact, it would be appropriate for this recording to own up to the title Kind of Blue Note, because this music bears a strong resemblance to the late-'60s to mid-'70s recordings of the legendary Bobby Hutcherson-Harold Land quintet. That seminal post-bop ensemble defined the mid-period Blue Note label sound, and created resonant sonic signposts that remained unequaled, until now. A new discovery in vibraphonist Warren Wolf, Jr., teamed with veteran saxophonist Steve Wilson, the wonderful pianist Eric Reed, and drummer Carl Allen makes McBride's quintet dubbed Inside Straight into one of the more melodically tuneful and harmonically focused contemporary ensembles combining past tradition with a fresh new approach to this potent style of jazz.