5 posts tagged “blue note”
Components (1965)
Medina/Spiral (1980)
Blue Note Records
These are the only two releases by Hutcherson that I have on hand (I think I have Dialogue in a box somewhere), and I felt inspired to revisit them after watching the One Night With Blue Note DVD just a few days ago.
Vibraphone gets a bad rap too often. Yes, it is a "pretty" sounding instrument and yes it was often used for cheesy lounge music, but in the right hands it is a great soloing instrument that can exhibit varying characteristics and personality. Hutcherson has a pair of those right hands (although one of them is a left).
Components and Medina both come from his early period on Blue Note, and I like Components only slightly more, because the lineup is so tight and seems to really take to the broad material exceptionally well. How can you go wrong with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Joe Chambers and Freddie Hubbard in tow? That's right, you can't. I think what stands out for me is that it has eight cuts, with half written by Hutcherson and half by Chambers, with the two exhibiting two quite different personalities, but cohering because the musical interplay is so tight. The band plays like an ensemble that has been together for a while (although in the case of Hancock and Carter, this was exactly the case), and deals with the varied material with ease.
Little B's Poem is a breezy sojourn on a Sunday afternoon in the park, and the title cut is uptempo bop with some great sax breaks by James Spaulding (who also provides the chilled out flute parts with aplomb) and West 22nd Street Theme is almost at time like a funny jazz burlesque. The more out side of the proceedings includes the really cinematic Juba Dance, which shows how vibraphone can be used to create a different range of moods than the stereotypical happy jive. Hutcherson searches across the bars for often short, cutting phrases and alternating between damping and sustained notes. About the only track likely to raise some eyebrows is the fairly avant Air.
Medina/Spiral came a few years later, and is in some ways a more consistent, singular sound. The lineup this time still has Chambers in the drum chair, but is pushed along by flautist Harold Land and pianist Stanley Cowell. Hutcherson is still pushing the technical bounds and certainly giving the instrument a new broader character for the period. Several tracks, like Orientale, have these small hints at middle eastern influences, and in that case, a muted joy in Hutcherson's playing. There is also a nice bass bit by Reggie Johnson in there. Visions has a lot of space, and Hutcherson drops these long, sustained, crystalline notes that seem to float away as they are released. Avis shows some of the cascading bunches of notes Hutcherson is capable of doing, but never does it sound as if it lacks purpose. The album as a whole is sophisticated but accessible.
To be honest, it is when Hutcherson either goes more avant-garde or when he goes for broke on the solo tip that one really seems to feel he is in his best element. That when he is pushing the technical and compositional limits of the instrument, it feels the most natural to him playing, and to me listening.
The opening set with the lineup including Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard and Joe Henderson fire an opening salvo of Hancock's Cantaloupe Island and Henderson's Recorda-me. It gets the party started 32 flavors of right.
Finally seeing the late French piano wizard Michel Petrucciani play was impressive; for someone so afflicted by osteogenesis imperfecta to surmount any potential limitations it might cause is a testament to how much one can love what they do, and he played to that effect.
There was some blistering playing by organist Jimmy Smith (made famous again by the Beastie Boys sampling of Root Down) and several impressive solos by vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. Everytime I see or hear Hutcherson I think of the time the missus and I went to see him at a listening event for SFJazz and he mentioned that a good night performing was like "finding change in your pocket". His relaxed yet measured style comes off whether he is speaking to 100 people or playing in front of 1000.
The solo piece by McCoy Tyner is a welcome shift, as is the label debut of guitarist Stanley Jordan (who has to be seen to be understood fully). It is easy to write of a Jordan as gimmicky, but his playing --when inspired-- is wholly musical and devoid of artifice. His performance here was one of those, with his sole contribution to the DVD, Jumpin' Jack. The rest of the performers (including Jack DeJohnette, Art Blakey, Lou Donaldson and Jackie McLean), are just as solid.
The DVD has some nice album cover (Blue Notes classic art direction is without peer) and a photography section from original label co-founder Francis Wolff.
Greg Osby entered my radar with his work with Steve Coleman, and that was pretty much all I needed to start. Osby shapes a bridge between Eric Dolphy, Sam Rivers and a kick in the head, and his playing and composing is some of the most ambitious and tightest on the planet today. He operates in an interior universe full of possibilities, but not without a deep respect for the history of jazz. He is the antithesis of the staid, stupid, invertabrate output that all around waste of carbon Stanley "The Grouch" Crouch stammers about endlessly, when he isn't busy drooling over Wynton Marsalis personally.
I picked three of Osby's Blue Note albums to run through; Zero, Inner Circle, and Banned in New York. All are good, all are different, yet similar.
All three albums feature Jason Moran on piano, and the two have an interplay that underpins everything on these releases. That is not to say the rest of the players are slouches. Osby, like Coleman, has an ear for finding talent; Eric Harland, Rodney Green, Lonnie Plaxico, Tarus Mateen are some of the others here. All topline, all not to be trifled with.
Banned in New York is a live album, and intentionally done a little lo-fi, but the results are still well worth listening to. It has mostly very long (10+ minutes each) extended themes and gets pretty aggressive. A bit of surprise comes in japanese bassist Atsushi Osada, who I had never heard of prior, but who lays very solid with the groups take on the Sonny Rollins cut Pent Up House.
Inner Circle is an album I didn't listen to enough when it first came out, and I regret that. It is a gem. The opener is called Entruption and it strikes me like Wayne Shorter having a series of fragmentary bursts of invention, played intentionally staggered. Moran also throws some solo time on this, an his angularity works so well. Stride Logic bounces, like many other cuts here, because of the addition of vibraphonist Stefon Harris to the mix. In an Osby ensemble, a person like Harris doesn't have to play "pretty" as often vibes players are stuck doing. Here, Harris gets to also do some tart chordal work, and when he breaks out, he gives a more cinematic feel to the proceedings.
Zero is probably my favorite Osby record, and it is a delicious meal to gorge on, but the tastes are complex, and the offerings are in large portions. It is one of the few albums to have Jason Moran on not just piano, but on Fender Rhodes and a B-3 organ. I think Moran is the next Monk. He is in his own space, and here he adds clusters of chords, strange uses of sustain, and provides a very perfect counterpoint to Osby on the absolutely nuts closer, Concepticus in C, which I can only describe as two minutes and 42 seconds of lunacy on the sax. It is like Henry Threadgill doing a church sermon while cranked on amphetamines. This record has a lot of dark overtones, and when it isn't being predatory, it lurks with a unsettling melancholy.
Now you might want to sample some of this, and it just so happens that Mr. Osby keeps a large repository of free,live .mp3s for your perusal.
Trompeta Toccata
1964 Blue Note
In the pantheon of trumet players, Dorham is another of those guys who didn't really get his due until after his passing and long after his musical peak.
Many of his best sessions, like this one, were with Joe Henderson in the line up on tenor. The two have a nice casual and good natured vibe all around. Playful, but serious about playing. The introductory riff of Dorham's The Fox is demanding bop, and the Trompeta Toccata composition itself is ambitious. It reminds me in feel at times of Miles' Sketches of Spain in the use of sustained notes and open space, but veers into sections of serious blowing flurries of notes that reflect Dorham's stint with Billy Eckstine. I am not wowed by Tommy Flanagan at the piano, but he isn't bad (and actually does have some crystalline phrases in the title track). Albert Heath and Richard Davis however, play a solid timekeeping enterprise.
I have the Rudy Van Gelder remaster of this from last year, and the sound quality -as one might expect- is spot on.
Boss Horn
1966 Blue Note
This is the only Blue Mitchell album I own, and its telling about the man who recorded extensively throughout the 50s and 60s, and continued to get active work until his passing in 1979; both technically proficient and musically a good listen all around, he does not seem to have a distinct voice on the horn of his own that would put him in the same pantheon of bop trumpet players as Miles, Byrd or Hubbard.
This album I had heard was one of his best, and it is good eats for the ears. The tunes are all listenable, the sidemen --including Cedar Walton, Chick Corea and Julian Priester-- support the material with skill and poise, and the recording quality is super clean (which given this is another of the Rudy van Gelder reissues, one should not be surprised). There is some clear connection from Mitchell's stint with Horace Silver and the hard bop pace that much of this album takes. I think my current favorite from this date is I Should Care.
