BST 84333

Bobby Hutcherson - Now!

Released - June 1970

Recording and Session Information

A&R Studios, NYC, October 3, 1969
Harold Land, tenor sax #2; Bobby Hutcherson, vibes; Kenny Barron, piano; Wally Richardson, guitar; Herbie Lewis, bass; Joe Chambers, drums; Candido, congas #2; Hilda Harris, Gene McDaniels, Albertine M. Robinson, Christine Spencer, backing vocals.

5225 tk.6 Now
5226 tk.10 Hello To The Wind

A&R Studios, NYC, November 5, 1969
Harold Land, tenor sax; Bobby Hutcherson, vibes; Stanley Cowell, piano, electric piano; Wally Richardson, guitar; Herbie Lewis, bass; Joe Chambers, drums; Candido, bongos, congas #2,3; Gene McDaniels, lead vocals; Eileen Gilbert, Christine Spencer, Maeretha Stewart, backing vocals.

5498 (tk.5) Black Heroes
5497 (tk.8/9) The Creators
5496 (tk.2) Slow Change

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Slow Change	Hutcherson, McDaniels	November 5 1969
Hello to the Wind	Chambers, McDaniels	October 3 1969
Now	Hutcherson, McDaniels	October 3 1969
Side Two
The Creators	Herbie Lewis	November 5 1969
Black Heroes	Harold Land	November 5 1969

Liner Notes

"I wanted to do a different album...just so many things can be done with the quintet...soundwise...I wanted to try some different things."

"The idea of the voices comes from joe Chambers. He'd mentioned to me he'd written a tune Gene McDaniels had written lyrics to...I told Harold Land I'd been writing some material and he started working on some stuff..."

I'd heard some Paul Laurence Dunbar...our first famous black poet...and went out and got a couple of his books...just the thing of the poetry...the way the tunes would come through...caused me to even start playing a different way..."

"NOW! is a sad piece...sad...it's a sort of a spiritual or a tone poem, it's really a dedication to a friend of mine who died last years - Albert Stinson...he died very young."

It's got a line in it, the last line...listen to the words...'at the end, I was love'...and everybody's searching...those lyrics say...at the end, it's you...that's all it is...Really...you know what I mean?"

Everybody's talking about 'doin' my thing', tryin' to get it together...a lot of people use other people to...which is all supposed to be happening...and that's why they're there anyway...but just at the end of it all, is really you...at the end, I was love...Right Now..."

"We all want to extend this thing...to go on in some type of way...we don't want to end it - But we aren't sure about it...there's no proof, nobody can just say BOOM - O.K. Here...you know?"

It's just a big trip...and then it's the end of the trip...maybe...who knows?"

"Could you face a rerun?"

Connoisseur CD Reissue Liner Notes

IN THE LATE '50s, Bobby Hutcherson, then fresh out of high school, began to make his presence felt on the L.A. jazz scene working with Curtis Amy and Charles Lloyd. Harold Land, who was 12 years older, was already an established figure, having made his name with the quintets of Clifford Brown, Max Roach and Curtis Counce.

Over the years, their paths crossed often — in Gerald Wilson's orchestra and elsewhere on the tight-knit L.A. scene. In December 1967, Harold Land recorded The Peacemaker for Argo with a quintet that included Hutcherson and Joe Sample. In 1968, they formed an alliance that lasted intermittently until Land's death in 2001 . That July, they cut Bobby's Total Eclipse with Chick Corea, Reggie Johnson, and Joe Chambers as the rhythm section. Soon Stanley Cowen took over the piano chair and the quintet became a permanent touring group. They made two exceptional dates for Blue Note (Spiral in November 1968 and Medina in August 1 969), which did not see the light of day until 1980. But the level of playing and compositions (Cowell and Chambers are also first-class composers) floored anyone lucky enough to hear them at the time.

In the handful of blurbs on the back cover of the original release of Now!, Bobby is quoted as saying, "I wanted to do a different album...just so many things can be done with a quintet sound-wise I wanted to try some different things the idea of the voices comes from Joe Chambers. He'd mentioned to me he'd written a tune to which Gene McDaniels had written lyrics. I told Harold Land I'd been writing some material and he started working on some stuff..."

Enter Gene McDaniels, who not only became the album's lyricist, but lead singer as well. Gene was born in Kansas City in 1 935, but raised in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. In Omaha, he formed a vocal group with the great blues shouter Wynonie Harris's son, Wesley Devereaux. Wynonie sent them to New York where they did some studio work. A session pianist took him aside at one date and suggested his talent merited him going solo. Soon he was on his way to Los Angeles to establish himself as a jazz singer.

He remembers, "My first gig was with Red Mitchell. I was around 19 or 20 and went to a club called The Jazz Cellar, which wasn't a cellar at all. You had to go up three steps to get into the place! Mitchell had a band with Herb and Lorraine Geller and Mel Lewis. I asked if I could sit in and Red said, 'l don't know, can you?' So they called a standard at a really fast tempo. I got through it and they offered me a job. Ornette Coleman used to come into The Jazz Cellar and no one would let him sit in. But I heard him and he reminded me of what I had heard in my father's church. So he was cool with me; I'd always let him sit in when I had the gig. I even wrote lyrics to a couple of his tunes. 'The Sphinx' was one. I don't think I even sang them for him."

"It was a great time and I played with everyone, Bobby, Herbie Lewis, Shelly Manne, Gerald Wilson's band, Les McCann, and so many others. People like Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis were so gracious about letting you sit in and sing a song. Miles and I got quite to be good friends and he used to request that I open for him when he played the Renaissance."

But in 1960, McDaniels's career took an unexpected turn that became a four-year detour. He signed with Liberty Records and had an amazing run of well-sung, well-arranged, and well-produced pop hits like /'Chip Chip," "Tower Of Strength," "A Hundred Pounds of Clay" and "Point of No Return."

"Les McCann and I were working at The Lamp on Cahuenga (between Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards) five nights a week for low money. But the place was packed every night. Don Reardon from Liberty Records kept coming by and asking me to audition, which I finally did. Sy Waronker, who owned Liberty, was such a sweet man; he's the reason I signed."

By 1969 when the sessions at hand took place, McDaniels was firmly back in the jazz world and on the verge of becoming a hit songwriter. That summer, Les McCann and Eddie Harris recorded Compared to What at the Montreux Jazz Festival and the resulting album became a major success. McDaniels signed with Atlantic (McCann's label at the time) and made two politically powerful albums Outlaw (recorded only five months after this album) and Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse. He also began writing for Roberta Flack ("Reverend Lee," "Feel Like Makin' Love").

The group vocals were handled by some of the great New York female studio singers. This was a special breed; these women could learn a tune, come up the harmonies and an arrangement in five minutes, and then nail it on the first take. Chirstine Spencer, who was on both sessions, had actually worked with Hutcherson four years earlier on the title piece of Archie Shepp's On This Night and with Duke Pearson on his How Insensitive, done earlier in 1969. She also appeared on Mary Lou Williams's Music for Peace in 1970.

For this album, Bobby expanded the instrumentation to include Wally Richardson's guitar and Candido Camero's powerful congas. His old friend Herbie Lewis appears in place of Reggie Johnson and contributes a tune. On the first session on October 3rd, Kenny Barron is on piano. All five pieces were recorded, but only "Hello to the Wind" and "Now" made it to the final album.

"Hello to the Wind" is just one of the many great pieces written by the terribly under-appreciated Joe Chambers. Woody Shaw made it a staple in his repertoire in the '70s, recording it twice, and Chambers recorded a unique version in 1977 as a duet with himself on piano and Larry Young on organ.

"Now" was described by Bobby at the time as "a sad piece." "It's a sort of spiritual or a tone poem it's really dedicated to a friend of mine who died last year — Albert Stinson he died very young."

The remaining three tunes were scrapped (wisely as the arrangements were far more fleshed out at the second session) and remade on November 5th with Stanley Cowen returning on piano and electric piano. Throughout, what is most striking is the intensity and quality of the solos, especially from Hutcherson and Land.

Vocals and added instrumentation on an instrumental jazz artist's album are usually a sign of attempted commerciality. But in this case, they were used to give the music contemporary relevance and added power. There are no compromises here.

Eight years later, when Bobby got an opportunity to participate in a Blue Note recording project with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he chose to revive the first three pieces from this album with expansive arrangements by Dale Oehler that bring out the stately lyricism of the compositions. They have been added here as bonus tracks.

— MICHAEL CUSCUNA, 2004