GXF-3073

Bobby Hutcherson - Inner Glow

Released - 1980

Recording and Session Information

United Artists Studios, Los Angeles, CA, March 24, 1975
Oscar Brashear, trumpet #1,2; Thurman Green, trombone #1,2; Harold Land, tenor sax #1,2; Bobby Hutcherson, vibes; Dwight Dickenson, piano; Kent Brinkley, bass; Larry Hancock, drums.

(tk.7) Boodaa
(tk.4) Roses Poses
(tk.2) Searchin' The Trane

United Artists Studios, Los Angeles, CA, March 25, 1975
Oscar Brashear, trumpet; Thurman Green, trombone; Harold Land, tenor sax; Bobby Hutcherson, vibes; Dwight Dickenson, piano; Kent Brinkley, bass; Larry Hancock, drums.

(tk.3) Inner Glow
(tk.2) Cowboy Bob

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Boodaa	Bobby Hutcherson	March 24 1975
Cowboy Bob	Bobby Hutcherson	March 25 1975
Side Two
Searchin' the Trane	Bobby Hutcherson	March 24 1975
Inner Glow	George Cables	March 25 1975
Roses Poses	Bobby Hutcherson	March 24 1975

Liner Notes

Last year, a down beat interviewer, suggesting a certain critical neglect of Bobby Hutcherson in the mid-to-late Seventies, asked the vibist, "Why weren't you talked about more? " "Well," answered Hutcherson, "I was covered up by a lot of new groups and new names and electronics." True enough. But then, Hutch got to the heart of the matter: "I was trying to continue my dedication to a new way of playing bebop — with new harmonies and melodic concepts." Or, as down beat did note three years earlier, to "tunes that open with richly melodic heads...subsequent, spirited improvisations that remain close to the initial changes and are more like rhythmic/dynamic explorations than new melodies ...conceptions routinely explored by McCoy Tyner."

Actually, though, Hutcherson was going back further than Tyner. He was going back to John Coltrane, and his original notion of exhaustive, dynamic improvisation within a mode, rather than atop changes. He really was working out "a new way of playing bebop," by integrating the saxophonist's innovation into subtly structured lyricism — with an ease Tyner, frankly, has yet to achieve. And, he was doing it on the vibes and marimba, two instruments whose sonic lightness — even in a relentless, percussive solo — seemed to make the whole idea a lot more accessible (especially when compared to Tyner's violent, though extraordinary, piano technique).

But, for whatever reason, more jazz critics and record buyers spent the Seventies talking about Tyner — or almost anyone else — than Bobby Hutcherson.

So, it's especially fitting that we enter the Eighties with another look at the vibist in the 70s: INNER GLOW. Recorded in 1975, its five tunes are prime examples of Hutcherson's "new way of playing bebop", a style begun on his 1972 album SAN FRANCISCO (BST-84362), already in place on 1974's CIRRUS (BN-LA 25G) and climaxing on 1976's WAITING (BN-LA-615-G). Throughout, Hutcherson involved a number of key musicians in its growth, including tenor saxophonist Harold Land(present on SAN FRANCISCO, CIRRUS and these dates, and co-leader of a group with Hutcherson from 1968-71), pianist George Cables(featured on WAITING, and the arranger-composer of the title tune here), drummer Larry Hancock (heard on CIRRUS and these sessions), and his late Seventies bandmates Emanuel Boyd (reeds), Eddie Marshall (drums), James Leary (bass) and Kenneth Nash (percussion), all of whom are featured on WAITING. Along with the players here (pianist Dwight Dickerson, a veteran of duty with Leroy Vinnegar and Sonny Criss, and then working with Hutcherson; West Coast studio trumpeter Oscar Brashear; bassist Kent Brinkley, featured with Charles Tyler and Freddie Hubbard earlier in the Seventies; and trombonist Thurman Green, who'd previously recorded with Doug Carn, Gerald Wilson and Donald Byrd), they executed Hutcherson's demanding concept exactly and sympathetically.

Which, quite honestly, was often a task tailor-made for the egoless. Take "Boodaa" here, for example. Once the rhythm section gets past its quirky bit of opening sturcture (and the comical pauses that separate Hutcherson and Green's runs) they simply vamp, in a start-stop-crash fabric. It's engagingly hypnotic, and a great foil for Bobby's dazzling solo technique — you need plenty of chops to make such a steady setting interesting — but the sidemen here are really sidemen. (And then, if a sideman does solo in this context, he tackles a particular spatial test; here, Green makes the mistake of laying back when he should attack, and so his solo only comes to life when Hancock picks up the tempo. On "Cowboy Bob," though, while the endlessly loping line suggests a horse at canter, Brashear does play a strong, broad ride, and Green follows suit; Dickerson then gets in a brief but solid run. And, on "Inner Glow," Cables' faintly bossa line reminiscent of his better- known "Think On Me — " and highlighted on the pianist's forthcoming Contemporary LP, also featuring Hutcherson — Land snaps off a trademarked half-mellow/half-hewn solo, much in the manner of Dexter Gordon.)

The point is, Bobby Hutcherson was also the rightful star of his progressive conception, as the one who understood it best. You can hear that here, in his commanding solos on all the tracks — and especially on "Searchin' The 'Trane" and "Roses Poses," two of his compositions later done very similarly on WAITING. Both have melodies highly lyrical and original; "Searchin' The 'Trane" is a pure quartet performance, with Bobby as the only soloist. (On the WAITING album, group members also solo on both tracks.) And on both, Hutcherson uses his depth of musical knowledge to create a remarkable tension: by writing structures(e.g. the constant, one-two-three vamp, played by Dickerson, on "Searchin'", the static bridge of "Roses") that support his playing reflexively, and then using every tool in his soloist's arsenal — speed, spacing, time, dynamics, and lots of fresh ideas — to make them come alive. As he described (to db) the process himself: "When I was comin' up, back in L.A., around 1956-1960...you had to count. You had to know. You didn't just...play because you wanted to. You had to know all the chord changes, all the structure, everything...You got to get that together so well that you don't even have to think about it — and then you get the soul out there, and you think spiritually about what you're gonna play and what you're playing." Today, his music (as reflected on two recent LPs for CBS) is often less structurally rigorous, but Bobby Hutcherson is no less a musician. In fact, these sessions, heard for the first time, may prove he's always been much, much more.

— Michael Rozek