Bobby Hutcherson - Components

[colinmce]

I've been digging back into Blue Note lately after a relative hiatus from listening to this stuff for a couple years. I've been filling in some of the (many) holes in my BN collection and have been pulling old favorites off the shelf. I grabbed Components yesterday and gave it a listen for the first time in a bit. Holy shit, this is a great record. Dialogue gets the lion's share of attention as Bobby's best and most avant garde date, and rightfully so-- it's brilliant and quite possibly my favorite Blue Note ever. But man, don't sleep on Components (Hutcherson, James Spaulding, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Joe Chambers). It's an incredibly diverse and intensely musical set, split dramatically between two sides. The A side, which seems to be the one that people remember (see Morton and Cook): four tunes penned by Bobby: Components, Tranquility, Little B's Poem (in its debut performance) and West 22nd Street Theme. These are marvelous tunes that do a lot to set the stage for soul jazz in the early 70s: light, melodic, soulful, and funky with flute, vibes and piano dominating-- a lot of Herbie Hancock's music flows right from this source, and some of Freddie's CTIs to boot. But then there's the B side, composed by Joe Chambers-- only Unit Structures is freer Blue Note jazz than this. The four pieces-- Movement, Juba Dance, Air, and Pastoral-- play with space, tone clustering and instrument groupings much like Unit Structures and also "Anthony" Williams' Lifetime and Spring. We know Herbie and Bobby can do free like a motherfucker, but Spaulding, Hubbard, and Carter hold their down as they were wont to do. This is incredible stuff and is not to be underestimated. The melding of composition and improvisation, melody and atonality is truly prescient; very few people besides Joe Chambers were thinking quite like this is 1965. And dig the part on Air where Bobby produces an organ-like modification on his vibes and Hubbard blows some cool, quiet, cutting tones over it! Straight out of Live-Evil.

If you have it, pull it out. If you don't try to track is down. This was among the first Connoisseur CDs and is now OOP and not cheap on Amazon. But it's worth it. It doesn't quite topple Out to Lunch!, One Step Beyond, Point of Departure, Conquistador, Dialogue, or Lifetime but it deserves place among them.

[Shawn]

It is a great album. My favorites are Stick-Up and Patterns, with Oblique probably coming in third.

[CraigP]

Yes, Joe Chambers did some amazing work in the 60's.

[kt66brooklyn]

I've liked this record ever since I found a vinyl copy lying on the floor of a record store years ago. I think Chambers and Hutcherson are one of the great Blue Note pairings.

[.:.impossible]

Agreed on all counts. I've always loved this one. I think this is one of the BN albums lovingly referred to as HAAG? Can't remember.

For Sangry, because this one really works, and it was listed above by Shawn:

I haven't listened in a while, but I seem to remember Herbie Hancock playing organ on "Air". Right?

Edited September 5, 2012 by .:.impossible

[Eric]

Thanks for reminder ... Components is one of his very best. Love side B!!

[brownie]

Great idea to point out the excellence of that album.

Still have and enjoy the original mono LP release.

[street singer]

Oh, hell yeah!

Joe Chambers, man...

Damn!!!

Will revisit this one. It's been a while.

[sidewinder]

Still have and enjoy the original mono LP release.

That one will be going on deck today. Great album !

[JohnS]

Not played in quite a while, one to dig out for later.

[Shawn]

Thanks to the thread I'm going to dig "Components" and "Patterns" out of the archives and listen to them again, its been too long.

[Kyo]

Love this one!

[mjazzg]

Played it today because of this thread and it is indeed an interesting listen especially because of the stylistic split of the two sides

The Joe Chamber's compositions are very stimulating. Where can one hear more of his work in this vein? any clues gratefully accepted

[Mark Stryker]

I've been digging back into Blue Note lately after a relative hiatus from listening to this stuff for a couple years. I've been filling in some of the (many) holes in my BN collection and have been pulling old favorites off the shelf. I grabbed Components yesterday and gave it a listen for the first time in a bit. Holy shit, this is a great record. Dialogue gets the lion's share of attention as Bobby's best and most avant garde date, and rightfully so-- it's brilliant and quite possibly my favorite Blue Note ever. But man, don't sleep on Components (Hutcherson, James Spaulding, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Joe Chambers). It's an incredibly diverse and intensely musical set, split dramatically between two sides. The A side, which seems to be the one that people remember (see Morton and Cook): four tunes penned by Bobby: Components, Tranquility, Little B's Poem (in its debut performance) and West 22nd Street Theme. These are marvelous tunes that do a lot to set the stage for soul jazz in the early 70s: light, melodic, soulful, and funky with flute, vibes and piano dominating-- a lot of Herbie Hancock's music flows right from this source, and some of Freddie's CTIs to boot. But then there's the B side, composed by Joe Chambers-- only Unit Structures is freer Blue Note jazz than this. The four pieces-- Movement, Juba Dance, Air, and Pastoral-- play with space, tone clustering and instrument groupings much like Unit Structures and also "Anthony" Williams' Lifetime and Spring. We know Herbie and Bobby can do free like a motherfucker, but Spaulding, Hubbard, and Carter hold their down as they were wont to do. This is incredible stuff and is not to be underestimated. The melding of composition and improvisation, melody and atonality is truly prescient; very few people besides Joe Chambers were thinking quite like this is 1965. And dig the part on Air where Bobby produces an organ-like modification on his vibes and Hubbard blows some cool, quiet, cutting tones over it! Straight out of Live-Evil.

If you have it, pull it out. If you don't try to track is down. This was among the first Connoisseur CDs and is now OOP and not cheap on Amazon. But it's worth it. It doesn't quite topple Out to Lunch!, One Step Beyond, Point of Departure, Conquistador, Dialogue, or Lifetime but it deserves place among them.

I love this record -- one of my favorites of all-time. But I wouldn't link the aesthetic or the sound with '70s soul-jazz at all. The first side is quintessential progressive BN -- a cousin to records being led by Herbie, Wayne, JoeHen, Rivers, Jackie, LaRoca, etc. --codifying what became the contemporary post-bop mainstream in terms of a language rooted in the tradition but pushing ahead --open harmonic structures that mix modal ideas with sophisticated harmony, a looser approach to rhythm, highly interactive rhythm sections, soloists aware of the avant-garde and incomporating some ideas without abandoning swing, blues, etc. Related: Herbie and Hutcherson -- one of the great hookups. Looking for ways of playing free within structure ...

Edited September 5, 2012 by Mark Stryker

[colinmce]

Fair enough. I'm not a huge soul jazz fan, but I do hear something going on there that points the way to some subset of 70s jazz, on "Little B's Poem" especially. But it does also sound a bit like " Ghetto Lights", so I'd say you're more right than me. At the very least it's quite a listenable, listener friendly sound.

[paul secor]

Thought this would be an appropriate place to post A.B. Spellman's poem, "Bobby's Ballad".

Bobby's Ballad

by A.B. Spellman

bobby hutcherson is playing polka dots

and moonbeams & it's so clean & pretty

you'll miss the lyric if you listen lite. bobby

tests you to hear a voice on the other side of beauty

that asks then answers the questions

you never thought to pose. his vibes lift a soft

tintinabuluation to the ballroom's cornices

where the notes merge as bell tones do

then float back down upon us. if you could descry

bobby's song with your prismatic eye

it would describe a silver rain

i'm remembering bobby as i knew him

in 1964 on the lower east side

when nothing stopped anything we tried

we learned the discipline of freedom

& tuned our minds with the substance

of the hour--- it could be weed, it could be

war, it could instant, disposable love

it could be any of our little teeny revolutions

but now at the frisco bay his voice weighs

much more as i hope mines does. he's found

the balance that we fought to escape

& it's better than it was though the people

we used to be would laugh at us & call us

square. this is the failure of hipness

it stands casually in the mind of now

& pulls a reflecting shade down the eyes

so it can admire itself uninterrupted

carpe diem my ass: the now has no body

save what eidetc form reflection lays upon it

such is the truth of bobby's song

as he floats plump effulgent polka dots

into the argent beams of the bayside moon.

[Mark Stryker]

Thought this would be an appropriate place to post A.B. Spellman's poem, "Bobby's Ballad".

Bobby's Ballad

by A.B. Spellman

bobby hutcherson is playing polka dots

and moonbeams & it's so clean & pretty

you'll miss the lyric if you listen lite. bobby

tests you to hear a voice on the other side of beauty

that asks then answers the questions

you never thought to pose. his vibes lift a soft

tintinabuluation to the ballroom's cornices

where the notes merge as bell tones do

then float back down upon us. if you could descry

bobby's song with your prismatic eye

it would describe a silver rain

i'm remembering bobby as i knew him

in 1964 on the lower east side

when nothing stopped anything we tried

we learned the discipline of freedom

& tuned our minds with the substance

of the hour--- it could be weed, it could be

war, it could instant, disposable love

it could be any of our little teeny revolutions

but now at the frisco bay his voice weighs

much more as i hope mines does. he's found

the balance that we fought to escape

& it's better than it was though the people

we used to be would laugh at us & call us

square. this is the failure of hipness

it stands casually in the mind of now

& pulls a reflecting shade down the eyes

so it can admire itself uninterrupted

carpe diem my ass: the now has no body

save what eidetc form reflection lays upon it

such is the truth of bobby's song

as he floats plump effulgent polka dots

into the argent beams of the bayside moon.

Thanks for posting. Have never seen this poem before. What book or collection is it from? (I moderated a panel a few years ago in Detroit that Spellman was on -- very smart man. )

Edited September 6, 2012 by Mark Stryker

[paul secor]

Thought this would be an appropriate place to post A.B. Spellman's poem, "Bobby's Ballad".

Bobby's Ballad

by A.B. Spellman

bobby hutcherson is playing polka dots

and moonbeams & it's so clean & pretty

you'll miss the lyric if you listen lite. bobby

tests you to hear a voice on the other side of beauty

that asks then answers the questions

you never thought to pose. his vibes lift a soft

tintinabuluation to the ballroom's cornices

where the notes merge as bell tones do

then float back down upon us. if you could descry

bobby's song with your prismatic eye

it would describe a silver rain

i'm remembering bobby as i knew him

in 1964 on the lower east side

when nothing stopped anything we tried

we learned the discipline of freedom

& tuned our minds with the substance

of the hour--- it could be weed, it could be

war, it could instant, disposable love

it could be any of our little teeny revolutions

but now at the frisco bay his voice weighs

much more as i hope mines does. he's found

the balance that we fought to escape

& it's better than it was though the people

we used to be would laugh at us & call us

square. this is the failure of hipness

it stands casually in the mind of now

& pulls a reflecting shade down the eyes

so it can admire itself uninterrupted

carpe diem my ass: the now has no body

save what eidetc form reflection lays upon it

such is the truth of bobby's song

as he floats plump effulgent polka dots

into the argent beams of the bayside moon.

What book or collection is this from?

From A.B. Spellman: Things I Must Have Known - Coffee House Press (2008)

I have a copy of his first collection, The Beautiful Days, from 1965. This one, his first collection of poems since then, slipped under my radar until earlier this year.

Edited September 5, 2012 by paul secor

[ep1str0phy]

I'm of the mind that Bobby's "prime" period as a frontman on Blue Note ('65-'70) marks one of the greatest single leader-single label runs in jazz. Bobby was, of course, an adventurous and flexible contributor to many of the most important and realized sessions of the 60's--Out to Lunch, One Step Beyond, Destination Out!, Life Time, Evolution, and Judgment, among others--but he was also an extremely versatile leader, catholic in taste and remarkably affecting in a variety of idioms. I can think of few musicians of the era who conveyed as well-developed an understanding of the full spectrum of 60's jazz as Hutcherson, which is why, despite his subsequent shift to (by and large) conservatism, he'll always have my respect and admiration as an "explorer."

I was going to post something on the "Blue Note School" of inside-out before I found this thread, but it's doubly interesting to trace a specific artist (Bobby in this case) through the ebb and flow of the 60's. There's definitely a straight line from the early McLean sides to '69 (when he did Now--already somewhat of a commercial recording--and Stanley Cowell's Brilliant Circles, which is like a "late to the party," slightly more ominous Blue Note album), but Bobby kept really busy with session work from all corners--soul jazzy post-bop on "Street of Dreams" and "Feeling Free," straightforward, Impulse-y free jazz with Shepp, big band music with Gerald Wilson, mellow swing/bop with Dexter Gordon... it's almost hard to pinpoint a specific thing he did "best," although it's clear he did all of these things well.

We tend to celebrate a number of classic BN runs--Shorter's and Hill's maybe being the apotheoses of their respective discographies, with Herbie's, Hank Mobley's, Joe Henderon's, and a handful of others' also justly canonized--but I very rarely hear talk about just how remarkable Hutch's arc was. These happened in order, for perspective: Dialogue, Components, Happenings, Stick-Up!, Oblique, Patterns, Total Eclipse, Spiral, Medina... for my money, they're all absolute classics right up to Patterns, and even though I'm not 100% convinced of the relative merits of post-Coltrane Harold Land, that band (as a band) was a helluva band. Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-4NTZSkzAE&feature=related

As for Components--it's easy to read Bobby's BN discography as a gradual descent into the mainstream, but (as many mention above) the story is nowhere near as simple as that. Joe Chambers was clearly the X factor here, and a big part of Hutch's more experimental efforts came out of a synergy with Chambers as a composer--paired with Hill on Dialogue, essaying the crazy half of Components, offering up the "weird" tracks on Oblique. I sort of read it less as Bobby "becoming" more conservative and more that the meeting with Chambers was timely and very much a part of what was "in the air"--it's all a testament to Hutcheron's remarkable flexibility (essaying both hardcore abstraction and modal exercises to perfection) and Chambers's vastly underrated and visionary talents as a composer that we got this music at all.

On that note, why Chambers--whose experiments on Hutch's earlier Blue Notes presage the European improv scene of the 60's and rival Cecil Taylor in their systematized approach to improvised abstraction--is not more well regarded is a total mystery to me. He's up there with Wayne, Hill, and Moncur as one of the most idiosyncratic, intelligent, and formidable composers of that scene. Moreover, I used to have the impression that Chambers was sort of a makeweight Tony Williams (he seems to show up everywhere Tony Williams was or would have been), but I've come to the conclusion that despite his leaning toward more straightforward conceits than his more celebrated peers (Tony and Elvin in particular), Joe was maybe the most reliable session drummer in the Blue Note fold... he never played a truly crappy album, and he did so many of them. I rediscovered Oblique this past weekend, and though it's clearly a confluence of many wonderful, weird things (Herbie in the last "real" year of the 2nd Miles Quintet, recording within days of Trane's death, Albert Stinson showing up, etc.), Chambers f'ing makes that session. In terms of reliability, propulsion, and making everything groove, Joe Chambers is a hall of famer.

Edited September 6, 2012 by ep1str0phy

[.:.impossible]

Yes indeed

[Eric]

Yes indeed

I once made myself a "Joe Chambers as composer" playlist. In addition to the above, you have:

Idle While and Dialogue (from Dialogue)

Medina and Ungano (from Medina)

Mirrors (from Freddie Hubbard's Breaking Point)

Patterns and Irina (from Patterns)

Oblique and Bi-Sectional (from Oblique) (oops, sorry, mentioned above too)

Spiral (from duh )

Interesting that he had the title track from five Hutch lps.

He also appears as a player on a number of classic mid-late 60s lps, including Mode for Joe, Tones for Joan's Bones, Mountain in the Clouds (Miroslav Vitous), Contours, Fancy Free and a bunch of the Andrew Hill and Wayne Shorter lps from this era.

[colinmce]

Still trying to track down Patterns and Spiral/Medina. These are easily the most difficult to find and expensive Blue Note CDs. I might just grab the new LT Japan versions, but I would so prefer the BN editions.

[JSngry]

People want to know Joe Chambers' work better should look for two thing on Muse: The Almoravid (under his name) & Double Exposure, an album of duets w/Larry young on which Chambers plays mostly piano. No idea what CD life these things have had, but finding them in any form will be quite the good thing for your musical satisfaction and elucidation.

Here's some liner notes, if they cna be read:

[.:.impossible]

The Almoravid was issued on CD by 32jazz.

I've never seen nor heard Double Exposure. One day...

[JSngry]

Herbie and Hutcherson -- one of the great hookups.

Somewhere on the instanet is a duet concert of them. Very, very nice stuff.