Bobby Hutcherson Patterns

[bertrand]

The CD and the discography say 3/14/68. But the liner notes say that 'A Time To Go' was written after Dr. King was assassinated (4/4/68).

Any thoughts?

Bertrand.

[ghost of miles]

Hey Bertrand, per my reply elsewhere, James Spaulding is supposed to be at sheldonm's big photo shindig for Indiana jazz musicians this Sunday--I will try to ask him about it, as I've had the same question before myself.

[Claude]

Could "A time to go" have been written for Malcolm X?

AAJ: I wanted to talk about the orchestral suite you wrote recently for Rutgers [”A Song of Courage”].

JS: Yeah, that was my suite I wrote for Dr. Martin Luther King. They gave me a NEA grant and I took the money and got an arranger to arrange all those pieces I had written, he got the choir together and got the band together and we put it on in Voorhees Chapel on campus. We had Avery Brooks singing some of the leads; I only had so much money, though, the money was very little. I couldn't even pay the choir! [laughs] Everybody was looking at me smiling, and I said “oh no! I'll make it up to you!”

AAJ: How long had you been working on the piece?

JS: Ever since 1965 or so; when Malcolm X was killed I wrote a piece for that, then when Dr. King was killed in '68 I wrote the music from that.

AAJ: So it basically started with “A Time to Go?”

JS: Yeah, that was the piece that Joe Lee Wilson wrote the lyrics to.

AAJ: Oh, I'm just familiar with the instrumental version you did with Bobby Hutcherson [on Patterns, Blue Note, 1968].

JS: Oh, that wasn't the best version, but it was okay. I thank Bobby for recording it and using it on his date. He liked it, so I said “okay, man, you got it.” Of course, there were those dates with Wayne Shorter, which were my favorite dates. McCoy Tyner's Tender Moments, that kind of stuff just moves me, the spiritual compositions.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=1145

Edited May 29, 2008 by Claude