Happenings (album)
| Happenings | ||||
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| Studio album by Bobby Hutcherson | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Blue Note Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP |
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Title (number) |
7th |
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running time |
43:57 |
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Studio (s) |
Van Gelder Recording Studio, Englewood Cliffs , New Jersey |
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Happenings is a jazz album by Bobby Hutcherson that was recorded on February 6, 1966 in Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs , New Jersey and released in 1967 on Blue Note Records .
The album
In 1966 vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson was voted the best musician on his instrument by the readers of Jazz magazine . Through his collaboration with Grant Green ( Idle Moments ), Dexter Gordon ( Gettin 'Around ), Andrew Hill ( Judgment! ) And Eric Dolphy ( Out to Lunch! ) He enjoyed a high reputation in the jazz world in the mid-1960s.
The recording of the album Happenings was Bobby Hutcherson's first quartet session after he had previously recorded two albums for Blue Note in a quintet and sextet with Sam Rivers , Andrew Hill , Freddie Hubbard and Eric Dolphy . Although these albums ( Dialogue and Components ) were released under Hutcherson's name, Happenings was the first to highlight the vibraphonist as a full-fledged soloist. In his quartet played the pianist Herbie Hancock , who had already worked on the previous album Components , as well as the drummer Joe Chambers and the bassist Bob Cranshaw , whom Hutcherson already knew from his time in California. Except for Hancock's classic "Maiden Voyage", the album only contained compositions by Hutcherson.
The album begins with Hutcherson's composition “Aquarian Moon”, which is dominated by Hancock's pounding cluster chords in chromatic playing style . This is followed by Hutcherson's ballad "Bouquet", a 3/4 waltz in which Hancock plays a sparse, elliptical solo. Hutcherson said she was influenced by Erik Satie's music and the calm mood on the west coast when writing the title . The quartet then plays the Latin- inspired “Rojo” (Spanish for red ), in which Bob Cranshaw has a short solo. This is followed by the first cover version of Herbie Hancock's later jazz standard "Maiden Voyage", which he had recorded shortly before with Freddie Hubbard and George Coleman on his album of the same name in May 1965. However, Hutcherson was not aware of this recording when the session took place, just an earlier commercial jingle version that Hancock and Shorter had recorded for Yardley's Cologne .
The more conventional and straight ahead designed , swinging “Head Start” is strongly dominated by Joe Chambers ' driving beats ; this is followed by the second ballad on the album, the atmospheric 3½ minute “When You Are Near”. This is followed by the free group improvisation "The Omen". In the first part of the piece, Joe Chambers plays the drums and Hutcherson plays the marimba ; in the second part they swapped these instruments after Hancock played an atonal , spontaneous solo.
A year and a half after Happenings , Hutcherson, Hancock and Chambers continued their collaboration with the album Oblique (Blue Note, 1967). This first Hutcherson piano quartet later saw versions with Chick Corea , Joe Sample , George Cables, and Cedar Walton .
Reception of the album
According to Bob Blumenthal, the cover design with the typical cover girl by Reid Miles , which deviated from the usual Blue Note layout, already indicated that Hutcherson was moving closer to the mainstream with this album after the previous productions . Happenings gave Hutcherson an opportunity to interpret "convention" in a positive and compelling way. The vibraphonist thus found the tape format with which he was to work for the next four decades.
According to Steve Huey, the simple structure of these pieces showed Hutcherson as a modernist, giving the ensemble and the main soloists Hutcherson and Hancock enough room for their improvisations.
Apart from “The Omen”, the musicians treat the material with a light, soft touch and bring these meditative licks to the faster pieces and especially moving in the two ballads “Bouquet” and “When You Are Near”. The first and last tracks on the album, “Aquarian Moon” are “demanding post-bop ”, while the gloomy “The Omen” shows Hutcherson, “how he opens the bag of tricks and reveals what he has in the free structured (playing) groups ”; Joe Chambers then wrote similarly laid out pieces for Hutcherson's following albums. The “claustrophobic mood” of the last track does not cloud “the graceful, relaxed overall impression of the album”.
According to Chris May, Happenings was more in the mainstream of modern jazz after the more experimentally designed previous albums with its conventional rhythm section , "but announces a new, less structured and more daring playing stance that is close to the avant-garde of the time". In this way, the album contains "exceptionally individual performances". The author notes that, with the exception of Herbie Hancock's “Maiden Voyage”, the compositions were not very remarkable and therefore did not become standards; However, the album with its mixture of swinging pieces, ballads and Latin titles is passable, apart from the ambitious but unconvincing improvisation "The Omen". The highlights are Hancock's play in the first track, "Aquarian Moon", and Hutcherson's own solo in his "Maiden Voyage", which Joe Chambers coined "with his metronomic , but magically driving game on the pool". The ballad “When You Are Near” is probably Hutcherson's strongest composition, unfortunately much too short.
The title of the original album
Blue Note BLP 4231, BST 64231
- Aquarian Moon - 7:43
- Bouquet - 8:07
- Rojo - 6:00
- Maiden Voyage (Hancock) - 5:49
- Head Start - 5:14
- When You Are Near - 3:47
- The Omen - 6:59
- All other compositions are by Bobby Hutcherson
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Leonard Feather : Original Liner Notes 1967
- ↑ a b Review of Chris May's album in All About Jazz
- ↑ a b Bob Blumenthal : Liner Notes 2003
- ↑ Happenings at Allmusic (English)