Home

Biographical
Sketch

Discography

Photos

Quotes

Frequently-Asked
Questions

Other Resources

News

Bobby Hutcherson: Oblique

LP: Blue Note (King) GXF 3061 (Japan)
CD: Blue Note 7243 5 63833 2 6 (RVG Edition)

Personnel
Bobby Hutcherson (vib, d); Herbie Hancock (p); Albert Stinson (b); Joe Chambers (d, gong, timp)

Recording Date & Location
21 July 1967, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Notes
This album was first issued in Japan in 1979.

Commentary
It's amazing to me that this music didn't see the light of day until 1979, and it wasn't released in the U.S. until 1990. The fact that it took more than a decade for this to be released has nothing to do with its quality.  This is fantastic music. Fortunately, Oblique is now readily available because Blue Note recently reissued it. (Previously, used copies of this out-of-print CD were fetching ridiculously high prices on ebay. I know because I paid--just before the reissue came out. Doh!)

Oblique is Hutcherson's second album to feature a quartet, and the line up from the previous quartet record, Happenings, is unchanged except for the bassist. The overall feeling of the music is similar too, although Oblique sounds a shade looser, a shade less inward. Also, this time Joe Chambers contributes two excellent compositions, in addition to Hancock's "Theme from 'Blow Up'," and three pieces by Hutcherson. (I especially love Hutcherson's "My Joy," which begins with a wide-eyed, child-like theme, an echo of the feelings in "Little B's Poem," before modulating into something much more adventurous and thrusting.)