Kicker

Kicker

<I>The Kicker</I> is an example of a fabulous recording never released for reasons totally unrelated to the quality of the music. This swinging December 1963 session was actually Bobby Hutcherson's first as a leader for Blue Note, but the more adventurous <I>Dialogue</I>, from April 1965, was the first released under the visionary vibraphonist's name. Hutcherson, guitarist Grant Green, saxophonist Joe Henderson, and pianist Duke Pearson--the same mainstream lineup used on Green's <i>Idle Moments</i> date a month earlier--fill <I>The Kicker</I> with bluesy, in-the-pocket jams. Its soulful sounds contrast sharply with the more radical studio work Hutcherson had created previously on Jackie McLean's <I>One Step Beyond</I> and Grachan Moncur's <I>Evolution</I> or would do later on Andrew Hill's <i>Judgment</i> and Eric Dolphy's <i>Out to Lunch</i>. Thus, a year after it was made, the comparatively conventional album was deemed unrepresentative of Hutcherson's artistry--he had since become a member of the Archie Shepp quartet--and it remained in the can for 36 years, until this 1999 release. <I>--Mitchell Feldman</I>