Artist: Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Hutcherson was an American jazz  vibraphone and marimba player.

Bobby Hutcherson was was exposed to jazz by his brother Teddy, who listened to Art Blakey records in the family home with his friend Dexter Gordon. Hutcherson was inspired to take up the vibraphone when at about the age of 12 he heard Milt Jackson  with Thelonious Monk, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke  and Miles Davis playing "Bemsha Swing" on the  Miles Davis All Stars, Volume 2 album (1954).

Still in his teens, Hutcherson began his professional career in the late 1950s working with tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy and trumpeter Carmell Jones, as well as with Dolphy and tenor saxophonist Charles Lloyd at  Pandora's Box on the Sunset Strip. 

Spanning the years 1963 to 1977, Hutcherson had one of the longest recording careers with Blue Note, second only to Horace Silver's. 

In 2004, Hutcherson became an inaugural member of the SFJAZZ Collective, featuring Joshua Redman,  Miguel Zenón, Nicholas Payton, Renee Rosnes, and Eric Harland, among others. He toured with them for four years and made an appearance at the SFJAZZ Center's grand opening in 2013.

Further information about Bobby Hutcherson is found here and here.

This content was excerpted from the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Hutcherson, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).