Total Eclipse | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | February 1969 [1] | |||
Recorded | July 12, 1968 | |||
Studio | Plaza Sound Studios, New York City | |||
Genre | Jazz, post-bop, modal jazz | |||
Length | 40:32 | |||
Label | Blue Note BST 84291 | |||
Producer | Duke Pearson, Francis Wolff | |||
Bobby Hutcherson chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [2] |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz | [3] |
Total Eclipse is an album by jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, released on the Blue Note label in 1969. It features Hutcherson's first recordings with saxophonist Harold Land, who would become a regular collaborator with Hutcherson throughout the early 1970s. [2] [4] Four of the five tracks are Hutcherson compositions, the exception being Chick Corea's "Matrix".
In a 2013 profile of Hutcherson for Down Beat , Dan Ouellette wrote that Total Eclipse was a "marquee outing for the group, where hard-bop entered into the exploratory zone. The album dips in and out of Hutcherson's daredevil sensibility, with inventive vibe romps and pure elation." [4] Ouellette described Hutcherson's composition "Pompeian" as "a questing voyage with a whimsical open and close and a complex middle section that is avant-leaning and charged as Hutcherson paints dark colors on the marimbas." [4]
"I was experimenting with moving intervals in my playing, doing seconds and thirds to fourths and fifths. It was creating a different sound instead of typical jazz lines. The intervals were opened up. The idea was to try to make it sound simple even though it was music that was hard to figure out. Harold started playing the intervals, too, so that we could bounce off each other. Actually, I got a lot of my ideas from Joe Chambers, who was always trying to change the recipe. 'Pompeian' is full of the intervals playing--which actually reflected the scene that was going on in San Francisco at the time."
— Bobby Hutcherson [4]
AllMusic reviewer Steve Huey agreed that "Pompeian" was an "ambitious piece," but thought that "overall...the album foreshadows Hutcherson's move away from his explicit avant-garde leanings and into a still-advanced but more structured modernist framework. For some reason, Total Eclipse was the only post-bop-styled album Hutcherson and Land recorded together that was released at the time; though they're all high-quality, this remains perhaps the best of the lot." [2] Huey went on to praise Land's playing, writing that his "solo lines are fluid and lengthy, assimilating some of Coltrane's innovations while remaining accessibly soulful" and that his "rounded, echoing tone is a nice contrast for the coolly cerebral post-bop that fills Total Eclipse." [2]
Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece.
Robert Hutcherson was an American jazz vibraphone and marimba player. "Little B's Poem", from the 1966 Blue Note album Components, is one of his best-known compositions. Hutcherson influenced younger vibraphonists including Steve Nelson, Joe Locke, and Stefon Harris.
Idle Moments is an album by American jazz guitarist Grant Green recorded in 1963 and released on the Blue Note label in 1965. It features performances by tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Duke Pearson, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Al Harewood.
Maiden Voyage is the fifth album led by jazz musician Herbie Hancock, and was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder on March 17, 1965, for Blue Note Records. It was issued as BLP 4195 and BST 84195. Featuring Hancock with tenor saxophonist George Coleman, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams, it is a concept album aimed at creating an oceanic atmosphere. As such, many of the track titles refer to marine biology or the sea, and the musicians develop the concept through their use of space. The album was presented with the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999.
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Components is an album by jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, released on the Blue Note label in 1966. The first side of the LP features compositions by Hutcherson, in a hard bop style, whilst the second side features Joe Chambers' compositions, more in the avant-garde style.
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Joe Chambers is an American jazz drummer, pianist, vibraphonist and composer. He attended the Philadelphia Conservatory for one year. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chambers gigged with many high-profile artists such as Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, and Chick Corea. During this period, his compositions were featured on some of the albums on which he appeared, such as those with Freddie Hubbard and Bobby Hutcherson. He has released fifteen albums as a bandleader and been a member of several incarnations of Max Roach's M'Boom percussion ensemble.
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