Released in late 1975, Bobby Hutcherson’s “Montara” joined an incredible list of forward-thinking albums for Blue Note in that year including Donald Byrd’s “Spaces and Places”, Bobbi Humphrey’s “Fancy Dancer”, Ronnie Foster’s “Cheshire Cat”, Eddie Henderson’s “Sunburst” and Chico Hamilton’s  “Peregrinations”.

“Montara” was the first Blue Note album produced by Dale Oehler who had previously worked as arranger on Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man” before moving into jazz as conductor and arranger on Freddie Hubbard’s 1974 album “High Energy”. It would be one of four Hutcherson albums Oehler produced for Blue Note alongside those of Marlena Shaw and Brazilian musician Moacir Santos. But the direction Hutcherson took on “Montara” was very much down to its Executive Producer, George Butler, who gets a special thanks on the back of the album for the “creative ideas [that] sparked the album”. 

Arriving at Blue Note in 1971, Butler had steered Blue Note into jazz-funk and fusion with pivotal albums recorded with the Mizell Brothers, including Donald Byrd’s “Black Byrd” and Bobbi Humphrey’s “Blacks and Blues”. These albums, and the aforementioned ones from 1975 that Butler worked on as Executive Producer, took Blue Note forward with music for the feet as much as the head. “Montara” joined them as one of the great Latin Jazz records of the mid-1970s. 

After his post-bop, modal and avant-garde albums of the 1960s, Bobby Hutcherson had entered the 1970s with a roar on the political charged psychedelic jazz album “Now”. It was recorded with saxophonist Harold Land as was the fusion-leaning follow-up “San Francisco”. From the modal jazz of “Cirrus” (1971) to the jazz-funk of “Natural Illusions” (1973), Hutcherson continued to jump between styles while expanding the language of the vibraphone in jazz. But he was still to fully explore his Latin tendencies. 

Recorded on August 12-14, 1975 at The Record Plant, in his home city of Los Angeles, “Montara” found Hutcherson alternating between vibraphone and marimba, as he had done periodically since “Dialogue” in 1965. For the sessions he called on heavyweight players from the L.A. scene including trumpeter Blue Mitchell, electric pianist Larry Nash, bassist Chuck Domanico, saxophonist/flautist Ernie Watts, drummer Harvey Mason and a serious percussion section of Willie Bobo, Bobby Matos, Ralph MacDonald, and Victor Pantoja. 

Fellow Blue Note vibist Stefon Harris referred to Hutcherson as “by far the most harmonically advanced person to ever play the vibraphone.” The invention and fluidity Hutcherson had previously brought to post-bop and modal jazz were on full display on his most Latin-influenced album. 

The album opens with the haunting and hypnotic “Camel Rise” composed by pianist George Gables and first recorded by Freddie Hubbard on his jazz-funk/fusion album from 1974, “High Energy”. It’s followed by an equally atmospheric Hutcherson composition, the title track “Montara”. Versioned by Madlib on his “Shades of Blue” album from 2003, it features Hutcherson on beautifully melodic form on vibes and marimba augmented by the swirling Rhodes of Larry Nash. 

This mellow opening is blown sky high by “(Se Acabo) La Malanga” a storming piece of Latin Jazz written by Cuban percussionist Rudy Calzado for the recently departed Eddie Palmieri on his 1975 album “Superimposition” for Fania Records. Supported by his serious horn and percussion sections Hutcherson drops one of his heaviest ever solos. Things are brought back down by the meditative “Little Angel” composed by Colombian pianist Edy Martínez for Mongo Santamaria on his 1972 album “Up From The Roots”. 

Then comes the other Hutcherson composition, “Yuyo”, a seriously heavy slab of Latin Jazz that could have come from the Fania Records catalogue. The album closes with a version of Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va” made famous by Santana but Hutcherson certainly has a claim on the best ever cover. 

“Montara” is something of a forgotten Bobby Hutcherson Blue Note album whose Tone Poet release is made even more welcome when you look at the prices of the original pressings on Discogs. 

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Andy Thomas is a London based writer who has contributed regularly to Straight No Chaser, Wax Poetics, We Jazz, Red Bull Music Academy, and Bandcamp Daily. He has also written liner notes for Strut, Soul Jazz and Brownswood Recordings.

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_{Header image: Bobby Hutcherson. Photo: Francis Wolff / Blue Note Records.}