Now!

While still a teen playing in Gerald Wilson’s Big Band, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson met vocalist Gene McDaniels. McDaniels went on to early ’60s pop fame while Hutcherson became an in-demand vibist. The two reconnected when Hutcherson heard “Hello to the Wind,” a song that drummer Joe Chambers had composed with McDaniels, intrigued by its evocative lyrics against an ever-shifting jazz backdrop. Cut at the end of 1969, the vocal jazz pieces that comprise Now! are staggering in their singularity. 

Earnest, politically provocative, expressive, poetic, McDaniels and an all-star octet push the music into heady, progressive new spaces. Hutcherson’s lines reflect his interest in the poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, while McDaniels’ delivery is incantatory as a preacher, ranging from psychedelic vision to shouts of “Garvey! Malcolm! Martin!” at the album’s finale. No other Hutcherson date or McDaniels record — not to mention any other jazz vocal albums — hits quite like Now!