Django (Grant Green’s version)

Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Grant Green (guitar), Bobby Hutcherson (vibraphone), Duke Pearson (piano), Bob Cranshaw (bass) and Al Harewood (drums). From the album Idle Moments (1965).

Bobby Hutcherson was an American jazz vibraphonist who also played marimba. He adapted his instrument to his time, as did Lionel Hampton with swing or Milt Jackson with bebop. He emerged in the 1960s playing a cerebral jazz and challenging modern jazz getting into avant-garde. Along with Gary Burton, Hutcherson helped modernize his instrument by playing post-bop and modal jazz. He decided to play the vibraphone when he was a teenager and heard an album by Milt Jackson.

In the late 1950s he played with Curtis Amy and Charles Lloyd and in 1960 he toured the country with a group led by Al Gray and Billy Mitchell. In 1961 he moved to New York, where he played hard bop with Hank Mobley, Herbie Hancock and Grant Green, and avant-garde with Archie Shepp, Jackie McLean, Eric Dolphy and Andrew Hill. As a result he became a studio musician for Blue Note Records. In 1963 he participated in Jackie McLean’s One Step Beyond, in 1964 in Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch and many other albums.

This theme is usually played by the Modern Jazz Quartet, was composed by the group pianist John Lewis and is dedicated to Django Reinhard. After Pearson’s small introduction, the band exposes the slow and melancholic theme. As soon as the theme ends, the tune changes completely and acquires a swinging rhythm and greater speed for the musicians to make their solos. The first one is Green, slightly bluesy, with convincing and well-conceived phrases while Henderson plays once in a while a riff beneath. He is followed by Henderson, who makes a solo full of energy and vitality while Green and Hutcherson are the ones who play the riff. Next comes Hutcherson playing with vigour and intensity while Henderson plays the riff. Then Pearson enters with a more moderate and melodic speech while Henderson, Green and Hutcherson play the riff. Green reappears to play a second solo that ends the theme fading out.