Considered one of the best jazz drummers of his generation, he has worked with such big names as
Joshua Redman,
Roy Hargrove and
Joe Henderson. An early fifty-something, Gregory Hutchinson now debuts with Da Bang. An album that also has everything of a debut. As if Hutchinson had been brooding on this for years, Da Bang is almost overflowing with ideas and energy. Only the jazz he grew up with seems
… far away. He asked vocalists and rappers for a selection of songs in which Hutchinson mixes hip-hop, rock and neo-soul into hectic miniatures, driven by bred grooves and breakbeats. In doing so, he seems to connect with the hip-hop escapades of the likes of Robert Glasper and Briton Moses Boyd. But as with quite a few jazz cats who flirt with pop styles, Da Bang lacks accessibility and sounds mostly whimsical and sometimes unnecessarily complex. No song sticks around the way good pop music should. (MR)more
