Bobby Hutcherson was born January 27, 1941, in Los Angeles and raised in Pasadena. His brother Teddy, a devoted listener of Art Blakey records alongside his friend Dexter Gordon, exposed him to jazz early, but it was hearing vibraphonist Milt Jackson play "Bemsha Swing" on a Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants LP that made Hutcherson decide to take up the instrument himself. He began his professional career in the late 1950s working with Curtis Amy and Carmell Jones, and with Eric Dolphy and Charles Lloyd at Pandora's Box on the Sunset Strip, before settling in New York in 1961.

His first Blue Note recording, in April 1963, came on Jackie McLean's One Step Beyond, an introduction to the label courtesy of McLean himself. Hutcherson quickly joined a loose confederation of ambitious New York musicians drawing inspiration from Ornette Coleman's free jazz innovations, going on to lead his own Blue Note albums, including Dialogue and Components, and appearing on other landmark sessions, including Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch!.

Hutcherson's innovative, adventurous approach to the vibraphone helped revitalize the instrument's role in the 1960s post-bop and free jazz movements, expanding its vocabulary well beyond the swing-era language Milt Jackson and Lionel Hampton had established. He was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2010.

Hutcherson died August 15, 2016, at his home in Montara, California, at age 75.

Hutcherson's playing, alongside Gary Burton's, redefined the vibraphone's role in modern jazz, moving the instrument from swing-era harmonic language toward the more open, adventurous vocabulary of 1960s post-bop and free jazz, an influence that reaches directly into the soul-jazz and crossover circles this project covers.