Bobby Hutcherson: For You, Mom and Dad

In the 1980s, NPR's All Things Considered utilized this track habitually to segue between stories. News junkies must've thought NPR was covering a bell-ringers convention. With mallets toward all, Bobby Hutcherson overdubs himself in a tapestry of tintinnabulation involving everything except glockenspiel. At first you think, "Aha, Martin Denny lives." But then you realize this is way more complex than 1950s exotica. Closer to postmodernists Terry Riley, Philip Glass or Steve Reich. Except Hutcherson is a jazz musician who, improvising over nonstop ostinato, leaves us wondering, Why is this so fascinating? Conventioneer Quasimodo de Notre-Dame explains: "It's the bells."