Like many jazz musicians weaned on Bird and Diz, Hutcherson embraced Latin rhythms throughout his career, and this beautiful album, one of his best Blue Note offerings, is the session where he goes fully ‘south of the border’. A formidable percussion section featuring legendary congueros, Bobbby Matos and Victor Pantoja provides a steady moving carriage for the arrangements whose variety of themes, some short and stabbing, others long and winding, are well negotiated by a crack rhythm and horn section. A few of George Cables’ excellent tunes feature, but the masterstroke is a reprise of ‘Oye Como Va’. It has the power of Latin rock typified by the version by the iconic Santana band, which featured Pantoja, and the swing of the original by the equally great Tito Puente. There remains a lot of fine music to reissue from Hutcherson’s sprawling back catalogue, but this is a particularly wise choice.