The vibraphone - or vibes - has largely fallen out of favour among jazz musicians, partly because it is large and difficult to move around and because its sound can be imitated, up to a point, by electronic keyboard instruments.
The same is true of the Hammond B-3 organ. Few players are prepared to travel with the cumbersome instrument, and most prefer an imitative keyboard.
However, Joey DeFrancesco insists on playing the real thing, and as a touring musician and prolific recording artist - both as leader and as sideman - he has done much to keep the Hammond sound alive. That makes him the right choice to play with Bobby Hutcherson, at 73 arguably the greatest living exponent of the bluesy, melodic school of vibes playing and not a musician you can replace with a sampler.
Hutcherson is an undervalued soloist who has never achieved the level of public recognition enjoyed by Gary Burton, 71, the other important voice on the instrument to emerge in the 1960s.
As a sideman, Hutcherson has appeared on more landmark albums - mostly on Blue Note - such as Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, Andrew Hill's Point of Departure, Jackie McLean's Destination Out!, and McCoy Tyner's Time for Tyner.
Hutcherson also has many strong albums as a leader on Blue Note, from Dialogue in 1965 ( The Kicker was recorded earlier but not released until 1999) to 1977's Knucklebean. He has recorded with other labels but produced most of his best-known work, including his latest, Enjoy the View, on Blue Note.
It used to be said the main difference between Blue Note and other jazz labels was that label boss Alfred Lion would pay for a day's rehearsal before the tape started rolling because he wanted to hear the musicians playing together. Don Was, the current label boss and producer of Enjoy the View, put together Hutcherson, DeFrancesco, saxophonist David Sanborn and drummer Billy Hart for the sessions. DeFrancesco had previously played with the other three, but Sanborn was new to Hutcherson and Hart.