Bobby Hutcherson was born in Los Angeles, California, to Eli, a master mason, and Esther, a hairdresser. Hutcherson was exposed to jazz by his brother Teddy, who listened to Art Blakeyrecords in the family home with his friend Dexter Gordon. His older sister Peggy was a singer in Gerald Wilson‘s orchestra. Hutcherson went on to record on a number of Gerald Wilson’s Pacific Jazz recordings as well as play in his orchestra. Hutcherson’s sister personally introduced Hutcherson to Eric Dolphy (her boyfriend at the time) and Billy Mitchell. Hutcherson was inspired to take up the vibraphone when at about the age of 12 he heard Milt Jackson with Thelonious Monk, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke and Miles Davis playing “Bemsha Swing” on the Miles Davis All Stars, Volume 2 album (1954). Still in his teens, Hutcherson began his professional career in the late 1950s working with tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy and trumpeter Carmell Jones, as well as with Dolphy and tenor saxophonist Charles Lloyd at Pandora’s Box on the Sunset Strip.