| Utility Hitter | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Ken Vandermark |
| Cover: | Utility_hitter_cover.jpeg |
| Released: | 1996 |
| Recorded: | September 9 & 10, 1995 |
| Studio: | Loose Booty, Chicago |
| Genre: | Jazz |
| Length: | 67:12 |
| Label: | Quinnah |
| Producer: | Ken Vandermark |
| Chronology: | Ken Vandermark |
| Prev Title: | International Front |
| Prev Year: | 1995 |
| Next Title: | Hoofbeats of the Snorting Swine |
| Next Year: | 1996 |
Utility Hitter is an album by American jazz reedist Ken Vandermark, which was recorded in 1995 and released on the Quinnah label. He leads the Barrage Double Trio, composed of one bass-drums-reeds trio (Nate McBride, Curt Newton, Vandermark) from Boston and other (Kent Kessler, Hamid Drake, Mars Williams) from Chicago. The whole band plays six Vandermark compositions, the remaining five tracks are short improvisations: one for each of the trios and three duos.
The Penguin Guide to Jazz describes the album as "monumental" and states "The dedications to Mingus, Andrew Hill, Ornette, Cherry and Ayler are marvellous, but so is the revisionist hard-bop-as-raging-fury of their tribute to Griffin and Lockjaw."[1]
The Down Beat review by Aaron Cohen notes that the album "draws on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz double-group assembly as a blueprint" and claims "It takes considerable nerve to emulate a legendary configuration, and Barrage Double Trio demonstrates that the experiment should be tried more often."[2]
All compositions by Kent Vandermark except as indicated