For more than 40 years, Bobby Hutcherson, who is appearing this week with his Quartet at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, has been one of the leading exponents of one of the most curious — not to mention unlikely — instruments in jazz. The vibraphone was invented in 1921 but didn’t begin to catch on with jazz musicians until Lionel Hampton began playing it with Benny Goodman in 1936. Previously, there had been only one major jazz xylophonist, the pioneering Red Norvo, but the vibes began to play a major role in jazz in the swing and then the bop eras from the mid ’30s to the ’50s.

The vibraphone was the first electrified instrument to find a home in jazz, predating both the electric guitar and the Hammond organ. Norvo was the only player who could wrench a swinging sound out of the old wooden xylophone; when electricity was added, a greater range of dynamic and rhythm effects suddenly became possible. Still, the acoustic xylophone had been almost irritatingly staccato at all times, whereas the new vibraphone possessed a sweet and soothing timbre.

Most vibraphone playing by itself could lull you to sleep without much difficulty. Therefore, the jazzmen who’ve played the vibes for the last 70 years have had to work twice as hard to instill the instrument with the same force and energy as the drums or the tenor sax. The vibraphone is not known for its introspective players, but rather hard-hitting, in-your-face soloists, from Norvo and Hampton to the early modernists like Milt Jackson and Terry Gibbs, to contemporary stars like Gary Burton, Joe Locke, and Stefon Harris.

That certainly describes Mr. Hutcherson: He plays with so much aggression and energy that even slow ballads find him working hard. Mr. Hutcherson has assembled a combination that both complements and challenges him — the pianist Renee Rosnes matches her sound to suit his, using an especially percussive, even vibraphonic touch; her solos during the opening set on Tuesday were mostly built around short, rhythmic riffs. Ms. Rosnes also stayed up in the treble end of the keyboard, where she and Mr. Hutcherson were like two peas in an iPod. Contrastingly, the bassist Dwayne Burno filled out the bottom part of the sonic spectrum, and hard-hitting veteran drummer Al Foster always seemed to be coming up on Mr. Hutcherson’s rear end, ready to bash him if he let up on the beat.

The opening show of the week, on Tuesday night, featured three originals placed around a subset of four standards. Mr. Hutcherson began with a dedication to his third son, “Teddy,” which was highlighted by his playful interplay with Ms. Rosnes and the way he unexpectedly dropped in for a few bars in the middle of her solo, commenting on what she was playing with a few well-placed licks. “Pomponio” was a more relaxed but no less intense samba, in which Mr. Hutcherson coaxed an interesting organ effect from his instrument.

The quartet then proceeded to a minor key (but still fast and exuberant) treatment of “Old Devil Moon,” which was climaxed by an exchange between Mr. Hutcherson and Mr. Foster, building to a sequence of controlled chaos that resolved itself beautifully. He delivered Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz” in a fast, jazzy rhythm, reveling in the Fat Man’s glorious, cascading melody and embellishing it with a wide assortment of copasetically capricious rhythmic figures. Don’t let the lighthearted humor of this jazz classic fool you, however — Mr. Hutcherson was working harder here than on any other tune in the set.

There also were two excellent ballads, especially “What Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life?” (which he introduced as “What Are You Doing Arresting My Wife?”) and “For Sentimental Reasons.” Both of these saw Mr. Hutcherson lay out Michel Legrand’s famous ballad melody as sparingly as possible, with lots of wide open spaces. He not only picked each note carefully, but fine-tuned each one with just the right touch of dynamic.

As the set came to a close, Mr. Hutcherson had one final original tune up his sleeve: the frequently recorded “Highway One” from his 1978 album of the same name. It’s a dark, quasi-modal yet strongly swinging piece reminiscent of Mr. Hutcherson’s best work from his Blue Note Records period in the late 1960s — with polyrhythms similar to those on “African Village,” which he recorded with McCoy Tyner in 1968.

At 65, Mr. Hutcherson’s energy never lets up; even after 90 minutes of intense vibraphonics, he seemed fresh as a daisy. Next week he’ll record a new album — his first since 1999 — and in the new year Mosaic Records will release a three-CD package containing five rare albums from the mid-70s.

In a recent interview in “All About Jazz,” Mr. Hutcherson said, “You don’t play this music to get rich. You play it for the thrill of playing another note. And after that note, the next note and after that, the next.” One never fails to feel that thrill in Mr. Hutcherson’s performances. After 40 years, he still plays it pedal-to-the-metal.

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Apart from the “Sinatra Vegas” boxed set (reviewed in this space last week), the most essential Frank Sinatra release this season is not an album or even a book, but a CD-ROM titled “Where or When: The Definitive Sinatra Database.” Mind-blowingly exhaustive (and exhausting), this digital discography lists every known Sinatra performance. His thousands of commercial recordings are just the beginning: The CD-ROM lists zillions of radio and TV shows, concerts, movies, virtually every occasion on which the Chairman opened his mouth. The total, they tell us, is 50,000 individual performances released on 12,000 separate recordings, both legit and bootleg. “Where or When” is essential for the hard-core Sinatra collector who wants to take it all the way — from here to eternity.

wfriedwald@nysun.com