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Freddie Hubbard: Straight Life (40th Anniversary Edition)
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
CTI Records reissued trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's November 1970 date, Straight Life, in 2011. As with some of the other reissues in this series (see John Kelman's in-depth discussion of some of the more important of these), its availability on compact disc has been spotty. Straight Life is a good--if not great--record, and it's good to have it back in circulation.The album is pretty simple. Two numbers--the relatively fast title track and Weldon Irvine's slower-grooving “Mr. Clean"--are long modal-funk ...
read moreEric Dolphy: Out To Lunch
by Greg Simmons
Recorded just four months before his tragic demise, Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch (Blue Note, 1964) represents a pinnacle moment in avant-garde jazz of the 1960s. Together with Andrew Hill's Point of Departure on the same label and from the same year, Out To Lunch is among the most challenging albums in the Blue Note catalog--one to approach with a very open mind. It is also the only full studio record that Dolphy completed for the label, and the only ...
read moreFreddie Hubbard: Pinnacle
by C. Michael Bailey
Blistering. That is almost the only way to describe a solo by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Even from the beginning with his early recordings of the late 1950s, Hubbard sported a tone and attack akin to a chemical burn. He always had the classic posture of the trumpet player. Not the misanthropic one adopted by Miles Davis, bent full over, blowing toward the ground. Hubbard leaned back to an almost impossible angle, tucked in his chin and folded his elbows in ...
read moreFreddie Hubbard: Pinnacle
by Larry Taylor
Trumpet great Freddie Hubbard, who died in 2008 at age 70, was at his peak in 1980 when Pinnacle was taped. He had recorded with greats, from Wes Montgomery and Art Blakey to John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Oscar Peterson, and led many groups of his own. In his prime, from the sixties through the early nineties, critics acknowledged that he could play faster. and with more chops, than most anyone. His best playing days ended in ...
read moreFreddie Hubbard: Pinnacle
by Dan Bilawsky
Pinnacle is a testament to the trumpet prowess of the one and only Freddie Hubbard, but it's also a salute to the San Francisco-based jazz club that played host to Hubbard on numerous occasions. Todd Barkan's Keystone Korner was ground zero for some of the best live jazz on the West Coast during its eleven-year lifespan, and this set of music, along with Jaki Byard's Sunshine Of My Soul: Live At The Keystone Korner (HighNote, 2007), Mary Lou Williams Live ...
read moreFreddie Hubbard: Pinnacle - Live and Unreleased from Keystone Korner
by Andrew J. Sammut
Freddie HubbardPinnacle: Live and Unreleased from Keystone KornerResonance Records2011 As album titles go, Pinnacle is closer to category than hyperbole. These seven previously unreleased tracks feature trumpeter and flugelhornist Freddie Hubbard at the apex of his abilities, recorded live at San Francisco's Keystone Korner. Some impressive West Coast talent joins the action, but Hubbard is the main attraction, and he never disappoints. The medium tempo “Blues for Duane" ...
read moreFreddie Hubbard: Straight Life
by Dan Bilawsky
On the surface, Freddie Hubbard's Straight Life doesn't seem like a record that should have ever found much success on the CTI label. This record lacks any grandiose arrangements or classical-jazz crossovers, two of the three tracks are far too long to garner much airplay, and those same two tracks--"Straight Life" and “Mr. Clean"--are far rawer and more groove-oriented than standard CTI-issue material. That the programming is so odd--with a guitar and flugelhorn ballad following thirty minutes of soul-funk jamming--also ...
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