Jazz Articles about Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard & Jimmy Heath: Jam Gems

by John Sharpe
March 1, 2001

Jam Gems is Label M’s latest offering from their ongoing series of previously unearthed recordings taped at Baltimore’s Famous Ballroom by The Left Bank Jazz Society. Formed in 1964, this group often booked Sunday afternoon jam sessions at various venues. However, the tapes were never released until producer Joel Dorn struck a deal to issue the performances on his new label. This session from June 13, 1965, captures trumpeter Freddie Hubbard shortly before he altered his hard-bop style ...

Freddie Hubbard: Jam Gems

by AAJ Staff
February 1, 2001

For those of us who weren't able to attend any of the now-becoming-legendary Left Bank Jazz Society sessions, Label M's continuing documentation of the excitement within the Famous Ballroom provides the best available substitute for having been there. Better yet, these Left Bank Jazz Society sessions now are being documented for the attention of the world beyond Baltimore, allowing jazz fans to realize how legendary jazz musicians performed in the informal venues that were less controlled than the studio recordings, ...

Freddie Hubbard: Above and Beyond

by Jack Bowers
March 1, 1999

When the conversation turns to great trumpeters from the bop era onward — Diz, Brownie, Fats, Lee Morgan, Woody Shaw, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, Booker Little and so on — Freddie Hubbard’s name sometimes slips through the cracks. Too bad, as during his heyday Hubbard could match wits with any of them without embarrassment. Above and Beyond documents a live date in June 1982 at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco. Freddie was 44, had recorded ...

Freddie Hubbard: Live At The Northsea Jazz Festival, 1980

by AAJ Staff
August 1, 1998

Freddie Hubbard's output grew increasingly erratic after his departure from CTI Records in the mid-1970s, and you never knew whether he would come out with a gem like Super Blue or an embarrassing “smooth jazz" stinker like Windjammer. Originally a two-LP set and now a single CD, Live At The Northsea Jazz Festival, 1980 definitely falls into the “gem" category. The trumpeter/flugelhornist is captured on stage at The Hague in Holland, where he leads a cohesive quintet that includes Davis ...

Freddie Hubbard/Oscar Peterson: Face To Face

by AAJ Staff
October 1, 1997

Fantasy can usually be counted on to add worthwhile albums to its Original jazz Classics series, which now exceeds 925 titles. These recent additions, both from the Pablo catalogue, are well worth hearing. The early 1980s found Freddie Hubbard offering some marvelous straight-ahead dates after recording so many commercial “smooth jazz"/NAC stinkers. In 1982, the Clifford Brown-influenced trumpeter teamed up with pianist supreme Oscar Peterson for the post-bop/hard jewel Face To Face. With Peterson, guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Niels Henning ...

Freddie Hubbard: Keystone Bop Vol. 2: Friday/Saturday

by Douglas Payne
April 1, 1997

Here's Freddie Hubbard the way he was meant to be heard -- muscular, exciting, in good form and live on stage with outstanding guests and a top-notch band. Keystone Bop: Vol 2 Friday / Saturday is the second installation from a weekend series of sets recorded November 27-29, 1981, at Todd Barkan's long-gone Keystone Korner in San Francisco. The first issue of this great music came out last year on Prestige as Keystone Bop: Sunday Night. Most of the music ...

Dexter Gordon: Doin' Allright

by Jim Santella
March 1, 1997

Dexter Gordon played smooth jazz before that description took on a whole new meaning. Coming up from the Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins tradition, and playing an active role in the start of bebop, Gordon spent a long, albeit interrupted, career keeping his popular tenor saxophone voice before the jazz public. In May of 1961, when this session took place, Freddie Hubbard had recently signed with Blue Note and had just begun his stay with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

This ...