On the second of four nights at Freddie Hubbard's record date with the New Jazz Composers Octet last December, the star trumpeter didn't lay down a note. He improvised poses, faces and witticisms, but no lines on his horn. He didn't enter the isolation booth prepared for him.
Still, some of Hubbard's best music in a decade was being realized at Bennett Studios in Englewood, N.J., thanks to producer/arranger/trumpeter David Weiss, the focused New Jazz Composers Octet (NJCO) and tenor saxophonist Craig Handy, who tore through a couple of intense, adventurous takes of Hubbard's “Theme For Kareem." A longtime Hubbard associate and member of the NJCO when it was formed 12 years ago, Handy enjoyed propulsive support from pianist Xavier Davis, bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer E.J. Strickland. He was launched higher by Weiss's tautly harmonized, tightly pivoting parts that gained orchestral weight and colors from crafty balances of baritone saxophone and trombone, alto and tenor or soprano saxophones and trumpet-- Weiss's, not Hubbard's.
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