As many of you know Freddie Hubbard passed away last Monday in Los Angeles at age 70. He was one of my first trumpet heroes - his sound as fluid and dexterous and rich and beautiful in tone as anyone who ever picked up the instrument. During high school I remember spending a good chunk of practice time trying to learn the melody from "Red Clay" and could probably still sing along to his solo on it note for note. But "Crisis" - another favorite from this gem of a session...
... was a little easier to navigate. I'm nowhere near enough of a jazz know-it-all to give any sort of authoritative overview of his recordings. But for starters I can highly recommend the above hard bop classic, as well as this...
... the semi-"out" calypso-influenced title track of which is a highlight. For the past two and a half days Columbia University's WKCR here in NYC (which also streams on-line) has been playing nothing but Freddie Hubbard - from his work as a sideman with Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and others to his early electric period - and they've still got about nine hours to go in their marathon memorial program. When host Phil Schaap's on the mic you'll get about as much insight into this legend and his career as you could hope for. And of course there's all the great music as well. A proper way to spend your New Year's Day. RIP.
0 comments:
Post a Comment