Freddie Hubbard was one of the finest trumpet players to have emerged from the jazz lineage of Dizzy GILLESPIE, Fats Navarro, and Clifford BROWN. At his best, Hubbard played with a confident, searing tone and burning intensity, in taut yet powerful lines. Hubbard performed hot jazz—frenetic, never laid-back—and proved adept at ballads, blues, modal jazz, and hard bop, in every imaginable setting.
Hubbard was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on April 7, 1939. He studied music in high school and gave his first professional performance in his hometown, with fellow Indianapolis natives the Montgomery Brothers.
Moving to New York City in 1958, Hubbard became an associate of some of hard-bop’s best. He frequently teamed up with the explosive drummer Philly Joe Jones, as well as with Sonny ROLLINS, Slide Hampton, and J. J. Johnson. In 1961 he toured Europe with an orchestra led by Quincy JONES.
In 1961, still only 23 years old, but with tremendous experience, Hubbard replaced Lee Morgan in Art BLAKEY’S Jazz Messengers. With Wayne SHORTER he created the frontline that some feel was Blakey’s finest. He left later that year to found his own group; this included pianist Kenny Barron, whose bluesy yet lush sound was to provide over the coming decades a frequent complement to Hubbard’s fiery trumpet.
Between 1962 and 1965, Hubbard released three albums that rank among his finest as a band leader (all with James Spaulding on alto sax and flute): Hub-Tones, also with pianist Herbie HANCOCK; Breaking Point, a crackling mixture of free atonality, beautiful melody and blues feeling; and Night of the Cookers, Vols. 1 and 2, with Lee Morgan.
Hubbard mercurially disbanded his own group in 1965 to join Max ROACH. The following year he returned to leading his own bands, mostly comprising the classic hard-bop quintet of trumpet, sax, bass, piano, and drums. He generally continued in this vein into the late 1990s, making additional appearances as part of Herbie Hancock’s V.S.O.P. tour (with Hancock, Shorter, Tony WILLIAMS, and Ron Carter), as well as with Woody Shaw and Joe HENDERSON.
Hubbard also contributed to seminal free and modern jazz 1960s recordings such as Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, John COLTRANE’S Ascension, and Ornette COLEMAN’S Free Jazz. Hubbard’s recordings since 1966 were somewhat inconsistent, however. Many suffered from commercial trappings, intended to enhance Hubbard’s talent but with mixed results. There are nevertheless several worth noting, especially the elastic, swinging Red Clay with Henderson, Hancock, Carter, and Lenny White (1970), and the adventurous live album California Concert, recorded at the Hollywood Palladium in 1971 with a band that included Carter, Hank Crawford, John Hammond, George Benson, Billy Cobham, and Airto. In the 1980s, some of Hubbard’s best work appeared on a pair of Blue Note albums with Woody Shaw: Double Take and The Eternal Triangle.
Hubbard lent his distinctive, robust sound to sessions led by Shorter, Dexter GORDON, Oliver Nelson, and Jackie McLean, and recorded as a band leader with Cedar Walton, Jimmy Heath, Elvin JONES, and McCoy TURNER. More than any trumpeter playing in the later 20th century, Hubbard came the closest to being an equal to Miles DAVIS. Hubbard’s Blues for Miles, released a few years after Davis’ death, is a tribute worthy of its subject and among Hubbard’s best work of the decade.
As a trumpet player, Freddie Hubbard was an important stylist, and many subsequent players, including Charles Tolliver, Randy Brecker, Woody Shaw, and Wynton MARSALIS, are indebted to his exceptional style and technique.
Chris Slawecki
SEE ALSO:
BEBOP; COOL JAZZ; JAZZ.
FURTHER READING
Rosenthal, David. Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music, 1955–1965 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Blues for Miles; Night of the Cookers, Vols. 1 and 2.