Review: Freddie Hubbard - On The Real Side

Freddie Hubbard’s final album, ‘On The Real Side’, was his first for almost seven years. A prolific and varied career that took in the legendary labels Blue Note and CTI, as well as fellow trumpet player Miles Davis’ home for thirty years, Columbia, Hubbard also played with a list of people that almost reads as a who’s who of jazz from the sixties through to the eighties.

Although less prolific in his recording for the last decade, he continued to play many live dates, even up until his final year. Heartbreakingly though, a number various factors, including ‘partying’, lack of practice and over-exertion, meant that as time progressed, his performances grew increasingly weaker and tired sounding. ‘On The Real Side’ however sounds as though all the stops have been pulled out to make it every bit an as-strong-as-possible swansong.

Granted, he doesn’t possess the fiery, full-ranged ability that he displayed to often fine effect on his defining Blue Note and CTI releases, but his playing is still inspired and passionate, and nowhere does this sound like a man at the end. Seven pieces are here, with six choice tunes appearing from his past, while the title track is a fresh new composition. ‘Sky Dive’ and ‘Take It To The Ozone’ are first rate, while the Latin-sounding ‘Gibraltar’ is the clear highlight of the set. The one new track here too is a very soulful side to Hubbard and well worth hearing on its own.

Regardless of the highs, and they are here in full-force, this isn’t a career best. Hubbard really needs his collaborators on this date, serving for the most part as the main solo or just as the jump-off point for the the rest of the group to come in or hit a groove. His technical skills diminished, he plays shorter phrases through necessity, missing the earlier bravura, and his solos last usually for just a few short choruses. He is however deeply musical and very tuneful throughout, and is still able to show his extraordinary gift for melody. A great artist, his sound is still here, despite the multiple obstacles of his various physical restraints, and it’s a mostly bittersweet joy for any jazz fan.

***

Review: Freddie Hubbard - Night Of The Cookers

A live Freddie Hubbard recording should always really be something of a welcome prospect, which given their limited number makes ‘The Night Of The Cookers’ even more disappointing. A double album of two club night performances of long and extended pieces, we get four tracks all around the twenty-minute mark showcasing a duelling match between trumpet kings Hubbard and Lee Morgan, with support from a mixed band supplying sax and flute, piano, bass, drums and congas. And with one of those players being the excellent James Spaulding, this should have been a classic. Instead it comes nowhere close.

First of all, the recording itself is appalling, sounding badly miked, muddy and quite often nowhere near the instruments. There are some otherwise good solos here that are ruined by the fact that you can’t hear them because the rhythm section is so far in front, that the soloist is completely distant and buried in the mix.

Second is that the long jams that make up the bulk of the music are a chaotic and jangled mess. The full band is often found playing as hard and as much as they can all at the same time, with little in the way of space or breathing room. ‘Pensativa’ is almost a complete waste of time for this very reason, with ‘Walking’ benefitting from a more blues-sounding strut, but is still far from acceptable.

More confusingly and unexpectedly is that the legendary Lee Morgan here sounds completely abysmal and lost, with Hubbard clearly sounding in a different and stronger league. There are a lot of solos on this gig, and most of them are far too stretched out, starting as they do frequently with too little an idea - Morgan in particular is devastatingly uninspired throughout.

‘Jodo’ picks up things with some strong moments and a nice fast paced rhythm, which unfortunately gives way to some appalling conga solos, and leaving it to Hubbard’s own ‘Breaking Point’ to steal the small honour of easily being the best piece here. Melding Spanish-informed music with a calypso feel, it sounds like the band has finally finished rehearsal and is now stepping up to something approaching an A-game. It’s sad then that the sound is still atrocious.

There are some good bits and pieces here and there scattered throughout, but nothing that isn’t available in a much better format, or sound quality, on other more solid releases, for either trumpet stars here. Each also has better live efforts too; in Hubbards excellent ‘Without A Song’ and Morgans definitive three album set ‘Live At The Lighthouse’. Regardless of these though, nothing with this bad a sound recording should ever be put out as an ‘official’ release, and for the price and poor quality of the music in general, this one should without exception be side-stepped and forgotten.

*

Review: Freddie Hubbard - Polar AC

An unexceptional recording by trumpeter extraordinaire Freddie Hubbard, especially given his immediately previous high quality output, it’s one of the entry efforts to his career brown patch that would unfortunately last for pretty much most of the rest of the decade.

A strong band has little to do with the middling pieces chosen, but none-the-less Hubert Laws’ flute and George Benson’s guitar blend seamlessly and create a good interplay. The soloing from both men and Junior Cook’s saxophone too is impeccable, but sadly the rest of the band are pretty much uninvolved and struggle to rise above the material.

Some grand over-production, typical of this period in CTI’s history, too drags the album down, with the obvious exceptions of ironically the title track, and ‘Son Of Sky Dive’. These two numbers sound alive and beat with a pulse that is clearly lacking from the rest of the album, so much so in fact that you suspect that maybe these two were recorded or produced at a separate session.

Freddie still soars high on his trumpet, but he’s clearly either uninspired or low on ideas throughout. For every half-decent moment there’s an equally lost-at-sea solo that leaves him sounding confused and unfocused. But like the album as a whole there is little that is actively unlikeable, just not much in the way of anything eventful or memorable. After the sheer musical highpoints of his opening CTI salvo, including ‘Red Clay’ and ‘Straight Life’, this is very much the sound of Freddie Hubbard coasting.

**

Review: Stanley Turrentine - Have You Ever Seen The Rain

‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain’ is perhaps the absolute epitomy of a great jazz musician attempting commercial crossover; attempting and failing. Stanley Turrentine, who’d recorded a number of perfect artistic and commercially successful albums with the CTI label, for some unknown reason chose to leave his home of his greatest successes to join Fantasy. Immediately, with his label debut ‘Pieces Of Dreams’, the results were not pretty. His third album for Fantasy, as with that earlier record and indeed most of his mid-to-late seventies work, prominently features a full-size string section, and it’s this overwhelming presence that really scuppers the music here.

Saccharine then is the key word, with everything drowned in unpleasant gloopy-sounding strings, and with none of the material here anything but ballads. ‘Tommy’s Tune’, by Turrentines trmpet player brother Tommy is a little more of an up-tempo style ballad and, thankfully missing the strings, is unarguably the best piece, with most of the rest generally being covers of other then-current hits. The title track is of course from Creedence Clearwater Revival, with ‘You’ coming from Marlena Shaw, and Earth, Wind & Fire supplying ‘Reasons’ and ‘That’s The Way Of The World’.

Phenomenally kitsch and soft, it absolutely reeks of the label aiming for a cash-in. Maybe Turrentine really did love and just want to play ballads and only ballads, but where someone in control had aimed for romance, they instead hit cloying and over-sentimental. Most surprising of all though is just who is squandered on this travesty. Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette, masterful players both, are here stripped of any personality – most likely in case they interfere with the strings – and Freddie Hubbard plays beautifully too, but somehow uninterestingly. Everyone else too gets to sound mostly like a jobbing sessioner, except the main man himself who very nearly acquits himself with his soulful playing.

Most likely to have a track or two end up on a compilation titled something along the lines of ‘Music For Lovers’ or ‘Candlelit Ballads For You And Your Lover’, it’s a career low for the saxophone man and deserves a seriously wide berth indeed.

*

Review: Freddie Hubbard - Backlash

‘Backlash’ was the first of Freddie Hubbard’s three albums for the Atlantic label, a brief interim musical period for the trumpeter, after leaving Blue Note in 1966, and before joining CTI for his soon-to-be commercial peak in 1970. And in truth it sits somewhere between the music of those two periods, his familiar style leaning much more towards his funk-inflected work of the seventies.

Funky riffs and grooves percolate the proceedings, with everything more measured than the comparatively free-form and experimental work of his later Blue Note sessions. The title track is a relaxed groover serving up some nice piano accompaniment and trumpet playing, along with ‘Little Sunflower’ and ‘Echoes Of Blue’, while ‘On The Que-Tee’ is more traditional faster-paced Hubbard fare that benefits from a brilliant standout theme. The icing on the cake though is an incredibly strong reading of ‘Up Jumped Spring’ that ranks as one of the best of anything Hubbard has ever recorded.

It’s an excellent set with a good band, with notably James Spaulding making a suitable foil for Hubbard with his alto sax and flute stylings, and Ray Barretto adding his nicely funky conga percussion throughout. For those interested in his commercial zenith work with CTI, this is a great indicator of what was to come, it being a significant stride away from his acoustic early Blue Note days. One of Hubbards sometimes more forgotten efforts, ‘Backlash’ really is actually one of his strongest.

****

Review: Freddie Hubbard - Red Clay

The dominant and possibly defining jazz label of the 1970’s, CTI had an occasionally almost schizophrenic output, producing for the most part straight and swinging jazz as well as some of the best fusion works of the time, but also releasing a number of recordings that helped create the roots of smooth-jazz and muzak. As such, for every Stanley Turrentine’s ‘Sugar’ with it grooving funky jazz, or Jim Hall’s undisputed masterpiece ‘Concierto’, there’s a Bob James record which borders dangerously close to disco (good pianist, excellent arranger, lacklustre artist).

Grabbing the then biggest names in jazz, Creed Taylor signed them up to enjoy quite often their most commercially successful periods. For Freddie Hubbard this was obviously true, whose albums here sold massively in comparison to his earlier Blue Note sessions. Prior to CTI, his best work was often playing under the leadership of others such as Herbie Hancock or Wayne Shorter, but under Taylor’s wing he produced a tight fist of work that rank as his highest achievements under his own name. The first of these in particular, ‘Red Clay’, surrounds him with the stellar company of Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Joe Henderson and Lenny White, and is immediately a winner.

The title track opens with a short section that wouldn’t sound out of place on one of Miles Davis’ spacier sections from his epochal ‘Bitches Brew’, with Hubbard and Henderson trading blows, before quickly settling into a soulful and easy rhythm set out by Carter and White. Hancock plays some nice and languid electric piano over the top and everyone gets to solo with impressive skill and finesse. ‘Delphia’ that follows is almost as good too; a slower moving piece, with some moody organ work from Hancock, the trumpet man gets to play one of his finest solos, flitting from introspective to upbeat and lightly boppy. Some tasteful flute is added too, for colour rather than any solo, and it raises the piece nicely.

The cleverly-titled ‘Suite Sioux’ is perhaps the least interesting piece here, sounding like a more traditional if likeable enough bop, albeit with a subtle hint of bossa and the use of some electrics. Henderons solo though is spot on. A very seventies fade-out-and-then-fade-back-in closes the track unmemorably. ‘The Intrepid Fox’ gets things back on track though with an urgent and feverish number that has everyone sounding lively and energized, with some great riffing and Hubbard going for a definite less-is-more approach that handsomely pays off.

As bonuses we get a bold and funky take on John Lennon’s ‘Cold Turkey’, which though fun is far from essential and just runs out of puff. Much better is an impressive version of the title track from a later live date. At almost nineteen minutes, it’s some six minutes longer than the studio take and it’s a corker; looser and freer-flowing, it’s a powerful show, with the bonus presence of guitarist George Benson adding greatly to the mix.

‘Red Clay’ is a fusion work that doesn’t really fall into the same bucket as most other ‘fusion’. One of the earliest and perhaps ‘less fused’ records of the era, it’s basically a then contemporary take on modal jazz, but with harder hitting drums, and electric piano and bass instead of acoustic. No attempts here to borrow head-down groove from funk bands, slashing guitar work from the rockers, or bizarre keyboard effects and sounds, and as such it gives Hubbard his own voice while at the same time preventing it from sounding as dated as other similar works of the era. Additionally and importantly, there’s certainly no obvious copying of any of Miles or his then current experimentations. In fact it sounds simply like good strong jazz and is consequently one of the trumpeters (and labels) defining albums.

*****

Review: Freddie Hubbard - Without A Song: Live In Europe

Not that Freddie Hubbards death created a new sudden desire for unissued and locked-in-the-vault material, but it certainly did fire the many labels he had recorded for to leap into very quick action. And with his existing live recorded output woefully thin on the ground, and variable in quality, ‘Without A Song: Live In Europe’ is justifiably one of the most anticipated of his post-humous releases. Recorded from 1969 in three different venues from London, Bristol and some unspecified location in Germany, the trumpeter was actually involved in the processes for its release too. Excited about the album and other similar archival finds, it really is a great shame that he didn’t live to see this release in all its glory.

A strong live band is formed around the rhythm of bassist Ron Carter and drummer Louis Hayes, with Roland Hanna lending his skills on piano, and interestingly no second horn, allowing Hubbard full reign to solo as he pleases, with his signature sound showcased immediately from the start. The mood throughout is notably buoyant and joyful and sounding like everyone is fully enjoying themselves, with just ‘The Things We Did Last Summer’ dipping into more melancholic ballad fare, but still sounding beautiful – just like the other ballad here, ‘Body & Soul’, which in fact is the only piece to have appeared elsewhere in the Hubbard discography, with everything else here tantalisingly receiving its very first release.

It’s very close to being consistently all good too, from the slower ballads to the energetic classic of ‘A Night In Tunisia’, with Hubbard simmering all over the set. There’s some raw aggression here too, but being Hubbard of course, it’s all done with a clear head for emotional resonance, while Hayes supplies the requisite thunder, opening many of the numbers with impressive and powerful attack. His inspired playing on ‘Blues By Five’ in particular is a treat to behold.

The end of the set closes questionably however, starting with the far-out and distinctly free ‘Space Track’. Manic, abstract, and unsettling it doesn’t sit well with the rest of the tunes here, and would have been better left off altogether. Never-the-less, it was Hubbard himself who insisted on its inclusion. Thankfully things then end on a high with ‘Hub-Tones’, four minues of high energy interplay, with so much going on, it sounds like eight minutes compacted to fit everything in. Hayes’ brief solo is a nice touch too.

The entire band, unsurprisingly, sounds good here, but there is no mistake that this is Hubbards show, and he is shown in a very good light indeed – as the true master of the trumpet that he was, with command over both melody and also a strong swaggering muscularity. Despite the disjointed inclusion of ‘Space Track’, this is an essential Hubbard recording of the moment just before he joined the CTI stable and entered arguably the most commercially successful phase of his career.

****

Review: Stanley Turrentine - Sugar

Stanley Turrentine possessed one of the biggest and fattest soulful tenor sax sounds of all time. And 'Sugar' is his masterpiece. Anyone with even a passing interest in Turrentine or soul-jazz needs to look here.

After some twenty varying works over almost ten years for the established Blue Note label, ranging widely in quality but with a good number of excellent sessions, tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine then signed with the still young CTI. Formed by Verve producer-extraordinaire Creed Taylor, who brought with him highly-regarded Blue Note engineer Rudy Van Gelder, the label fast developed a strong reputation for sharp sound, production quality and most importantly giving an extra commercial boost to many jazz artists without having to resort to pandering or ‘selling-out’.

Turrentine joined the label in 1970, having made a respectable if not particularly huge impact with his former employers. A long-time yet still young veteran of the soul-jazz scene, he was quickly paired by Taylor with some of the finest contemporary players around, including the fast-rising George Benson on guitar, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Lonnie Liston Smith and Butch Cornell, on organ and electric piano respectively, Billy Kaye on drums and unsurprisingly Ron Carter on bass. Carter being of course almost the sole bass player of the CTI label. Together, armed with just three extended tracks, they seemingly effortlessly made Turrentines then best record.

‘Sugar’, the title track, is a grooving soul-blues number with a mellow yet irrestibly funky rhythm at its centre giving a nice springboard to Turrentine, Hubbard and Benson to turn up the heat and lay down some smouldering and blistering solos. It’s a perfect party number, was a suitably huge hit, and would become a firm Turrentine fan favourite, before eventually even becoming Turrentine’s most popular nickname.

Butch Cornells own ‘Sunshine Alley’ is a funkier number with a nice rhythm set by Smith’s organ. Faster paced than the opening cooker, it keeps the party feel going from the first piece and ups the groove by just the right amount. A surprising take on John Coltranes own ‘Impressions’ then wraps everything up with an emotionally uplifting and solid ending, and again highlights all the soloists strengths as performers.

It’s not a fusion session, although there are some electric and electronic instruments and other fusion elements here, and it isn’t jazz-funk either - ‘Sugar’ though is Turrentine’s own blended take on soul-jazz with plenty of both funk and groove. It’s a very listenable record and has many fans. While his Blue Note records can be good, and they frequently are, very few are as exceptional as the recording shown here, and there’s often a lack of unique distinction to his own voice. This though is an incredibly satisfying listen and is easily one of the great mans, and the decades, best.

*****