Hub Tunes: The
Freddie Hubbard Discography
Biography:
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© Frank
Schindelbeck
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"Freddie Hubbard is an icon in
Jazz history and I'd like to go on record with that observation!"
CEDAR A. WALTON, Jr.
Freddie Hubbard first played and recorded in Indianapolis with the
Montgomery brothers. After moving in 1958 to New York he began a series of
brief associations with established jazz musicians, including Philly Joe
Jones (1958-59, 1961), Sonny Rollins (1959), Slide Hampton (1959-60), J.J.
Johnson (1960), and Quincy Jones, with whom he toured Europe (1960-61). In
1961 he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, but left in 1964 to lead his
own group. He also played as a sideman with Max Roach (1965-66).
From 1966 Hubbard worked principally with his own quintets and quartets,
though he made a tour of the USA with Herbie Hancock's group V.S.O.P. in
1977. His most constant sideman was Kenny Barron, who played in his groups
of the late 1960s (with Louis Hayes), early 1970s (with Hayes and Junior
Cook), and early 1980s (with Buster Williams and Al Foster). In the
mid-1980s Hubbard made a number of international tours and recorded with
all-star groups, often in the company of Joe Henderson, playing a repertory
of hard-bop and modal-jazz pieces. He continues to perform and record as a
leader, and in 1985 made an album with Woody Shaw.
Hubbard has recorded scores of bop, modal-jazz and jazz-rock albums, both as
a sideman and as a leader. In the early 1960s he also participated in such
radically experimental sessionsas those for Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz and
John Coltrane's Ascension albums, but was subsequently criticized for his
overly conventional playing. His recordings of the mid-1960s with Hancock
placed him among the foremost hard-bop trumpeters, his improvisations
combining imaginative melody with a glossy tone, rapid and clean technique,
a brilliant high register, a subtle vibrato, and bluesy, squeezed half-valve
notes.
In the early 1970s he issued several commercially successful albums with
musicians who had formerly played with Miles Davis (Straight Life won a
Grammy Award), but for the remainder of the decade he unsuccessfully sought
widespread recognition and financial security. He tried funk, all-electronic
rock, disco, and overarranged pop music, and concentrated on ostentatious
virtuoso displays; his trademark, a climactic trill between nonadjacent
pitches (a shake), became a cliche.
During the 1980s, however, he reverted to his former style, improvising on
lyrical ballads and complex bop tunes; unfortunately the histrionic elements
did not entirely disappear from his playing.
--BARRY KERNFELD, The New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz
Quotes
Dizzy used to tell me that I am playing too hard.
He used to say to not give everything. Miles used to tell me that too.
Freddie Hubbard
Eric was different. He would get up and practice with the birds in the morning
on his flute. I thought that was different because it would be early in the
morning and most of the cats were getting home from any jobs that they had at
three or four in the morning. Eric was up bright and early.
Freddie Hubbard
I advise all the young kids to not overwork. You can't be out there blowing
hard. You have to pace yourself.
Freddie Hubbard
I am in discussions with a label. We are talking about doing something.
Freddie Hubbard
I got a scholarship on French horn and I went to a conservatory for about a
year. I left there and went to New York.
Freddie Hubbard
I had been playing with this band at Birdland on Monday nights and Miles was on
the side of the stage. He looked up and I was playing his licks. I played this
solo and I opened my eyes and saw him looking up at me, so all of the sudden, I
had to come up with some of my own ideas.
Freddie Hubbard
I had heard Ornette a couple of times, but I didn't really know where he was
coming from until we started the record and it was beautiful, Fred. It opened up
my mind.
Freddie Hubbard
I met up with Art Blakey in 1963, I think. It was right after Lee Morgan left
and I played with him for about two and a half years.
Freddie Hubbard
I quite drinking, so I can think clear. When you have chop trouble, drinking
doesn't help the healing process.
Freddie Hubbard
I was living with Slide Hampton. Slide Hampton took us in and we were living
over his house for about a year and a half.
Freddie Hubbard
I'm going to Yoshi's. I'm taking a few gigs. I'm playing. I'm not going to play
all the time. I'm going to take it easy and take it slow and warm up so I can
come back.
Freddie Hubbard
Man, they gave me a key to the city. Can you imagine going back to Indiana and
getting the key to the city? So that made me feel pretty good.
Freddie Hubbard
Now, Ascension was different, with all those free form playing guys, Archie
Shepp, John Tchicai, these are brothers I never even thought about playing with.
Freddie Hubbard
That was the biggest thrill, going over to these guy's houses and having them
want me to practice with them and they would show me a lot of stuff, which was
really advanced stuff to me at my age.
Freddie Hubbard
They always want to sell me as a hard bopper.
Freddie Hubbard
We all kind of grew up together with Art Blakey because we all were young and he
gave us a chance to write. We had to write something that was good and to sit up
with a great guy like Art Blakey and watch him.
Freddie Hubbard
Well, my sister played trumpet. Can you imagine having a sister blowing the
trumpet around the house, Fred? And my brother, he played piano. Everybody was
playing some kind of music, so it was natural for me to get into it.
Freddie Hubbard
When I got started in New York, it wasn't like it is now. If you were different
from Miles and Dizzy, it was very difficult to make gigs and make money with
your own style.
Freddie Hubbard
When you are trying to do something when you are getting started and you are
trying to make records for the first time, you want it to be the best.
Freddie Hubbard
Yes, I can play. I can play. I can't play as long as I did and as hard, but I
don't think I have to.
Freddie Hubbard
