The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (50 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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Page 201
cluding a version of the rarely done Miles Davis blues "Sippin' at Bells"). Farmer can also be heard in two earlier sets -
Clifford Brown Memorial
(Prestige/OJC-017) and
Wardell Gray Memorial, Volume 2
(Prestige/OJC-051) - that are less interesting for his presence than for the work of the leaders. Four tracks on the Brown set feature Farmer and trumpeter Clifford Brown shoulder-to-shoulder in Sweden in 1953; good as Farmer sounds, it is Brown who gets the attention here. The set by Wardell Gray, an excellent Lester Young-inspired tenor player, includes six 1951 tracks with Farmer not yet fully formed, among which is one of the records that first brought the trumpeter some notice, a blues called "Farmer's Market."
Booker Little
In many ways Booker Little may have turned out to be the most talented trumpeter to arrive in the wake of Clifford Brown, but his full potential was never realized; he died in late 1961 at the age of twenty-three. His best-known records were made with saxophonist and flutist Eric Dolphy; he also played with one of drummer Max Roach's late-1950s groups.
Dolphy's
Far Cry
(New Jazz/OJC-400) features Little at length at the peak of his powers. Listen to the extraordinary range and breath control on his solo in the first track, a bright-tempo blues by the session's pianist, Jaki Byard, called "Mrs. Parker of K.C." (usually referred to as "Bird's Mother"); Little's melodic conception was all his own, and his sound was already easily identifiable - a beautiful, tart upper register that could give way in cascades of notes to pungent figures in the middle and lower registers. His playing throughout this varied set (which stays within a swinging, straight four-four rhythmic context) is on the same high level, abetted by Byard, bassist Ron Carter, and master drummer Roy Haynes.
Three Eric Dolphy albums recorded live at New York's Five Spot eight months later,
Eric Dolphy at the Five Spot Volume 1
(New Jazz/OJC-133),
Eric Dolphy at the Five Spot Volume 2
(Prestige/OJC-247), and
Eric Dolphy and Booker Little Memorial Album
(Prestige/OJC-353), maintain a similar conception of group playing, with all members of the ensemble (besides Dolphy and Little, the group includes pianist Mal Waldron, bassist Richard Davis, and New Orleans drummer Ed Blackwell) contributing to an overall group sound rather than just accompanying, yet still maintaining a swinging pulse.
Memorial Album
contains only two tunes, the sixteen-and-a-half-minute "Number Eight," which alternates between a Latin vamp and straight-ahead swing, and the bright-tempo "Booker's Waltz."
At the Five Spot Volume 1
has another waltz, Mal Waldron's "Fire Waltz,"
 
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along with the churning, up-tempo "Bee Vamp" (on which Little swings very hard) and the side-long performance of Dolphy's shifting-tempo "The Prophet," which has written into the melody an interval of a minor second for the trumpet and alto sax to play against each other. This track has some of the best Little of all three Five Spot sets (and check out Ed Blackwell's playing behind his solo).
Volume 2
has side-long versions of "Like Someone in Love" (with an excellent, lyrical trumpet solo and fine Dolphy flute playing) and Little's own ''Aggression," an exciting, turbulent, up-tempo piece. By the way, a listen to Mal Waldron's introduction and solo on "Like Someone in Love" will show why musicians so often complained (and complain) about the untuned pianos in jazz clubs.
A younger, somewhat less-formed but already brilliant Booker Little can be heard on Max Roach's
Deeds, Not Words
(Riverside/OJC-304). Although the level of musicianship on this album, which also features tenor saxophonist George Coleman, bassist Art Davis, and tuba player Ray Draper, is very high, it's still a disappointing set, both for the absence of a piano and for the presence of Draper's tuba, which, to my ears, inevitably muddies what need to be crisp-sounding ensemble lines.
Freddie Hubbard
One of the most influential trumpeters of the last thirty years, Freddie Hubbard, like Lee Morgan before him and many others after him (including Wynton Marsalis), got his first extended public exposure while with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, which he joined in 1961 at the age of twenty-three. He had, however, been one of the young cats to watch since his arrival in New York City in 1958.
Hubbard's sound is full, brassy, and piercing, and he plays with great authority and hardly ever a tentative note. His music is usually very busy and full of energy; in this way, his music prefigured that of the fusion players of the 1970s. Not surprisingly, Hubbard was one of the players of his generation who got most involved in incorporating rock elements into jazz in the late 1960s and 1970s. Many of these elements were extensions of the vamp- and modal-oriented work of Blakey and Horace Silver but without the rhythmic lift and sense of exhilaration that had been part of jazz. Beginning with his 1966 album
Backlash
(Atlantic 90466-2), Hubbard plugged in heavy rock elements, and in 1970 he scored a big hit with
Red Clay
(CBS ZK 40809). This section will look at his earlier work, which was more steeped in the jazz tradition.
Definitely one of the most undiluted and impressive examples of Hubbard's abilities is the mid-1960s Herbie Hancock album
Empyrean Isles
(Blue
 
Page 203
Note 84175), on which the trumpeter plays with Miles Davis's rhythm section of Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. The set is full of subtle interplay among the members of the rhythm section and between Hubbard and drummer Williams. The essentially percussive nature of Hubbard's playing is really pointed up here, as are his extraordinary range and strength of tone and conception. This is a furiously cooking and, at times, very lyrical record. Hubbard is also heard on Hancock's
Takin' Off
(Blue Note 46506), on which he is paired with Dexter Gordon, and
Maiden Voyage
(Blue Note 46339), which again features the Hancock-Carter-Williams rhythm section, along with tenor saxophonist George Coleman, in a masterfully balanced set. Hubbard's work here, from a purely technical standpoint, will leave trumpet players and fans alike slack-jawed with admiration.
Early on, Hubbard had strong credentials both in the hard-bop school and with the more avant-garde players of the time; it is a little startling to notice that in November of 1960 he played on one of tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley's best albums,
Roll Call
(Blue Note 46823), with such stalwarts as Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Art Blakey, then appeared five weeks later on Ornette Coleman's seminal
Free Jazz
(Atlantic 1364-2), regarded at the time as one of the most radical and avant-garde recordings ever made. He did something similar in mid-1965, recording
Maiden Voyage
with Herbie Hancock in May, then appearing on John Coltrane's notorious
Ascension
in June. Hubbard, to my ears, never really fit in with the farther-out players, but it is to his credit that he explored those forms and certainly a testament to his huge talent that he was accepted and sought after by players of all persuasions.
Two of Hubbard's best mid-1960s recordings under his own name are
Hub Cap
(Blue Note 84073) and
Here to Stay
(Blue Note 84135). Both feature pianist Cedar Walton and drummer Philly Joe Jones; on
Hub Cap
, the trumpeter shares the front line with trombonist Julian Priester and the excellent and too-seldom-heard Jimmy Heath on tenor (Larry Ridley's bass rounds out the rhythm section). Hubbard's front-line mate on
Here to Stay
is his Blakey bandmate, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter.
Hub Cap
also spotlights Hubbard's talents as a composer. Both sets are very hard swinging;
Here to Stay
also includes the standards "Body and Soul" and "Full Moon and Empty Arms."
Hubbard's ballad ability is heard to good advantage on his version of Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark" on the Art Blakey album
Caravan
(Riverside/OJC-038); you can hear his great trumpet control here, especially a perfectly modulated vibrato on his held notes, and his full tone in all registers. This album also features two takes of his original tune "Thermo." Two Hubbard originals can be heard on Blakey's
Mosaic
(Blue Note 46523), the back-beat-inflected "Down Under" and the complex and fascinating vamp-based
 
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"Crisis." Notice how, in "Crisis," a number of contrasting thematic elements are combined in a short span of time and brought into balance with each other. Both of these albums also feature Hubbard at his best, along with Shorter, Walton, trombonist Curtis Fuller, Blakey, and either Jymie Merritt or Reggie Workman on bass.
Shorter's album
Speak No Evil
(Blue Note 46509) is, by any measure, a classic date, featuring Hubbard and the leader with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and drummer Elvin Jones in a program consisting entirely of Shorter's unorthodox but wholly logical compositions, full of surprises, changes in dynamics, and unsentimental lyricism. They bring out the trumpeter's most supple aspect. Two albums with tenorist Hank Mobley also have Hubbard at his best, 1960's
Roll Call
(Blue Note 46823) and 1965's
The Turnaround
(Blue Note 84186).
Roll Call
has the powerhouse rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Art Blakey;
The Turnaround
has the excellent Barry Harris on piano and Billy Higgins on drums, with Chambers still in the bass chair.
One of Hubbard's regular associates in the early 1960s was multireed man Eric Dolphy, who had played a very important role in Charles Mingus's band as well as in a number of important avant-garde situations, notably Ornette Coleman's
Free Jazz
(Atlantic 1364-2), on which Hubbard was also a participant, and John Coltrane's small groups. Dolphy was as strong a musical personality as Hubbard; the two make a pungent aesthetic combination. Dolphy's 1960
Outward Bound
(New Jazz/OJC-022) is a very swinging date on which the two horn players are accompanied by pianist Jaki Byard, bassist George Tucker, and drummer Roy Haynes. Two standards, "Green Dolphin Street" and "Glad To Be Unhappy," are along for the ride with four Dolphy originals, including the engaging "Miss Toni." Despite the claim in the liner notes that "this is the sound of tomorrow, the sound of the Atlas missile, the sound of the Pioneer radio blip from outer space," the music, today, reveals its true strengths, which come not from its power to shock but from the effectiveness with which the musicians found their own ways of expressing enduring truths. Hubbard sounds very fresh on this session, which has a good mix of slow and fast tempos and different moods.
Dolphy's 1964
Out to Lunch
(Blue Note 46524) is a more challenging set for ears used to the older forms. The program is made up entirely of Dolphy originals, which make use of unusual structures and time signatures. The Dolphy-Hubbard team is augmented by the extremely inventive and flexible bassist Richard Davis and drummer Tony Williams. Bobby Hutcherson's vibes take the role usually filled by piano. This album is difficult but very rewarding; often the pulse is entirely implied, with the rhythm players offering an ongoing
 
Page 205
commentary on what the horn players are doing. It is improvised music of a very high order, although sometimes Dolphy's way of accenting and playing melody seems to have left the arena of jazz and African American conception entirely. Hubbard's work, here, is in many ways the least interesting on the album; he doesn't seem entirely comfortable with this particular kind of group improvisation. Hubbard and Dolphy are together also for one of the strongest sessions of the 1960s, Oliver Nelson's
Blues and the Abstract Truth
(MCA/Impulse MCAD-5659).
Hubbard is heard in a straight-ahead, cooking context on the 1961 Jackie McLean album
Bluesnik
(Blue Note 84067), on which the great altoist and Hubbard go toe-to-toe on a program of blues in different hues, backed by a first-rate rhythm section of Kenny Drew on piano, Doug Watkins on bass, and Pete La Roca's Kenny Clarke - influenced drumming. Hubbard plays with great power and excitement on every track. This album is a good reminder of the variety possible with the inexhaustible wellspring of jazz, the blues: there is the up-tempo bebop-style title tune, the slow "Goin' Way Blues," Kenny Drew's three very different pieces, and Hubbard's own gutbucket "Blues Function."
The presence of older horn giants often seemed to inspire Hubbard's most thoughtful, inventive statements. Four months after the McLean session, Hubbard was a sideman on a classic album by Dexter Gordon,
Doin' Allright
(Blue Note 84077). Hubbard is heard, again, in a straight-ahead context here, contributing a nice spot on the ballad "You've Changed," as well as some grits-and-gravy blues cooking on the Gordon original "Society Red" and an exciting ride on the up-tempo standard "It's You or No One." A much more unusual meeting between Hubbard and an older horn man is Sonny Rollins's strange
East Broadway Run Down
(MCA/Impulse MCAD-33120); Hubbard plays a brilliant long solo accompanied only by drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Jimmy Garrison on the twenty-minute-long, medium-tempo title track, which certainly has one of the weirdest Rollins solos ever recorded.

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