{"id":143,"date":"2008-12-05T14:53:06","date_gmt":"2008-12-05T19:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2008\/12\/la-based_jazz_consultant_ricky\/"},"modified":"2011-04-28T16:34:22","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T20:34:22","slug":"la-based_jazz_consultant_ricky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/12\/la-based_jazz_consultant_ricky.html","title":{"rendered":"Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard ailing"},"content":{"rendered":"
L.A.-based jazz consultant Ricky Shultz (who directed one of this year’s most innovative label rollouts for Resonance Records<\/a>) writes: “Freddie Hubbard suffered heart failure last Sunday and is in ICU. One of Freddie’s past bandmates spoke with his wife yesterday a.m. He is being worked on to revive certain organs’ function. I’m told there were some encouraging signs but his condition remains critical. Share some love with all that great Freddie music and keep him in your thoughts.”<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
Trumpeter Hubbard<\/a> has been a jazzman’s jazzman and a jazz listener’s<\/span>, too, bringing bravura chops and visceral feeling to acts of creative daring as a form of popular entertainment (and sometimes art) for 50 years. What follows is my feature article on Freddie Hubbard in “authorized” form, slightly different than the version published as the cover story in Down Beat<\/span> last June:<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

On the second of four nights at Freddie Hubbard’s record date with the New Jazz Composers Octet in December 2007, the star trumpeter didn’t commit a note. He improvised poses, faces and witticisms, but no lines on his horn. He didn’t even venture into the isolation booth Tony Bennett’s sound engineer had prepared for him…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\n. . . Still, some of Hubbard’s best music
\nin a decade was being realized at the well-appointed Bennett studio in
\nEnglewood, New Jersey, thanks to producer-arranger-trumpeter David Weiss, the
\nexpertly focused NJCO ensemble and guest tenor saxophone soloist Craig Handy,
\nwho tore through a couple of intense, adventurous takes of Hubbard’s classic
\n“Theme For Kareem.” <\/a>A longtime Hubbard associate and member of the NJCO when it was formed 12 years ago, Handy enjoyed propulsive support from pianist Xavier Davis, bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer E.J. Strickland, being launched even higher by tautly harmonized, tightly pivoting written parts that gained orchestral weight and colors from crafty balances of baritone saxophone and
\ntrombone, alto and tenor or soprano saxes and trumpet. But the trumpeter thickening
\nthe blend was David Weiss, not Freddie Hubbard. <\/p>\n

“Man, I’m standing in a pool of
\nblood,” gasped Handy, perched on a stool, to the musicians in the studio around
\nhim after one breathtaking run-through.<\/p>\n

Hubbard, listening to a playback of
\n“Kareem” in the control room, approved, saying, “He sounds like Joe
\nHenderson.” Henderson had been the soloist on Hubbard’s bounding theme when it
\nwas first recorded — with Hubert Laws, Kenny Barron, Ron Carter and Jack
\nDeJohnette — at the sessions resulting in his Columbia album Super Blue<\/a><\/i> in 1978. I was observing back
\nthen, on assignment for Down Beat<\/i>,
\nand Hubbard was undeniably that date’s driving force, leading his one-time
\ndream team with a level of power, precision, originality and personality few
\njazz trumpeters have rivaled. Flash forward almost 30 years to Bennett Studios,
\nWeiss, Handy, the New Jazz Composers Octet . . . Hubbard is a changed person.<\/p>\n

He absorbs himself in the football
\ngame on tv, joshes with the NJCO’s frontline members Myron Walden, Jimmy Greene, Norbert Statchel
\nand Steve Davis, confers quietly with Weiss, mugs through a photo shoot, but
\ndoes not command the scene with his instrument, because he’s grappling with a
\nchallenge as old as jazz.<\/p>\n

Ever since Buddy Bolden<\/a>, the
\nhottest trumpeters to survive burning youth have confronted physical
\ndegradation as they age. King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Red Allen, Roy Eldridge,
\nDizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Miles Davis, Don Cherry and Maynard Ferguson all
\namended their performance practices to contend with their problems. Musical
\nfire and youthful inspiration are by themselves not enough to sustain
\nproductive second and third acts of long creative lives.<\/p>\n

The sheer physical wear a brass player experiences,
\ncompressing flesh and muscle against steel to shape a stream of air for hours
\nat a time compares to the physical exertions that professional athletes endure.
\nHowever, athletes compete in games of intermittent action scheduled with days
\nbetween and months off over perhaps a couple of decades. Jazz musicians
\ntypically plunge on set after set, night after night, with less physical
\ntraining, caution or preparation, and have seldom enjoyed comparably
\nfront-loaded savings accounts. Factor in the stresses that attend independent,
\nnomadic artistic daredevils, and you know that even players at the highest peak
\nof the jazz profession teeter on a perilous brink.<\/p>\n

“Don’t ask me the usual stuff – ‘When were you born? What
\nwas it like to grow up like I did in the Midwest?” Hubbard, during a food
\nbreak in the studio’s lounge, warns me about our upcoming interview. “It was
\nterrible, what do you think? And I had the time of my life!”<\/p>\n

So how about now? Yes, that’s the question.<\/p>\n

Hubbard turned 70 April 7, 2008, 50 years after coming to
\nNew York from his native Indianapolis to launch one of the most prodigious
\ncareers in modern music. He has been successfully treated for a number of
\nserious health problems and has stabilized his finances after tax problems cost
\nhim his Beverley Hills home a few years ago. With On The Real Side<\/a><\/i>, the recording that came from his December
\nsessions and follow-ups done in California ready for release, and gigs in the
\noffing, he was eager to regain the glory of his reputation. “I’ve got to get
\nback in the mix,” he said with offhand earnestness during an interview in his
\nmidtown Manhattan hotel room just before Christmas, following the Bennett
\nStudio<\/a> sessions and a five-night engagement with the NJCO (sans Handy) at
\nIridium.<\/p>\n

That booking was a happy one in terms of audience attendance
\nand affections. Festive crowds showed up throughout the run, and took pleasure
\nin the Octet’s renditions of the trumpeter’s signature compositions including
\n“Up Jumped Spring,”<\/a> “Lifeflight” and “Skydive.”<\/a> Hubbard introduced the pieces
\nwith brief anecdotes – like how he composed “Lifelight” to commemorate the
\nhelicopter airlift that took his wife from a near-fatal car crash to a hospital
\nemergency room — and played flugelhorn, which is relatively forgiving of his
\ninconsistent strengths. The NJCO fleshed out each number – as it does throughout
\nOn The Real Side<\/i> — with spark-plug
\nsolos by Walden, luxuriously bluesy statements by Greene, incisive bari sax and
\nflute touches by Stachel, mellow and\/or bruising trombone by Davis and dynamic
\ngrooves dug by the rhythm section. Hubbard held the spotlight, but Weiss —
\nunfailing alert, adding tone, imposing tempo — kept it all together.<\/p>\n

“Nobody has ever player higher, harder and faster longer
\nthan Freddie,” Weiss said after the show about his hero. He has assisted
\nHubbard on two previous albums besides releasing three of his own and two more
\nheading the NJCO. “Some physical diminishment is a fact of life at 70 – he’s
\nonly human. But Freddie really cares about the music. He’s always listening to
\nthe new guys, talking about what they’re doing and serious about what he’s
\ndoing. He always tries to blow new melodies.”<\/p>\n

Clearly, Hubbard has never turned away from music. During
\nhis weeks in New York he was intent on going to the Blue Note club to hear
\ntrumpeter Chris Botti. (“What’s Botti got?” he wondered aloud, several times).
\nAnd he is in no danger of being forgotten. He knows he’s charismatic,
\nexploiting a chameleon-like ability to take on spooky facial resemblances to
\nOliver, Armstrong and Gillespie, and imitating Miles’ voice dead-on. He is
\nbeloved even by fans and critics who scold him for not having taken better care
\nof himself. He acknowledges that lip surgery he had in 1992 has made his return
\nan uphill battle requiring a feat of re-definition.<\/p>\n

The growth he had removed 16 years ago was not cancerous —
\nbut neither was it benign. The cutting itself hurt his embouchure. His ability
\nto project and hold a clear tone was damaged, so his fast finger flurries often
\nresult in blurts and blurs rather than explosive phrases. His ideas are still
\nintriguing, complex when the material incites it, engaging when simple or
\npretty is called for. His ability to execute, though, is undependable.<\/p>\n

“On some nights, he shocks us – we don’t realize what he
\nstill has in him,” Weiss said. “But we don’t work often enough for him to
\nreally build up his endurance.”<\/p>\n

Working gives Hubbard a lift, so he was in a good mood for a
\nsit-down. “Feeling better, that’s what makes me want to play again,” Hubbard
\nsaid. “A few years ago, I didn’t care. I figured I’d made enough records. But
\nthen I thought, ‘What am I going to do? I can’t sit around forever.’ I got to
\nmaking a decision: I want to stay here for a while, I want to be here on this
\nplanet.”<\/p>\n

If he’s going to be on the planet, he’s going to want to
\nplay. It is what Hubbard has excelled at, over and above something like 99 per
\ncent of improvisers who’ve picked up their horns over the past half century,
\nnever mind brass players in classical ensembles. “I hate when guys compare
\nclassical and jazz musicians,” he said, “because we do things different in
\njazz. He [the classical trumpeter] plays a passage straight, lays out 20 bars
\nthen comes back in. But in jazz we’re playing all the time. So it’s more work.
\nI’ve met a lot of classical trumpet players who say, ‘How do you play that
\nlong? What are you trying to do? If I did that, I’d been dead a long time
\nago.'”<\/p>\n

Not Hubbard, though; he’s exalted in stamina almost from the
\nstart, which is perhaps why it’s so hard for him to pull back. He emerged in a
\nbrass age dominated by Gillespie and Davis, in the wake of Fats Navarro and
\nClifford Brown, just a little behind Kenny Dorham and Donald Byrd (respectively
\n12 and six years Hubbard’s senior). Almost an exact contemporary of Lee Morgan
\nand Booker Little, the young Hubbard was embraced virtually from the moment of
\nhis East Coast arrival for his bravura technique, unbridled enthusiasm and
\nimpressive adaptability.<\/p>\n

That’s not how he remembered it. “Chet Baker was the first
\ntrumpet player I liked, because he could play soft,” Hubbard said, smiling
\nfondly. “I always wanted to play like that. But I got to listening to Clifford
\nand started blowing too hard.”<\/p>\n

He recounted being shy and insecure at first, too. “Where I
\nfirst lived, in the Bronx, I didn’t go out of the house for about a week,”
\nHubbard said. “I was scared to go downstairs. Imagine a hot summer, July 1958.
\nI’d never been around so many people, such tall buildings. It was a total shock
\n– all this stuff I’d seen in the movies! But then I started meeting nice
\npeople, and I couldn’t stop hanging out.”<\/p>\n

In short order Hubbard met and started working with Philly
\nJoe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, J.J. Johnson and Art Blakey, among
\nmany others. He debuted as a leader on Blue Note in 1960 with <\/a>Open Sesame<\/a><\/i>, which led to his first
\nstring of swaggering, soulful, melodic and ferocious small group albums. <\/span><\/p>\n

Quickly hailed as a hardbop and post-bop master blaster,
\nHubbard became one of Blakey’s stirring Jazz Messengers – check him out on Buhaina’s Delight<\/a><\/i>, from late in 1961 —
\nand a sometimes blistering, sometimes pensive front line partner to Dexter
\nGordon, Jackie McLean, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Max Roach, among others.
\nHe was enlisted in avant-garde projects by John Coltrane (Ascension<\/a><\/i>), Ornette Coleman (Free
\nJazz<\/a><\/i>), Eric Dolphy (Out To Lunch<\/a><\/i>),
\nAndrew Hill (Compulsion<\/a><\/i>), and
\nelectronic composer Ilhan Mimaroglu (Sing
\nMe a Song of Songmy<\/a><\/i>). He also maintained a taste for lyrical,
\npopularly-attuned instrumental music, which he exploited from the mid-’60s
\nthrough the early ’80s in productions on Atlantic, CTI and Columbia Records.<\/p>\n

Ready For Freddie<\/a><\/i>
\nwas the title of one early recording triumph; throughout his lengthy prime it
\nseemed Hubbard was always ready for a colleague’s call, fearless and
\nstouthearted, equipped with sharp phrases and fully articulated high notes. “I
\nwas pushing a lot,” he said, thinking back. “I always wanted to play like a tenor
\nplayer, to be as loose as they are. I used to practice with them all the time.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

“A saxophonist’s pressure is inside, on their teeth,” he
\ncontinued. “For trumpeters, it’s against flesh. Which I finally realized, after
\na few blisters.  <\/span>All of the older cats
\nhad scar tissue. They’d tell me what salve to put on my mouth, how much
\npressure to use. They all told me I was playing too hard, but I looked at them
\nand saw they all had scars on their lips, so I thought that was the natural
\nthing if you play jazz. You ever see Louis’ scar? It was like a crater!”<\/p>\n

Observing his elders, Hubbard noticed that they had routines
\nto gain momentary relief. “Miles would put the horn up by his shoulder and cock
\nhis head like he was having trouble hearing – but he was taking time to rest.
\nAnd when Dizzy had his United Nations big band, he’d be dancing around and
\nplaying conga drum maybe more than trumpet.”<\/p>\n

Hubbard attained unusual sales success with the early-’70s
\nCTI albums Red Clay<\/a><\/i>, Straight Life<\/a><\/i> and Sky Dive<\/i>. In the mid-’70s, he rejoined former Blue Note stablemates
\nHerbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams (not
\ncoincidentally, Miles Davis’ last all-acoustic band) to form the supergroup
\nV.S.O.P.<\/a> His stint with Columbia was marked by several flawed efforts, and when
\nhis U.S. commercial viability suffered a subsequent downturn, he established
\nhimself in Japan. When Wynton Marsalis emerged as the Young Turk trumpeter in
\nthe early  <\/span>’80s, Hubbard conspired
\non three ambitious albums with another prematurely dethroned brassman, Woody
\nShaw.<\/p>\n

“When I was on top and moved west from New York, I left the
\ndoors wide open. Woody, he was the next cat, ” Hubbard said somewhat sadly.
\nWhen Shaw died in 1989 at age 45, he was all but blind and had suffered the
\nloss of his left arm after a fall in the New York subway.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Wynton: I admire him, he used to come to the clubs to hear
\nme, and he’d sit in and he had some stuff,” Hubbard said. “But he started
\nsaying about the guys who came before him, ‘That ain’t nothing, I’m going to go
\nall the way back and promote Louis Armstrong.’ Well, he copied off my records,
\nhe copied off Miles. I don’t think you should be a trumpet player and ignore
\nwhat I played, or Clifford or Lee Morgan or Woody or Miles played, just so you
\ncan get to Louis and play a little classical music and try to sway peoples’
\nminds. When I was a kid in Indianapolis our jazz community believed everything
\nhad to be modern. If you couldn’t play bebop like Charlie Parker and Dizzy, you
\nweren’t hip. Going back to Louis, that was forbidden among the cats I grew up
\nwith. Who wanted to go back and play that?”
\n<\/p>\n

Residing on the West Coast, Hubbard did studio dates, movie
\nwork and one-time all-star projects, also maintaining his own band. He
\ndescribed that period with a mix of satisfaction and regret akin to rue. “I had
\nmy home in the Hills for 19 years,” he said, “but I was never there. No telling
\nwho was swimming in my pool.”<\/p>\n

And all too soon the rigors of jet-set touring spelled by
\nstints of L.A. highlife caught up with him. Initially he denied his injuries
\nand illnesses, but after a while they became irrefutable, and they have
\npersisted. “The doctors tell me, ‘You ain’t 30 no more, you’re 69, so just cool
\nout with the drinking and partying and you’ll be all right,'” he said. “There
\nain’t nothing wrong with me now. I’ve had specialists like sports doctors
\nadvise me, but I think I’m going to go further, maybe get some acupuncture. Get
\nmore physical therapy.<\/p>\n

“I always thought of myself as young,” Hubbard mused. “I
\nthought I could still play like I was younger. I still have to get it through
\nmy thick head I can’t do that, even if I tried, even if I did exercises every
\nday.”<\/p>\n

Weiss has characterized Hubbard’s former soloing as “five
\nchoruses, balls out.” Having had to modify that style, Hubbard is ambivalent
\nabout the result.<\/p>\n

“The thing is, as you get older you have to mature,” he
\nshrugged. “I know some audiences – not the younger ones so much – may not be
\nsatisfied when they hear me, because they’ve seen me when I could really play. There
\nare also people who come to hear me who haven’t heard my stuff live before.
\nIt’s new to them, and they wonder, ‘Wow, can he do that?’<\/p>\n

“I’ve done it before in a small group, but when you play
\nwith eight pieces, there’s heavy sound coming behind you, and you want to get
\non top of it,” he went on. “Now, I like these kids [the New Jazz Composers
\nOctet]. I’m going to stay with them to get my chops back. I hope we can put it
\ntogether to do some college gigs. If we could do one-hour sets, I could blast
\nand be cool. If I’ve got to do two shows a night for three or for nights, well,
\nI can’t get with it.”<\/o:p><\/p>\n

As for those “kids” themselves, Weiss believes they enjoy a
\nproductively symbiotic relationship with Hubbard. “He needs us, but we need
\nhim, because he makes us better,” Weiss said. “He scares us – I mean his
\nhistory, his gravity, his jazziness, his presence — and that’s good
\nmotivation. There aren’t enough elders around to put the fear into younger
\nmusicians anymore.”<\/p>\n

Listening to the elders when they were younger – Hubbard on
\n“Theme for Kareem,” for instance, when he was 40  <\/span>– one might ask who was scaring them then. Hubbard possessed
\nenormous creativity in an era when jazz bubbled, boiled, steamed and courted trouble
\nas the most daring, spontaneous expression of creativity America had. In 2008
\nHubbard completed his album by painstakingly overdubbing his solos, employing
\ndigital technology for the purposes of revisiting, revising and reviving
\ntouchstone jazz repertoire.<\/p>\n

Now in regard to change and aging, it’s up to Hubbard’s
\naudience as much as to the man himself to recognize that the myth of eternal
\nyouth is just a myth. The triumph of Hubbard’s current career is by definition
\nin the present, whenever he’s onstage, whatever he commits to recording. How many
\n70-year-olds front a relevant little big band? His presence is itself evidence
\nof victory over odds and adversity. The glories of his younger era remain on
\nvideos as well as several dozen albums still in print. <\/span><\/p>\n

“I have to make up my mind I’m not going to play that way
\nagain,” Hubbard said. “I’ve got to find a way to play a little easier, spot it
\na bit more. Come in and play eight bars, let the band play, then take it out.
\nHigh energy? Most trumpet players out here play a couple of choruses, then sit
\ndown. Cats used to say, ‘Blow! Blow!’ Now people don’t want that.”<\/p>\n

But I don’t think he believed it.<\/p>\n


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