BLP 4073

Freddie Hubbard -  Hub Cap

Released - October 1961

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, April 9, 1961
Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Julian Priester, trombone; Jimmy Heath, tenor sax; Cedar Walton, piano; Larry Ridley, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums.

tk.3 Earmon Jr.
tk.6 Hub Cap
tk.11 Cry Me Not
tk.15 Plexus
tk.18 Luana
tk.21 Osie Mae

Session Photos

Freddie Hubbard, Randy Weston and Melba Liston

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Hub Cap	Freddie Hubbard	09 April 1961
Cry Me Not	Randy Weston	09 April 1961
Luana	Freddie Hubbard	09 April 1961
Side Two
Osie Mae	Freddie Hubbard	09 April 1961
Plexus	Cedar Walton	09 April 1961
Earmon Jr.	Freddie Hubbard	09 April 1961

Liner Notes

A FEW weeks ago I was chatting with Miles Davis about the present direction and future potential of jazz. I asked. “Can you think of any young soloists at all who have really impressed you during the past year?”

Miles reflected a moment, then said, "I'll tell you one young trumpet player I really like — Freddie Hubbard."

The endorsement of Freddie by Miles was particularly relevant to our discussion about trends, since the qualities Miles had cited as essential and inevitable — melody. formula, form and good tone—arc all conspicuously present in the work of Freddie Hubbard in general, and on this latest album in particular.

Since his has been such a fast and recent rise to eminence that he was not included in The New Encyclopedia of Jazz, and since not all listeners to the present LP may be familiar with his previous sets, a brief recap of his biography follows. Born April 7, 1938 in Indianapolis, he played mellophone, trumpet and French horn in high school bands, and his French horn work won him a scholarship to Indiana Central College; he turned this down, though. to spend a year studying at Jordan Conservatory and with a local symphony musician.

After gigging locally with the Montgomery Brothers and with a combo called The Contemporaries. Hubbard came to New York at the age of 20, gigged with Jay Cameron and Philly Joe, then spent a couple of months in 1959 with Sonny Rollins. He later gigged with Charlie Persip and Slide Hampton, toured with Jay Jay Johnson's Sextet for some months until it disbanded, and has since been back with the Hampton group (Slide, like Freddie, was raised in Indianapolis, but left home a couple of years ahead of him).

These are only the bare facts of Freddie's brief career to date. Behind them, of course, like a number of other, more significant factors, notably Freddie’s continued artistic and technical development, his widening acceptance among fellow-musicians around New York (Miles’ enthusiasm is typical), and his growth as a composer and arranger. On his first two albums (Open Sesame, 4040 and Goin Up, 4056), Freddie was represented as a writer only once in each set. The present session shows him in this role on four of the six tunes, and three of these four were arranged as well as composed by Freddie.

As Ira Gitler observed in his comments on the Goin Up date, Freddie “does not misuse his mechanical skills but instead uses them as a means of expression. Stylistically he shows a debt to Clifford Brown bu...has forged a readily identifiable sound and attack.” These are strong words of praise for a performer who, at 23, may have a long way to go to reach his full potential; yet they are well substantiated by the evidence at hand.

These sides have a distinctly different flavor from the two previous LPs, largely because of the change in ensemble character effected by the use of three horns. A trumpet-and-tenor front line, such as was employed on the earlier sets, usually involves the use of relatively simple ensemble passages played mainly in unison• because of the limitations of two-part harmony; but a three-piece melody section, created here by the addition of trombone enables the writers to give the group a more intricate and orchestral sound, through the use of three-part; harmony and of contrapuntal devices.

Jimmy Heath, 34, is the elder brother of bassist Percy and drummer Al, First heard in the early bop years with Howard McGhee and Dizzy Gillespie, he later worked with Miles Davis. Gil Evans and Kenny Dorham and recorded for Blue Note with, among others, Miles and Jay Jay. Julian Priester, a 26-year-old Chicagoan, worked with Lionel Hampton, Dinah Washington and Max Roach, and has been a colleague of Freddie’s in the Slide Hampton octet.

Cedar Walton. the 27-year-old pianist from Dallas, came to New York in 1955, gigged with Lou Donaldson and Gigi Gryce, and was with Jay Jay for the better part of two years. Larry Ridley, an Indianapolis contemporary of Freddie’s, is 23 and workcd there with him in a college band he came to New York late in 1960 and has worked with a group led by Philly Joe Jones, whose indomitable personality lends its sound to this Hubbard sextet session as it has to so many other memorable Blue Note dates.

Hub Cap, which is Freddie’ nickname, is a minor theme (the minor mode, you will notice, dominates this album). The value of the three-way front line becomes apparent in the release of the first chorus, and again in the four-bar launching figure employed in the second (and dynamically underlined by Philly Joe). Freddie’s work takes full advantage of the excitement created by this up tempo and by the sturdily driving rhythm section, yet he never overreaches into flamboyancy and never sacrifices tone or sensitive phrasing to technical effects.

Cry Me Not, which in Freddie’s modest opinion is “the most interesting tune on the record” (all but one of the rest were his own compositions), was composed specially for the session by Randy Weston, whose successes with waltzes have tended to obscure the fact that he is an equally brilliant writer in the regular 4/4 meter. Like most of Randy’s works, this one was arranged by Melba Liston. the gifted alumna of Quincy Jones’ trombone section and writing team. The three-horn scoring is used with great skill here, and intriguing use is made of Cedar Walton’s arpeggios to supply continuity. Freddie’s work has a sustained loveliness and passion throughout, all the way to the exotic ending.

Luana, named for Freddie’s niece, is a stays-on-your-mind sort of theme, built on triads. The quiet mood established by Freddie is well preserved by Heath. Priester, Walton and Ridley, leading to a dramatic but never melodramatic finale.

Osie Mae (“it Just sounded like a funky name to me.” explains Freddie) has an A-B-A-B pattern. Heath’s tone somehow seems particularly well suited to minor themes. Priester clearly shows his debt to Jay Jay. Note the brilliant rhythm support behind Freddie’s surging solo.

Plexus, aside from being the title of a Henry Miller novel, means a network or arrangement of parts and is thus a fitting title for the work, in which Cedar Walton assembled some well-integrated, mood-evoking parts for the three horns in this particular plexus. Freddie’s work on this track is an outstanding example of his fluency. Note the tension-and-release contrast between the extended eighth-note forays and the simpler suspension-like passages using mainly long notes. After Philly’s solo, there is a three-way exchange between his interjections, the horns’ statements and the piano-and-bass figures to bring the performance to what Hollywood might call an action-packed finale.

Earmon Jr. is named for Freddie’s brother, now working as a pianist in Indianapolis. Composed by Freddie. it was arranged for this date by Ed Summerlin, the composer and saxophonist who with Freddie has been studying. (Freddie was featured on the Look Up and Live CBS telecasts with Summerlin, whose jazz-oriented writing for a Methodist Sunday church service crested a sensation in 1959,) Walton and Ridley, as well as all three horns, distinguish themselves in blowing passages.

Hub Cap marks an important new step in Freddie Hubbard’s career as an ambitious young playing and writing talent. The hub-cap, clearly ready to evolve into a big wheel in musical circles. has never spun to fuller advantage than on these sides.

-LEONARD FEATHER

Cover Photo by FRANCUS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

Jimmy Heath performs by courtesy of Riverside Records. Philly Joe Jones performs by courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp.

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT HUB CAP

Listening to Freddie Hubbard's third Blue Note album today, a listener cannot help but hear it through the prism of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. It is not just that Hubbard and Cedar Walton, the pianist featured on Hub Cap, joined Blakey's combo a mere four months after this session was recorded; they also became Messengers at the moment when the celebrated drummer/leader was incorporating Curtis Fuller's trombone into his front line, creating a new trumpet/trombone/tenor sax blend for his group that is presaged by the instrumentation heard here.

There was nothing particularly new or radical about this particular conjunction of three horns in a jazz combo. It was the setting Jimmy Heath had appeared in when he recorded for Blue Note in 1953 with both Miles Davis and J.J. Johnson, and on his own first Riverside date in 1959. Heath also worked an intriguing variation on the format on two subsequent Riverside sessions that included Hubbard and Walton, with Julius Watkins's French horn replacing the trombone. Economics had as much to do with the scarcity of working sextets as musical tastes, a consideration that appeared to be momentarily trumped by the greater ambition of arrangers and bandleaders when Hub Cap was recorded. Max Roach had been using three horns but no piano at the time, in bands that featured Julian Priester; both the J .J. Johnson sextet (where Hubbard and Walton first worked together) and The Jazztet had toured with the three-horn lineup prior to Blakey; and the band co-led by Al Grey and Billy Mitchell was also launched with trumpet, trombone and tenor in 1961. The added harmonic and textural possibilities were explored adeptly by each of these working groups, as they were by the studio unit that Hubbard assembled for this occasion.

Walton, who is the link among the Johnson, Jazztet and Blakey bands, certainly knew the format as well as anyone. He takes full advantage of the instrumental options on "Plexus," which was the first tune by this now-legendary composer ever recorded. Like "Mosaic," another Walton opus cut before he joined Blakey (with Clifford Jordan on Jazzland in June '61) that would become a Messenger staple, "Plexus" makes inspired use of contrasting fragments fitted together in an uncommon structure (in this case, a 68-bar AABA form where the main melodic section is 20 bars long). The alternate take confirms the collective expertise that Hubbard and company brought to Walton's subtly challenging theme.

Hubbard steps forward as a writer on this album as well; and while none of his four tunes here attained the classic status of several later compositions, they reveal a quick study who made great use of his added forces. The train figure that opens "Luana" and the harmonic substitutions on "Earmon Jr." are most memorable; and note that "Earmon," the sole composition in the 12-bar form, is Hubbard's most harmonically probing work on the date. On this occasion, a pair of 16-bar lines ("Luana" and "Osie Mae") provided the context for his funkier feelings.

The most evocative writing on the date is heard in Melba Liston's arrangement of Randy Weston's "Cry Me Not." Weston's music was starting to be covered in this period by numerous musicians, to the point where he was becoming better known as a writer than a pianist. This is one of his most haunting creations, and it provides a perfect occasion for Hubbard to display the depths of feeling he possessed at such an early stage in his career. Tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin recorded another beautiful version of "Cry Me Not" on his classic 1963 Prestige date The Freedom Book.

The above emphasis on writing should in no way be taken as a slight of the great playing heard on Hub Cap. Each member of the group adds a distinctive personality in both solo contributions and as part of the ensemble, including Heath and trombonist Priester (whose brief resume might have mentioned his early experience with Sun Ra's Arkestra in Chicago); and the presence of Philly Joe Jones, the one musician here Who had recorded under Hubbard's leadership before (on the trumpeter's previous album, Goin' Up), assured both fire and finesse. If the album reinforced a growing sense that Freddie Hubbard was on his way to becoming a major influence on his instrument, it also gave the first indications of the imagination he could bring to bear as composer and bandleader.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2002