Honoring Indianapolis, Resonance Records issues another rescue of long-ago jazz glory

 "Freddie Hubbard On Fire: Live from the Blue Morocco" (Resonance Records) marks a significant addition to the Indianapolis jazz legacy, honoring the one eminent Hoosier player

Freddie Hubbard in the time of his early glory

who lost no time making a splash on the big scene as a young man.

Freddie Hubbard had the confidence and ambition to forge a reputation in New York City in the first stage of his mastery. Within a few years of his ascent into early stardom, in 1967 he brought his group into a short-lived Bronx night spot for a dazzling set that will be made publicly available for the first time April 18 in a two-disc set (a three-LP Record Store Day release emerges April 12). 

Of the triumvirate of internationally significant jazzmen from Indianapolis, trombonist J.J. Johnson was engaged with major traveling bands (chiefly Benny Carter) at first; guitarist Wes Montgomery put in lots of quality time on Indiana Avenue before he was famously discovered by the touring Cannonball Adderley. Johnson and Montgomery were born within a year of each other in the 1920s. Hubbard is of a later generation, the one more likely not to see big bands and the local scene as more receptive home terrain than the Big Apple.

Local pride in all three musicians is justifiable, of course. As a student trombonist, I gravitated to Johnson's excellence on records. His technical brilliance in particular forged new paths for his instrument in jazz, and he was inevitably a tightly focused bandleader and sterling composer/arranger. Of these three stars, however, Montgomery was certainly the most influential and effective as a trailblazer on his instrument.

The trumpeter has a bit of a mixed legacy. Does he belong in the top tier of jazz trumpeters —a line that stretches from Louis Armstrong through Roy Eldridge to Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis? Opinions will differ as to who next deserves a place in this pantheon. Hometown fans will put the immortal Freddie in that position. But it's true there was some wasting of his gifts as the career advanced; of course, people also said the same of Armstrong. There was also a distinct carelessness in the way Hubbard took care of himself and guided himself artistically. 

Nonetheless, I was cheered by this package, because listeners who've long held "Hub-Tones" and "Hub Cap" in high regard want to hear more of the trumpeter's small-group, post-bop emergence in the 1960s. By 1967, he was a certifiable star, and brought an ensemble consisting of Bennie Maupin, tenor saxophone; Kenny Barron, piano; Herbie Lewis, bass, and Freddie Waits, drums, into a club run by Sylvia Robinson (known in her performing days as the Sylvia of Mickey & Sylvia, whose hit single "Love Is Strange" got lots of play on my teen-phase record player). Typical of Zev Feldman and the production team, a booklet containing interviews and overarching perspectives is an attractive part of the "Freddie Hubbard on Fire" package.

It's startling that a fair amount of pushback shadowed even Hubbard's golden age. Whitney Balliett of The New Yorker dismissed him in print as an "overblowing admirer of Miles Davis." I don't hear much of that in what Hubbard plays here or elsewhere. In fact I was kind of charmed by the quintet's lengthy version of "Bye Bye Blackbird" for its contrast with the well-known Miles interpretation. Hubbard's is blithe, where Davis' is brooding. (In one of his spiky interviews, Davis threw some shade on Hubbard for his abundant note-spinning, preferring the younger master Woody Shaw for greater selectivity.)

"Blackbird"  opens Disc 2 of this set, and it almost justifies its 24-minute length. The interplay of the leader and Maupin is good. Barron, who has since become a grand master, shows his melodic gifts and the kind of flexibility that has him shifting to half-tempo in his solo before  moving just as smoothly back to the original tempo. But I like just about every note he plays throughout the set.

This "Bye Bye Blackbird" is a stellar example of the quality that Wynton Marsalis held up succinctly upon Hubbard's death in 2008: "exuberance." That's sums up so much of Hubbard, and can be detected somewhat poignantly in the trumpeter's late recordings when his embouchure was pretty much shot and forced him to make crucial technical adjustments. The exuberance still shows, however.

Disc 2 ends with Hubbard's "Breaking Point," somewhat extended but mainly a vehicle for saying good night to the Blue Morocco audience. On the second track is a 17-minute "Summertime" that failed to hold my interest, in part because the Gershwin tune has been overplayed on jazz bandstands for decades. Do I hear a rhapsody? Yes, once again.

Disc 1 is the prize acquisition of this set. "Crisis" opens things up forthrightly. It's a great Hubbard original. The trumpeter's solo bursts free, with lots of notes. Phrases are often separated, an indication of the "space" that Miles Davis brought to post-bop soloing. Otherwise, the Hubbard manner is quite different; the sound is broad and flecked with vibrato. Hubbard's playing on the coda, against a six-note accompaniment figure, is quite imaginative, gradually descending to the lowest register. 

Maupin is a fitting partner in the front line, not attempting to match the "fire" celebrated in this package's title.  Despite the moments of Hubbard glory, however, there are incipient signs of what Balliett blasted in the later Hubbard: "glassy vacuity."

Still, the programming is intelligent: Hubbard is muted in his early classic "Up Jumped Spring," and, for a change of pace, the band is equally adept in "Echoes of Blue." Introduced by Barron at his fascinating best, the piece features an episodic bass solo before yielding to some splendid open-horn Hubbard. He banks fires in this slow blues, then gradually sends up sparks, with trills, smears, figuration a la "Flight of the Bumblebee," and a few deft staccato phrases. 

The disc concludes with the bop-derived "True Colors," featuring Maupin and Hubbard in full cry, with a climactic Waits solo. That moves into a set-closing sketch of "Breaking Point," apparently used routinely as the introduction to a band break, and ingratiating for its Latin dance pulse.

There is enough musical gold mined from this April 10, 1967, gig to make its excavation a treasure for Hubbard fans. Those interested in celebrating the legacy live might want to turn out Sunday for a Freddie Hubbard tribute show at the Jazz Kitchen, featuring the contemporary trumpet phalanx of Derrick Gardner, Pharez Whitted, and John Raymond.