By Michael Ullman

There are unplanned moments in this three-LP collection, times when the musicians seem to be waiting to hear what is going to happen next. Something exciting usually does come out of their interactions.

Freddie Hubbard, On Fire: Live from the Blue Morocco (Resonance, three LPs)

In 1967, when Freddie Hubbard’s On Fire: Live from the Blue Morocco was taped, Dizzy Gillespie was playing echoes of himself and Miles Davis was moving toward the kind of electric music that was going to absorb his interest for most of the rest of his career. Nonetheless, fans of hard bop trumpet had no reason to complain. Two trumpeters born in 1938, Lee Morgan and the musician my friends and I sometimes called Freddie Hubbub, were in their prime. Both were being recorded frequently. Hubbard in particular seemed to be everywhere, including the Jazz Workshop in Boston, where I heard him repeatedly. During 1967 alone, Hubbard taped at least 10 sessions. He supported Sarah Vaughan and, among other gigs, was a valued sideman to Booker Ervin (Booker ‘n Brass) and Duke Pearson (The Right Touch). In early November, he recorded as a leader, making his High Blues Pressure for Atlantic. He was crushing it.

Hubbard’s physical mastery of the trumpet was impressive: he always seemed in control. Others might strain for an idea here or there. This trumpeter supplied a steady, articulate flow of music, all of it marked by his richly rounded tone. Hubbard was nothing if not flexible, even daring. Somehow he managed to fit into Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers as well as the Eric Dolphy band that made the avant-garde album Outward Bound. He takes one of the best solos on Coltrane’s Ascension and brings his poised virtuosic style to Jackie McLean’s Bluesnik. J.J. Johnson hired him for the trombonist’s Columbia albums. In October 1965, he was the trumpeter of choice on Wayne Shorter’s The All Seeing Eye, Max Roach’s Drums Unlimited, and Andrew Hill’s Compulsion. In the previous March he was on Herbie Hancock’s celebrated Maiden Voyage. All of these recordings are considered to be masterpieces by critics, the definitive records by their leaders. And, while doing all this, Freddie Hubbard was also recording albums under his own name.

Freddie Hubbard in 1967. Photo: Michael Ullman

Those were mostly studio dates at a time he was playing regularly at clubs across the country. That live music was undocumented until recently. Unexpectedly, we now have two newly issued live recordings of Hubbard with his quintet: Fastball: Live at the Left Bank (Label M) recorded on April 23, 1967, and this new three-LP set, On Fire: Live from the Blue Morocco (Resonance) taped two weeks earlier, on April 10. They fill in a gap in our knowledge of Hubbard’s work. The trumpeter’s working band is a group of stars or should-be stars: Bennie Maupin on reeds (in two years he would be on Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew), Kenny Barron on piano, Herbie Lewis, bass, and Freddie Waits, drums. On Fire comprises seven extended cuts, mostly familiar to Hubbard fans, but now heard in expansive, often playful versions.

There’s one number new to the repertoire. I don’t know of another Hubbard recording of “Bye Bye Blackbird,” which, perhaps with some help by Peggy Lee, Miles Davis made into a modern jazz classic six years before with his recording at the Black Hawk. Hubbard’s 23-minute version takes up an entire side. Sounding nothing like Miles, Hubbard performs “Blackbird” at a jaunty tempo. The trumpeter sounds amused as he states the first phrase of the melody and then hesitates. Soon he is exploiting his trumpet technique, smearing notes, adding something that sounds to me like a near moan. He isn’t just about doling out fast, articulate phrases, though there are plenty of characteristic Hubbard runs. He’s even willing to provoke a little chaos in the rhythm section during the tune’s bridge. The rhythm section is pliable: Waits sounds suddenly hyper-energized about three minutes into Hubbard’s extended solo. (The bridge seems to pump up the drummer.) It’s a quirky approach; I wonder if such experiments would have been encouraged in a studio. At the beginning of his solo, Maupin sounds timid. (He’s a little far from the mike.) Eventually, he repeats a two-note phrase that bassist Lewis imitates. That leads to a chorus featuring a dialogue between bassist and saxophonist. The rhythm section supplies a relaxed conversation: the interchanges between pianist Kenny Barron and bassist Lewis are also amusing. As it might in any live performance, the tempo and intensity drop at the start of Barron’s solo. It’s as if everyone is waiting to see what will happen. This kind of thing only seems to happen live.

Hubbard introduces “Summertime” with an out-of-tempo flare made out of held notes. But then he goes on to state the Gershwin melody with terse energy, with staccato bips and bops alternating with almost comically held notes. It’s the contrast that makes it work. The collection opens with Hubbard’s composition “Crisis,” which he first recorded on his hit (for jazz) record, Ready for Freddie. It’s a well-balanced piece that opens with a mid-tempo introduction by the bass. Here the bridge is played mellifluously. Hubbard rerecords one of his best-known compositions — “Up Jumped Spring” from Art Blakey’s 1962 LP Three Blind Mice. He plays the delightfully bouncy melody via a series of hops. He’s muted, and plays as if he were musing,  throwing up a series of quotations along with the occasional smear. He’s not out to wow the live audience. Nor is Maupin, who begins his solo casually (I am tempted to say sleepily). Hubbard virtually spits out the uptempo theme “Breaking Point,” which gives us the trumpeter at his hottest. The tune was the title track of his 1964 album.

There are unplanned moments in this three-LP collection, times when the musicians seem to be waiting to hear what is going to happen next. Something exciting usually does come out of their interactions. It’s a pleasure to feel like part of that audience again.

For over 30 years, Michael Ullman has written a bimonthly jazz column for Fanfare Magazine, for which he also reviews classical music. He has emeritus status at Tufts University, where for 45 years he taught in the English and Music Departments, specializing in modernist writers and nonfiction writing in English, and jazz and blues history in music. He studied classical clarinet. The author or co-author of two books on jazz, he has written on jazz and classical music for the Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, High Fidelity, Stereophile, Boston Phoenix, Boston Globe, and other venues. He plays piano badly.