[Deathwatch] Freddie Hubbard, musician, 70

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

December 30, 2008
Freddie Hubbard, Jazz Trumpeter, Is Dead at 70
By PETER KEEPNEWS

Freddie Hubbard, a jazz trumpeter who dazzled audiences and critics
alike with his virtuosity, his melodicism and his infectious energy,
died on Monday in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He was 70 and lived in Sherman
Oaks.

The cause was complications of a heart attack he had on Nov. 26, said
his spokesman, Don Lucoff of DL Media.

Over a career that began in the late 1950s, Mr. Hubbard earned both
critical praise and commercial success ? although rarely for the same
projects.

He attracted attention in the 1960s for his bravura work as a member of
the Jazz Messengers, the valuable training ground for young musicians
led by the veteran drummer Art Blakey, and on albums by Herbie Hancock,
Wayne Shorter and many others. He also recorded several well-regarded
albums as a leader. And although he was not an avant-gardist by
temperament, he participated in three of the seminal recordings of the
1960s jazz avant-garde: Ornette Coleman?s ?Free Jazz? (1960), Eric
Dolphy?s ?Out to Lunch? (1964) and John Coltrane?s ?Ascension? (1965).

In the 1970s Mr. Hubbard, like many other jazz musicians of his
generation, began courting a larger audience, with albums that featured
electric instruments, rock and funk rhythms, string arrangements and
repertory sprinkled with pop and R&B songs like Paul McCartney?s ?Uncle
Albert/Admiral Halsey? and the Stylistics? ?Betcha by Golly, Wow.? His
audience did indeed grow, but his standing in the jazz world
diminished.

By the start of the next decade he had largely abandoned his more
commercial approach and returned to his jazz roots. But his career came
to a virtual halt in 1992 when he damaged his lip, and although he
resumed performing and recording after an extended hiatus, he was never
again as powerful a player as he had been in his prime.

Frederick Dewayne Hubbard was born on April 7, 1938, in Indianapolis.
His first instrument was the alto-brass mellophone, and in high school
he studied French horn and tuba as well as trumpet. After taking
lessons with Max Woodbury, the first trumpeter of the Indianapolis
Symphony Orchestra, at the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music, he
performed locally with, among others, the guitarist Wes Montgomery and
his brothers.

Mr. Hubbard moved to New York in 1958 and almost immediately began
working with groups led by the saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the drummer
Philly Joe Jones and others. His profile rose in 1960 when he joined
the roster of Blue Note, a leading jazz label; it rose further the next
year when he was hired by Blakey, widely regarded as the music?s
premier talent scout.

Adding his own spin to a style informed by Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis
and Clifford Brown, Mr. Hubbard played trumpet with an unusual mix of
melodic inventiveness and technical razzle-dazzle. The critics took
notice. Leonard Feather called him ?one of the most skilled, original
and forceful trumpeters of the ?60s.?

After leaving Blakey?s band in 1964, Mr. Hubbard worked for a while
with another drummer-bandleader, Max Roach, before forming his own
group in 1966. Four years later he began recording for CTI, a record
company that would soon become known for its aggressive efforts to
market jazz musicians beyond the confines of the jazz audience.

His first albums for the label, notably ?Red Clay,? contained some of
the best playing of his career and, except for slicker production and
the presence of some electric instruments, were not significantly
different from his work for Blue Note. But his later albums on CTI, and
the ones he made after leaving the label for Columbia in 1974, put less
and less emphasis on improvisation and relied more and more on glossy
arrangements and pop appeal. They sold well, for the most part, but
were attacked, or in some cases simply ignored, by jazz critics. Within
a few years Mr. Hubbard was expressing regrets about his career path.

Most of his recordings as a leader from the early 1980s on, for Pablo,
Musicmasters and other labels, were small-group sessions emphasizing
his gifts as an improviser that helped restore his critical reputation.
But in 1992 he suffered a setback from which he never fully recovered.

By Mr. Hubbard?s own account, he seriously injured his upper lip that
year by playing too hard, without warming up, once too often. The lip
became infected, and for the rest of his life it was a struggle for him
to play with his trademark strength and fire. As Howard Mandel
explained in a 2008 Down Beat article, ?His ability to project and hold
a clear tone was damaged, so his fast finger flurries often result in
blurts and blurs rather than explosive phrases.?

Mr. Hubbard nonetheless continued to perform and record sporadically,
primarily on fluegelhorn rather than on the more demanding trumpet. In
his last years he worked mostly with the trumpeter David Weiss, who
featured Mr. Hubbard as a guest artist with his group, the New Jazz
Composers Octet, on albums released under Mr. Hubbard?s name in 2001
and 2008, and at occasional nightclub engagements.

Mr. Hubbard won a Grammy Award for the album ?First Light? in 1972 and
was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2006.

He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Briggie Hubbard, and his son,
Duane.

Mr. Hubbard was once known as the brashest of jazzmen, but his
personality as well as his music mellowed in the wake of his lip
problems. In a 1995 interview with Fred Shuster of Down Beat, he
offered some sober advice to younger musicians: ?Don?t make the mistake
I made of not taking care of myself. Please, keep your chops cool and
don?t overblow.? 

Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary