Freddie Hubbard - At The Club Vol 1

2018 release

Ernie Garside Presents: At The Club Volume 1.  The album/CD release is a taped live recording of the Freddie Hubbard Quintet at the Roundhouse in London in March 1983.  The recording captured an amazing energetic Freddie Hubbard and his quintet performing five tunes.  The five tunes consist of recordings from CTI and straight-ahead standards.

The quintet pulled together on this date included Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and flugelhorn, Hilton Ruiz on piano, Bob Sheppard on sax and flute, Herbie Lewis on bass, and Carl Allen on drums.  A fantastic fiery line up that the recording displays in all its burning musicality.  

The performance of First Light is glorious.  In retrospective, jazz history accounts for Hubbard’s CTI work as some of his greatest.  The Grammy-winning First Light is performed by this quintet stripped of the electric fusion elements that characterized the original.  While fusion, in general, was heavily criticized at the time by critics, First Light in this recording puts on display an unquestionable greatness the tune respectfully deserves.  Hubbard is simply magnificent.  Hilton Ruiz, perhaps in a moment of improvisation, hits the piano solo with Latin Jazz syncopations that surprises.

One Of A Kind and Little Sunflower follow and the first three consist of the quintet performing these in succession.  The energy flows like a rapid current.  The addition of the Cuban-born pianist Hilton Ruiz embeds Latin and Cuban rhythms into each song.  Ruiz starts out One Of Kind with a rush of Cuban-laced rhythms on piano augmented by Carl Allen matching him in stride.  Fabulous it is!  On listening, you are easily transported to the “club” and become part of the enthusiastic audience.

The final two tunes, Bolivia and All Blues, catch the quintet in a settled down mode of playing characteristically straight-ahead jazz.   Not quite matching the intensity and creativity of the first three tunes yet they are well-worth-the-listen live recordings.

A time capsule gem of a find it is.  Capturing the legend Freddie Hubbard in a moment of fiery genius with a quintet that elevated to a rarefied space.  The release on Sleepy Night Records will be accompanied by photography and a booklet with background information on the recording.