Freddie Hubbard, First Light

Perhaps more than any other, Freddie Hubbard set the style for mainstream 1960s-1970s jazz trumpet. Sure, there’s Miles Davis, but he’s his own universe and set course for planet Jazz-Hendrix-Fusion during this period. And I preferred Lee Morgan myself; he influenced me in a way that Freddie never did (a bit more fire). But I loved Freddie and have fond memories of the time he played the snot out of “Here’s That Rainey Day” in Troy Saving’s Bank Music Hall.

He recorded “First Light” in 1971 and put it out on a Grammy-winning album of the same name:

Notice the slick cover. That’s typical of CTI, Creed Taylor’s label. He was trying to get jazz more play by taking off some of the edges and wrapping it in a pretty package. It worked pretty well, at least for a while. But the fact is jazz has never recovered from the rise of rock and pop and probably never will.

The band consists of a small complement of strings, woodwinds, and two French horns wrapped around a jazz core. Some crazy good cats in the band: George Benson on guitar, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Airto Moreia on percussion, Ron Carter on bass, Herbie Hancock on Fender Rhodes, and Hubert Laws on flute. It’s the eleven violins and two cellos that take the edge of while the French horns make it look sassy.

The tune has two sections. There’s an opening section in free time where Freddie floats around over the rhythm section. Then the piano initiates a vamp in tempo at about 1:15 and Freddie comes in on the melody at 1:41. At 2:07 we have a transitional section where Laws floats on flute over low-key driving on the drums and regular chords in the piano. Freddie’s back in on the melody at 2:32 and starts improvising at about 2:57. Hubbard finishes his solo at 5:49 and we have another transitional interlude which gives way to a George Benson guitar solo at 6:13 (in tempo) which, in turn, gives way to our transitional interlude at 8:26. Freddie’s back in on the melody at 8:50. At 9:15 or so we start vamping to the end, Freddie noodling around, slowly fading to silence a bit over 11 minutes out.