Freddie Hubbard, a jazz legend dies at 70

Today the world mourns the death of a great jazz musician. Freddie Hubbard, who suffered a heart attack on Nov 26, 2008, dies at age 70 in Sherman Oaks, CA. Hubbard, whose career looks like a "whose who" of jazz music, played with such jazz greats as John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Ornette Coleman, Art Blakey to name a few. Hubbard, who had recently begun performing semi-regularly, again has had a long and storied career.

Born on April 7, 1938 in Indianapolis, IN Freddie Hubbard has been hailed as one of the seminal voices in Hard-Bop, and Post-Bop jazz styles. An extraordinary trumpet player who began his music career in the Indianapolis area studying with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's principal trumpet player and working alongside the Montgomery brothers (Wes & Monk Montgomery). In 1958 at the age 20, he moved to New York city where he began working with jazz greats like Philly Jo Jones, Quincy Jones, Sony Rollins, J.J. Johnson, Eric Dolphy, & Slide Hampton helped polish this young man into a ferocious lion of a musician. From there Hubbard would go onto release; Open Sesame, Goin' Up, Hub Cap, Ole Coltrane, Africa Brass, Ready for Freddie.

After playing with Hank Mobley, Jimmy Heath, and going onto replace Lee Morgan in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Hubbard would change his style to reflect less of the Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan and more of the modern day influences in music. During the 60’s Freddie would be apart of some of the greatest jazz recordings ever; Maiden Voyage, Free Jazz, Ascension, Speak No Evil, and The Blues and the Abstract Truth. This experience during this portion of Hubbard’s career would prove important. During this time he would be bandleader on eight albums, sideman on twenty-eight albums.

The 1970’s would the era of Hubbard’s career that would gain him the most acclaim as member of the VSOP (Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams) band and his recordings with CTI records. While with CTI records Hubbard would record First Light (which garnered him a Grammy award in 1972), Straight Life, and Sky Dive. This period is when he would embrace free jazz even more and eventually venture into mixing Funk, R&B, and Jazz together in his most celebrated recording Red Clay.

The 1980’s would again prove to be an important period in Hubbard’s career. This time he would tour to no end and do a furious festival schedule with the likes of Joe Henderson, Ron Carter, teaming up and recording again with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Elvin Jones, Woody Shaw, and Rufus Reid to name a few. This hectic schedule would lead to the health problems he would face in the early 1990’s. Abuse to his body from a number of sources would contribute to his decline in playing during this period. In 1992 he would cause a almost career ending injury to his lips and never again record at the same level or virtuosity, even though his spot in jazz history had all ready been assured through his long list of recordings.

In 2006 Hubbard would again be honored like so many other times in his life, this time by the National Endowment of the Arts with the Jazz Masters Award. Since then he would have a small number of recording dates and performances with younger jazz musicians, but would never again see glory years like earlier in his career.

On December 29, 2008, Hubbard’s hometown newspaper, the Indianapolis Star reported that Hubbard had passed away in Sherman Oaks, California from complications due to the heart attack suffered in November of this year. The music world morns a huge lost in jazz and an even larger lose in the jazz trumpet lineage. In a time in American Music history when music is no longer taught at the level it was in Hubbard’s day, we have lost a great iconic member of the music jazz family and part of the fabric of jazz music history. He will be missed