This is a simply ferocious session. The incendiary brace of Without a Song and the pedal-to-the-metal death-driver Just One of Those Things must surely comprise one of the most uncompromising openings to any hard-bop date ever recorded. One can only imagine what Cole Porter would have made of Hubbard’s scorching assault on his material.
Freddie was in Germany when he cut this session, straight off the back of intensive road-work and the resulting tightness of the quintet is a joy to hear.
From 1969 It’s fascinating, too, as he stands at the junction of the hard-bop he would soon leave behind and the electro-jazz funk he would embrace in barely a year’s time. The band barely pay lip service to the heads of each take before tearing them off and then reconstructing their charts in a white-hot blaze of unrestrained passion.
Freddie, himself, lays down at least three of the greatest solos he ever recorded and, frankly, they are worth the price alone. Add to that the self-penned Blues for Duane (Hubbard’s son), featuring a mellow and lyrical Daniels solo, and everything else is a bonus. That your buck is banged to beyond the max by Richard Davis on bass, Roland Hanna on keys and the too-little heard Louis Hayes on drums, means The Hub of Hubbard is both essential and, at under a tenner on CD, grand theft audio.
Go get it and thank me later.
Harry Paterson 