Freddie Hubbard
Pinnacle: Live & Unreleased From Keystone Korner
Resonance Records
www.resonancerecords.org
By George W. Harris

This past year has been one that seems to have record companies pulling
a “Jimi Hendrix” on trumpet legend Freddie Hubbard. Every month some
kind of reissue of The Hub’s prime recording career is released, with
CTI Masterworks cranking out some wonderful material, and now Resonance
Records comes up with this previously unreleased gem of Hubbard from a
collection of 1980 gigs from San Francisco’s legendary jazz club The
Keystone Korner. Career-wise, Hubbard was putting out studio material
that was at the nadir of his creativity; commercial things like
Windjammer, Skagly and Super Blue had jazz fans scratching their
collective heads. In concert, however, Freddie was still “IT” and this
collection of tunes with Billy Childs/p, Larry Klein/b, Eddie
Marshal-Sinclair Lott/dr and a shared front line with Phil Ranelin/tb,
Hadley Caliman/ts or David Schnitter/ts shows how exciting hard bop
with an extra kick of funk can be.

Hubbard’s tone, style and delivery is exciting, extroverted and
inspiring on tunes like “The Intrepid Fox” and his classic “First
Light,” with inventive solos that you just don’t want to end. His
handling of ballads on “The Summer Knows” will make you swoon with
delight, while his chops on the bop tour de force “Giant Steps” is
putty his hands. Childs gets some good solo space on piano and Rhodes
as well, but this is Hubbard’s show, and during this decade, his last
before his gradual downward slide, he was still the BMOC. Essential
music for anyone even remotely in the joy and power of hard bop.