On the Real Side (70th Birthday Celebration)

Performer: Freddie Hubbard
Producer: David Weiss
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: One of the finest jazz trumpeters of the post-Dizzy Gillespie generation is Freddie Hubbard, a giant of hard bop from the late 1950s on through the `80s. For health reasons, Hubbard has greatly cut back on his performing in recent years, which is all the more reason to celebrate ON THE REAL SIDE, a tribute disc to which the tributee himself happily contributes. The New Jazz Composers Octet consists of some great younger (than Freddie) musicians, including Jimmy Greene (saxophone) and Steve Davis (trombone), playing seven Hubbard originals (including the newly written title track). While SIDE doesn't feature much playing from Hubbard himself, the band and the album both evoke the fiery, durable style of Hubbard at his best. Like its predecessor, 2001's New Colors, On the Real Side, which again pairs Freddie Hubbard with the New Jazz Composers Octet (David Weiss, trumpet; Myron Walden, alto sax; Jimmy Greene, tenor and soprano sax; Steve Davis, trombone; Norbert Stachel, baritone sax and flute; Xavier Davis, piano; Dwayne Burno, bass; and E.J. Strickland, drums, plus guests Craig Handy, tenor sax on two tracks and flute on a third, and Russell Malone, guitar on the title tune), is in essence a victory lap for the veteran horn player, whose chops are admittedly diminished as he reaches age 70. Annotator Bill Milkowski makes no bones about that and even quotes Hubbard to the effect that "I gotta resolve myself to be happy with what I can do now...play a couple of choruses and get out." As such, this album -- with the exception of the newly written title track -- consists of re-recordings of Hubbard favorites, functioning as a tribute disc on which the honoree sits in. In that sense, it might be compared to the latter day recordings of Brian Wilson in the pop realm, in which a group of technically proficient Beach Boys fans efficiently plays the composer's music around him as he pitches in. At that, the result is not unpleasant, and Hubbard even manages some good solos, or at least parts of solos, before giving way to his acolytes. It is notable that he only plays flugelhorn, especially since he is glimpsed holding a trumpet on the album cover. ~ William Ruhlmann

Down Beat (p.80) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Horn ensemble lines are full and the playing -- individual and collective -- is fiery....Hubbard sticks and moves, using short phrases -- musical haiku actually -- seldom for more than a chorus." JazzTimes (p.64) - "Hubbard, playing flugelhorn only, is one of the soloists on six of the seven tracks, but the focus here is as much on the charts and the Octet, a fruitful mix of jazz elder and nascent jazz masters."

Freddie Hubbard has always been a trumpet player of great facility, suppleness, and polish. Following his breakthrough with the Jazz Messengers in the late '50s, his burnished tone became a focal point of innumerable Blue Note albums of the '60s, both as leader and sideman. After a foray into fusion in the '70s, he returned to the hard bop of his early career.

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