Blues For Miles

Performer: Freddie Hubbard
Artist: Billy Childs
Producer: Tetsuo Hara
Distributor: Select-O-Hits

Notes: BLUES FOR MILES was originally released by the Japanese label Alfa in 1992. It was first released in the U.S. in 1996. Personnel: Freddie Hubbard (trumpet); Billy Childs (piano); Tony Dumas (bass); Ralph Penland (drums). Engineers: Yoshimori Kaji, Noriyuki Terayama. Recorded at Alfa Studio A, Tokyo, Japan on April 3 & 4, 1992. Includes liner notes by Neil Tesser. This 1992 Alfa recording, re-released in '96 on Evidence, is the unlikely but inevitable collision of two great jazz talents. Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis are surely two different kinds of trumpet players. Miles (who died just before this session) was a slow, cool, serpentine player, whereas Hubbard's sound is brassy and explosive-a tour de force of chops and leaping phrasing. They had their differences and, at times, each spoke unkindly of the other. Not here, however, as Hubbard veils his huge sound with Davis' trademark Harmon mute and lets us know he was always listening. Hubbard pays his tribute along with Billy Childs (piano), Tony Dumas (bass), and Ralph Penland (drums). Their focus here is on standards such as "The Thrill is Gone" and "Autumn Leaves." Hubbard's playing is subtle and mournful throughout. But the title track, a Hubbard original, is more charged. His hot sound under the Harmon mute brings these two trumpet legends as close together as they have ever been. This is superior playing for all the right reasons.

Down Beat (5/96, p.56) - 3 Stars - Good - "Hubbard struggles with a give-a-damn attitude and the expectation his lyrical ideas are ends in themselves....he plays as full-out as possible, and blue light glints off tarnished brass..."

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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