Search - Freddie Hubbard :: Night of the Cookers 1 & 2

Not the best jam session you can buy

Jazzcat | Genoa, Italy Italy | 12/27/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As a long time die hard Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard fan, I have bought this Night session with great enthusiasm. I tought that four tunes (twenty minutes each) really strechted out could be a great ground for a trumpet battle with two gints of the instrument. But I have to admit that the first disc of these Cookers here, it has a little disappointed me. The audio is really not the best. For example Lee's solos on Pensativa is really difficult to hear (I know he did choose to play the muted horn on this tune, but I'm saying that he's not loud enough to be heard clearly). Then musically as a jam session it is a little bit chaotic. I mean that often the guys are all playing as hard as they can stepping on each other's ideas. The result is a music too full and disorganized at least in some points. Pensativa is probably the tune that has disappointed me the most, too energetic, almost chaotic. The blues Walking is a little bit better but we have to wait the second disc of this set to start to hear some good blowing. The fast, modal-free Jodo is still a little bit confused in some points but it has its good moments. The twenty minutes pass by finally leaving me happy, apart maybe for the drums and congas solo parts. The last tune is again a Freddie Hubbard's original, the spanish-calypso flavoured "Breaking point". In the end I'd say that it is an album which is not essential. Surely there are some good moments here and there, but nothing that you can't find in other minor releases from these two giants. Each player has many stronger albums than this one in their careers. For example Lee Morgan has the fantastic three cds set "Live at the Lighthouse" (which has Harold Mabern at the piano too). You can hear marvellous things from Hubbard in Oliver Nelson's "The blues and the abstract truth". So you can probably skip this one. My rating is something over three stars .. but less than three stars and a half."

Smokin'!

Jeffrey Stewart Newton | Detroit, MI | 09/16/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As a long-time digger of Freddie Hubbard who has had the thrill of performing with him (and who shares his Birthday, albeit 20 years hence), I simply offer that this wonderful recording of the then freshly minted twenty seven year old Hubbard is (a) live, (b) smokin', (c) replete with fantastic, largely non-redundant and often breathtaking interplay between the trumpetists (a few of these gems are pure magic and worth the price of admission alone!), and (d) about as commercial as twenty-minute plus, extended improvisation songs get (meaning: not). Hub & Lee were competitors and, being purveyors of trumpet, competed here as such and succeeded on this hit in doing just what Jazz musicians do best: get down.... Get it!"

Where there's smoke there's not always fire.

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 08/30/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I confess that I put this CD in my player without looking at the title, and my immediate reaction was WTF? The audio quality was mediocre, with muddy reproduction of the piano especially. The tunes' harmonies were limited and repetitious, with the pianist's role becoming mechanical on a head that evoked some of the misguided attempts of late '60s groups to attain greater "freedom." Only upon examining the title did I recall that I had ordered the CD out of curiosity to hear a session I previously had not known existed--one featuring both the "heir" to Clifford's throne and the putative heir to the heir's place.



There's intense blowing, with both trumpeters pulling out the stops in terms of dynamics and range. But I hear little precision, organization, or genuine inventiveness--partly because the heads and arrangements don't allow for it. I'm reminded of the far more satisfying sessions of almost ten years earlier with Diz taking on Stitt, Rollins, and Getz on the tricky changes and harmonic extensions of classic bebop tunes. Just as Diz (imo) has the last word on these dates, I recall a live "trumpet duel" between Hubbard and the unheralded journeyman Bill Hardman (anyone who knew better, wouldn't tangle with him on the bandstand) with the latter taking apart Hub with surgical precision. There's little opportunity for such revealing comparisons on this rather noisy and "showy" free-for-all, with both trumpeters displaying their extroverted, loud and flashy side (not without considerable sloppiness), but not much more. Perhaps I need to listen to the proceedings again--especially now that I know who the performers are--but there's little incentive (and less time) for doing so.



[I tried it again, but there's too much work without commensurate reward from the listener's standpoint. It's a very amateurishly recorded production, one that may have been exciting for those in attendance. Morgan sounds more "solid" than Hubbard, who too frequently goes to that strained high register (enough to make you cringe, especially with the benefit of hindsight and knowing what would happen to his chops later in his career). But Spaulding, who can't seem to decide whether he's involved in a hard bop or "free," completely "outside" session, makes both trumpeters look good by comparison. Give Mabern credit for hanging in for the distance. The big fella plays a chord, then repeats it, then repeats it (not much else for him to do when even a blues like "Walkin'" sounds like an each-man-for-himself late '60s noiseathon (who needs chord changes?]"