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The Baddest Hubbard

This is worth buying for one track. Red Clay. It's god-damned genius. I haven't done this much jazz-style head nodding since I first heard the first Headhunters album.

The track kicks off with some general free-jazz style noise lead by Hubbard on the trumpet. But it soon settles down with an awesome drums-bass-and-keyboard riff (thanks to the genius of Herbie Hancock who plays on this track) that's the perfect foundation for the rest of this 12 minute-plus tune.

If you want more detail then check out the entry on Allmusic.com , which is full of long words and musical terms, which must mean that it's properly good in an academic sense. ("Henderson even takes his solo outside a bit without ever moving out of the rhythmnatist's pocket." WTF??)

This is one of those tunes that I'll keep playing and playing. Forget the rest of the album, this is the only 12 minutes of Hubbard you need.

Right-click here to listen to Red Clay by Freddie Hubbard (9769.4K)

Brass Fever by Brass Fever

This isn't the sort of album I'd normally look at twice, but it's all part of my ongoing effort to channel people like Giles Peterson and DJ Shadow, who can get excited by some miniscule bell noise lasting 2 seconds in the middle of a boxed-set of Mariachi band music.

With that in mind, I checked out this LP after being told it had one decent tune on it, Djingi. Brass Fever was released in 1975 on ABC records, one of only 2 albums this 'group' put out. And as the title might indicate, there's a hell of a lot of brass going on - I counted 5 trombonists listed on the sleeve - too many? To someone, 5 trombonists must have sounded like a good idea. Anyway, It's got a pretty good line-up on there too - John Handy and Lee Ritenour make appearaces, alongside a couple of other respected players.

To be honest, with the exception of Djingi I would normally give this a miss. It's the LP the Crusaders would make if they were stuck in a lift with Kenny G - lots of noodling solos and overcomplicated arrangements. But Djingi is a great tune. It's got a real summer vibe, using the brass section as punctuation for the other soloists, giving the track plenty of room to breathe. It does the usual trick of running through a queue of different soloists inbetween a chorus riff, but it never gets too cheesy. I'd whack this onto a mixtape next to Kool & The Gang's Summer Madness, or maybe Joy and Pain by Maze.

If you see it around, grab it - but I wouldn't go out of my way.