The reality of a any highly regarded jazz artist; they had the talent, plain and simple; "either you got it, or you no got it". I can think of an artist who got world wide publicity, went to Julliard, played with the very best jazz artists around, but didn't measure up when he had his own group, and got out on his own. He could play the trumpet better than anyone around; nobody disagreed with that, not even other professional trumpet players, but leading your own group means coming up with your own original music that's good "sometime"; like Horace Taveres Silver.
SUBMITTED BY PETER.CROSBY ON DECEMBER 31, 2008 - 11:47AM
On December 29th, Freddie Hubbard, one of the last great jazz trumpet players, died after a heart attack at age 70. Growing up, I was a huge fan of Freddie. I used to listen to his records and play along (did I mention that I started playing trumpet when I was nine? Cuz I did).
I liked his fat tone and his melodic solos, but ironically, hated his song choices. In fact, I felt that he played best when he soloed on other people’s songs (“Zanzibar” by Billy Joel, for example).
But what upsets me the most about his death is that the Media—when they learn a jazz musician has died or done something newsworthy—immediately phones up the only jazz musician they’ve ever heard of, Wynton Marsalis, to comment. I swear they have the guy on speed-dial.
And, while Wynton is a skilled musician and brilliant self-marketer, he is not a brilliant jazz musician (unlike his older brother, Bradford). You see, whereas Freddie’s playing style was languid, relaxed and fat, Wynton’s style is overly busy, uptight, stilted, soulless, cold and technical. As a classical trumpeter, he’s extremely proficient. But Wynton’s forays into jazz are like Paris Hilton’s forays into acting—painful and unnecessary. So asking him to comment on jazz is like asking Britney Spears to comment on parenting.
What’s worse, he doesn’t just show-off by playing too many notes himself, he teaches upcoming young trumpeters to show-off by playing too many notes, too. It’s like the way Whitney Houston, albeit unwittingly, taught a generation of young girls such as Christina and Britney how to “sing” through their noses.
This was driven home for me when I recently attended a holiday concert at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco by Irving Mayfield. I had never heard of him before, but I wasn’t thrilled to learn that he was a protege of Wynton’s. Still, since Marsalis said he studied Freddie’s playing style without learning anything, I hoped that perhaps Mr. Mayfield was an equally poor student of Wynton’s playing style. No such luck. Mayfield has the same note-heavy, technical approach his mentor does.
Sadly, aside from Arturo Sandoval, I have found few living horn players who can play at the level of past jazz trumpet greats like Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell, Clifford Brown, Chet Baker, or Fats Navarro.
And now, to that list, I must regrettably add Freddie.
Although these are Peter Crosby's thoughts, they are "sympatico" with my own.
Enjoy the music.
