Oliloqui Valley

Freddie Hubbard (cornet), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums). From the album Empyrean Isles (1964).

Freddie Hubbard was one of the best American jazz trumpeter who played bebop, hard bop and post-bop styles. His influences were Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan. During the 1970s he was the leader of the jazz trumpeters, but a series of commercial albums in the late of the decade damaged his reputation. He began his career in 1958, when he moved to New York and played and recorded with some of the best musicians of that time, and toured Europe with Quincy Jones.

In 1960 he recorded his first album as a leader entitled Open Sesame and Ornette Coleman invited him to participate in his album Free Jazz. In 1961 he played in John Coltrane’s Olé Coltrane and Africa/Brass albums and in Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth. That same year he recorded Ready for Freddie for Blue Note Records and replaced Lee Morgan in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messenger, with whom he stayed until 1964.

The introduction begins with Carter, then Williams and then the rest of the group to expose a brief theme to the hard bop style at medium tempo. The first one to intervene is Hancock, who develops a well articulated and convincing speech. He is followed by Hubbard with a somewhat rebellious solo with quick phrases from time to time and constantly changing the motifs while the rest of the band pushes him up. After that, Carter arrives playing in a mysterious and somber way, sometimes two notes at a time, until the group re-exposes the theme by fading out.