(For paying subscribers, below you’ll find the Downbeat issue of December 1, 1966 where the printed version of this interview appeared, along with an article on Johnny Hodges and a blindfold test with Bill Cosby—long before anybody knew what we now know about him.)
You probably agree with me that Freddie Hubbard (1938-2008) was one of the most amazing trumpeters of all time. (I have a Hubbard story that I’ll share in a future post.) Dan Morgenstern interviewed him on October 18, 1966 for Downbeat magazine, and today and next time you’ll get to hear the actual audio of the interview. At the beginning, Hubbard mentions that he will be recording for Atlantic Records the next day, October 19. That material ended up on the album Backlash, and included two of Hubbard’s best loved compositions, “Up Jumped Spring,” which he had already recorded as a member of Art Blakey’s group, and a new one, “Little Sunflower.”
At 1:00 Dan asks him about working with the leading “jazz” drummers, Blakey previously, and currently Max Roach. First, Freddie takes note of that word “jazz.” He notices that Dan’s wallet has the word on it broken up like this: JA ZZ
Like many musicians, especially Black artists in my experience, Hubbard doesn’t like the word. Even Louis Armstrong, he says, played “grinning” music, that is, happy music, not “jazz.” At 2:50 and again at 4:25, Dan asks Freddie questions about technique. Among other things, Freddie says that he doesn’t practice on a certain schedule, and he says practicing should have a goal, not simply fluidity and speed. At 8:10 they discuss having one’s own group versus working as a sideperson with Max. Hubbard stresses the importance of having a strong drummer such as his current one, the vibrant and hard-swinging Ray Appleton:
Appleton had played with Wes Montgomery and his brothers, and at 11:30 Hubbard talks about his own experience working with them as a teenager.
The sound is very distorted from about 11:00 to 14:00. That might be my fault—I dubbed this from Dan’s original reel-to-reel tape years ago, but I didn’t sit by the recorder the whole time to see if there were any problems. Feel free to skip ahead to 14:00 if you wish.
At 14:00, Dan and Freddie are talking some more about categories of music, and how to be commercially successful. (The album Backlash was considered to have some “commercial” tracks on it.) At 15:45, Hubbard suggests that white people can’t let Black people get away from the stigma of “former slaves.” From 1630 he recalls that his brother was playing interesting stuff on piano. This leads him to discuss his history in music. At 17:20 he describes playing trumpet and French horn in high school groups in his home city of Indianapolis. He had a scholarship on French horn, but his grades outside of music were too low to continue there, so he enrolled at the Jordan Conservatory of Butler University (now known as Jordan College of the Arts). But, at 19:45, he recounts that at the end of the second semester, he didn’t pass the non-music subjects including electricity, and a racist dean used it as an excuse to put him out.
So (at 21:55) he studied privately with Max Woodbury, the principal trumpeter of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. And he continued to gig around town, with saxophonist James Spaulding and others. At 23:50 he discusses the racial situation in Indianapolis. He says that he eventually had to leave because he was dating a white Jewish woman. Back in high school, it was integrated but he had been one of the only Black students, and they never taught any Black history. On the other hand (at 27:30), Freddie hears connections between jazz and white folk music, and he himself had a white grandfather, and he’s aware that most Black Americans have some white ancestry. Back to the word “jazz” (30:20), he feels the word is a handicap even among Black people, who prefer pop music. He ends this segment by saying that Sonny Rollins has been “my greatest inspiration.” Okay, let’s listen:
(It’s always interesting to compare the actual interview recording with the way it is published in print. Paying Subscribers will find that magazine attached below.)
Next time we’ll hear the second half of the audio!
All the best,
Lewis
