Red Clay – Freddie Hubbard (Live in 1971)

Red Clay [Live] Written by: Freddie Hubbard

Performed by: Freddie Hubbard – trumpet Stanley Turrentine – saxophone George Benson – guitar Johnny “Hammond” Smith – organ, electric piano Ron Carter – bass Billy Cobham – drums Airto Moreira – percussion

From the album: Red Clay

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Red Clay is an album recorded in 1970 by jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. It was his first album on Creed Taylor’s CTI label and marked a shift toward the soul-jazz fusion sounds that would dominate his recordings in the later part of the decade. It entered at number 20 on Billboard’s Top 20 Best Selling Jazz LPs, on June 20, 1970.

Bill Milkowski of JazzTimes commented: “…Red Clay, an album that would not only define Hubbard’s direction over the next decade while setting the template for all future CTI recordings, but would also have a dramatic impact on a generation of trumpet players coming up in the ’70s. ’Red Clay’ would become Hubbard’s signature tune throughout his career.”

Thom Jurek of AllMusic stated: “This may be Freddie Hubbard’s finest moment as a leader, in that it embodies and utilizes all of his strengths as a composer, soloist, and frontman. On Red Clay, Hubbard combines hard bop’s glorious blues-out past with the soulful innovations of mainstream jazz in the 1960s, and reads them through the chunky groove innovations of ’70s jazz fusion… This is a classic, hands down.”

Tom Moon, in 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, wrote that “Red Clay is one of those records that mucks up the neat evolution narrative of jazz.”

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Red Clay (Freddie Hubbard) Review by Thom Jurek

This may be Freddie Hubbard’s finest moment as a leader, in that it embodies and utilizes all of his strengths as a composer, soloist, and frontman.

On Red Clay, Hubbard combines hard bop’s glorious blues-out past with the soulful innovations of mainstream jazz in the 1960s, and reads them through the chunky groove innovations of ’70s jazz fusion. This session places the trumpeter in the company of giants such as tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Lenny White.

Freddie Hubbard’s five compositions all come from deep inside blues territory; these shaded notions are grafted onto funky hard bop melodies worthy of Horace Silver’s finest tunes, and are layered inside the smoothed-over cadences of shimmering, steaming soul. The 12-minute-plus title track features a 4/4 modal opening and a spare electric piano solo woven through the twin horns of Hubbard and Henderson. It is a fine example of snaky groove music.

Henderson even takes his solo outside a bit without ever moving out of the rhythmatist’s pocket. “Delphia” begins as a ballad with slow, clipped trumpet lines against a major-key background, and opens onto a midtempo groover, then winds back into the dark, steamy heart of bluesy melodicism. The hands-down favorite here, though, is “The Intrepid Fox,” with its Miles-like opening of knotty changes and shifting modes, that are all rooted in bop’s muscular architecture.

It’s White and Hancock who shift the track from underneath with large sevenths and triple-timed drums that land deeply inside the clamoring, ever-present riff. Where Hubbard and Henderson are playing against, as well as with one another, the rhythm section, lifted buoyantly by Carter’s bridge-building bassline, carries the melody over until Hancock plays an uncharacteristically angular solo before splitting the groove in two and doubling back with a series of striking arpeggios. This is a classic, hands down.