Freddie Hubbard - Breaking Point! (Blue Note Tone Poet)

Despite having performed on several of the most revolutionary avant-garde jazz records of the 1960s, including Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz and John Coltrane's Ascension, Freddie Hubbard's own albums tended to hew closer to the mainstream.

Perhaps no other single album captures the trumpeter's awe-inspiring breadth of ability and versatility than Breaking Point!, which was recorded in May 1964 shortly after Hubbard had departed Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in order to form his own band.

On this five-song set, featuring five of Hubbard's original compositions, his new quintet - with James Spaulding on alto saxophone and flute, Ronnie Mathews on piano, Eddie Khan on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums - moves assuredly across vast stylistic terrain. On the stunning title track alone the band shifts from free-form exploration into a playful Calypso and back with ease. The rest of the program traverses modal jazz ("Far Away"), the blues ("Blue Frenzy"), and stunningly beautiful balladry (Chambers' "Mirrors") to create one of the more remarkable albums in Hubbard's formidable Blue Note oeuvre.

Blue Note Records’ Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series is produced by Joe Harley and features all-analog, mastered-from-the-original-master-tape heavyweight audiophile vinyl. Deluxe gatefold packaging. Mastered is by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. Pressed at Record Technology Incorporated (RTI).

TRACKLISTING:

A1. Breaking Point
A2. Far Away
B1. Blue Frenxy
B2. D Minor Mnt
B3. Mirrors