Freddie Hubbard - Philadelphia 1975

Here's one of the funkiest Hubbard shows among the lot, played it in its entirety yesterday and found it very listenable, despite it being a 33 year old audience recording. Sound is constant, you can pretty much hear what's going on at any given point, and Freddie is smoking. The Cables/Franklin/Burnett section is very tight and groovy, the only slight letdown to my ears is the schmaltzy keys in the final cut on CD1 (including synth strings), other than that, this is smoking!

I don't know anything about Carl Randall Jr. - AMG has almost no info, just a listing of credits, which includes mid seventies recordings with Johnny "Hammond" Smith, one with Freddie Hubbard (1975's "Liquid Love"), and more recently with Gerald Wilson in the nineties and on Kenny Burrell's "75th Birthday Bash", a recent Blue Note release (where I guess Randall turns up as part of the Wilson orchestra again). Hubbard praises him in his announcements here and he acquits himself nicely in these surroundings, that's for sure!

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Freddie Hubbard
Philadelphia, PA (USA), Bijou Café
November 28 (CD1) & 29 (CD2), 1975

Freddie Hubbard - trumpet
Carl Randall Jr. - tenor sax, flute
George Cables - electric piano, keyboards
Henry Franklin - electric bass
Carl Burnett - drums
Sa Davis - percussion

CD1/45:48
1. Baraka Sasa (Freddie Hubbard) 18:52
2. Ebony Moonbeams (George Cables) 15:25
3. Announcement by FH (3:49)
4. Liquid Love (Freddie Hubbard) 7:40 [inc]

CD2/38:41
1. Lost Dreams (George Cables) 20:51 >
2. Betcha By Golly Wow (Creed/Bell) 11:18
3. Spirits Of Trane (Freddie Hubbard) 6:30 [inc]

TT: 84:29

Sound: A-/B+
Audience recording my Mee for You
prehistoric cassette recorder/jvc stand alone burner/flac/you