Hi guys, my post is up. Because I don't have an editor and also have too much time on my hands I ended up with three posts about Freddie Hubbard, start here https://www.ctproduced.com/happy-born-day-hubs/
And I've written two more since that are tangently linked. I have a couple of interviews to work on next, after which I'm going to take on the social/racial justice albums of Bob Thiele on Flying Dutchman.
Thank you for this, you have certainly added to the scarce supply of knowledge about this subject. One thing interested me in particular in the discussion of the Songmy record; if I've read you right, you seem to infer that the sections with Hubbard's quintet were slotted into Miramoglu's composition afterwards. You may remember that Tom and I had some discussion about who exactly had composed the Quintet's material. Did you find any information about that? Are there, for instance, any bootlegs of Hubbard's band playing any of this material live before the recording date? I wish you every success in your future writing and thank you for taking the time to interact with us!
As I said, I chased around to try to get some details, including reaching out to Freddie's some Duane, who manages Freddie's music interests and didn't hear back. Two of the tracks are on an Atlantic compilation album, and Mimaroğlu produced a 1983 album for Freddie, but "Songmy" mostly sank with a trace. Everytime I listen to the album, which has been a lot lately I end up changing my my mind about howe it was recorded.
There are a lot of Freddie's live sets floating around in various forms, many from 1973. I've not come across any that include tracks from this. https://www.ctproduced.com/on-this-day-sky-live/
I've reached out to Kenny Barron's management again and hope they'll see the writing was a serious effort to document a much underrated album.
I also went to edit it this morning to make some minor changes, and see somewhere between my final draft and posting via mobile phone while travelling, some of the text had been dropped. (I suspect I posted the wrong draft). I guess thats why I don't do podcasts ;-)
If I can get Kenny Barron to discuss the album and especially how it was recorded I'll do another update and post here. I'm especially interested if I can get a source/citation/opinion on this which was in a more recent book.
"The pair of musicians— and with the direction and insistence of Hubbard—planned to make a statement on the atrocities of war"
Thanks for coming back to share this. I especially liked your remark...
"You have to wonder if this album had Dylan reading the poetry a reciting his own words over his electric guitar if reviewers would have dealt with the album in the same way?"
Says a lot about the difference between their respective audiences.
Hi Mark, first of all thanks for taking the time to comment, we really do enjoy it. It's probably true that we should have talked about the Vietnam war earlier in the episode, but we were both very aware of the fact that we aren't experts nor trying to speak from the expert standpoint, so we would like people to use our podcast as a starting point for their own further investigations, rather than having us read Wikipedia out loud to them. I did mention, (only at the end), that I had curated a selection of documentaries on the Substack page to give people the bare bones of the historical events that surrounded the making of the record. I'm interested that you say that, firstly, how Hubbard became involved with the project and secondly, that he wasn't prepared for the pushback that the album got, as I found it very difficult to find anything about Hubbard's connection with the project. As you could hear from the episode, we were left to a certain amount of speculation, in spite of that, I think we dug up some information and at least started talking about an album that we both feel is as important as it is overlooked. You probably also worked out that I'm the Freddie Hubbard fan and general Jazz aficionado, whereas Tom isn't, so we both have to keep the plates spinning so's not to end up arguing about what's good and what isn't, nevertheless, in this episode we talked quite a bit about Miramoglu, who doesn't get as much attention, so that was OK. I would be VERY interested to read or listen to what you have to say about Freddie Hubbard, ( Do you agree with my appraisal of Out To Lunch, for instance!), and please send me the link for it when it comes out. Please keep listening!
I was listening via spotify, no context except the title. I came here after to find out a little more.
Since you guys said you'd consider doing Songmy live. The downbeat review from October 14th 1971 says
"Sinn Me A Song of Songmy is a work of
monumental proportions, and it is doubtful
that it could ever be staged live as effectively
as on record. The advantage of recording is
that a composer can enter a studio with con-
cepts. ideas of sounds in mind that cannot be
approximated by instruments known to man,
but through the use of electro-musical equip-
ment. he can realize his dream sounds. (If
anyone ever turns Rahsaan Roland Kirk loose
on a Moog Synthesizer . . watch out.)"
I'm hoping to be able to talk to Freddie's son and ask him some questions. So much to do. I didn't mean to be critical, I was just glad to find anything at all about this album. I'm more of a Creed Taylor production fan(obviously) than a jazzhead... so appreciated the comments about his playing.
I think it was a mistake not to deal with the context for this album, before trying to review it. Wah, I'm 31-minutes in and you've not mentioned the significant social/political aspects. It's nuts. It's like reviewing a Christmas Cake without discussing Christmas. Yeah... you got there at 45-minutes. You mentioned the war.... (I know John Cleese knows not to mention the war).
Hubbard's involvement in this project came about because of the treatment of black soldiers in Vietnam. More than twice as many black soldiers were dying as white. Around this time there were a number of albums on social/political commentary especially Bob Thiel's albums on Flying Dutchman.
Yes. Brit expat here. I stumbled across your episode while searching for reviews of five Bob Thiele albums and the Songmy album, I'm working on a write up for Hubbard's April birthday.
I actually think songmy is a great album in context. Freddie Hubbard wasn't prepared for the pushback the album got. I was interested in what other thought,
I've decided to separate out the Hubbard SONGMY album which will be published April 7th, and the Thiele social/political commentary albums which will come out after the 14th. Combined it would have just been unreadable.
Hi guys, my post is up. Because I don't have an editor and also have too much time on my hands I ended up with three posts about Freddie Hubbard, start here https://www.ctproduced.com/happy-born-day-hubs/
And I've written two more since that are tangently linked. I have a couple of interviews to work on next, after which I'm going to take on the social/racial justice albums of Bob Thiele on Flying Dutchman.
All the best from the Colorado Rockies.
Thank you for this, you have certainly added to the scarce supply of knowledge about this subject. One thing interested me in particular in the discussion of the Songmy record; if I've read you right, you seem to infer that the sections with Hubbard's quintet were slotted into Miramoglu's composition afterwards. You may remember that Tom and I had some discussion about who exactly had composed the Quintet's material. Did you find any information about that? Are there, for instance, any bootlegs of Hubbard's band playing any of this material live before the recording date? I wish you every success in your future writing and thank you for taking the time to interact with us!
As I said, I chased around to try to get some details, including reaching out to Freddie's some Duane, who manages Freddie's music interests and didn't hear back. Two of the tracks are on an Atlantic compilation album, and Mimaroğlu produced a 1983 album for Freddie, but "Songmy" mostly sank with a trace. Everytime I listen to the album, which has been a lot lately I end up changing my my mind about howe it was recorded.
There are a lot of Freddie's live sets floating around in various forms, many from 1973. I've not come across any that include tracks from this. https://www.ctproduced.com/on-this-day-sky-live/
> "Everytime I listen to the album, which has been a lot lately I end up changing my my mind about howe it was recorded."
Same here. Given Mimaroğlu's studio skills, any of the arrangements we can imagine seem possible.
I've reached out to Kenny Barron's management again and hope they'll see the writing was a serious effort to document a much underrated album.
I also went to edit it this morning to make some minor changes, and see somewhere between my final draft and posting via mobile phone while travelling, some of the text had been dropped. (I suspect I posted the wrong draft). I guess thats why I don't do podcasts ;-)
If I can get Kenny Barron to discuss the album and especially how it was recorded I'll do another update and post here. I'm especially interested if I can get a source/citation/opinion on this which was in a more recent book.
"The pair of musicians— and with the direction and insistence of Hubbard—planned to make a statement on the atrocities of war"
Thanks for coming back to share this. I especially liked your remark...
"You have to wonder if this album had Dylan reading the poetry a reciting his own words over his electric guitar if reviewers would have dealt with the album in the same way?"
Says a lot about the difference between their respective audiences.
Hi Mark, first of all thanks for taking the time to comment, we really do enjoy it. It's probably true that we should have talked about the Vietnam war earlier in the episode, but we were both very aware of the fact that we aren't experts nor trying to speak from the expert standpoint, so we would like people to use our podcast as a starting point for their own further investigations, rather than having us read Wikipedia out loud to them. I did mention, (only at the end), that I had curated a selection of documentaries on the Substack page to give people the bare bones of the historical events that surrounded the making of the record. I'm interested that you say that, firstly, how Hubbard became involved with the project and secondly, that he wasn't prepared for the pushback that the album got, as I found it very difficult to find anything about Hubbard's connection with the project. As you could hear from the episode, we were left to a certain amount of speculation, in spite of that, I think we dug up some information and at least started talking about an album that we both feel is as important as it is overlooked. You probably also worked out that I'm the Freddie Hubbard fan and general Jazz aficionado, whereas Tom isn't, so we both have to keep the plates spinning so's not to end up arguing about what's good and what isn't, nevertheless, in this episode we talked quite a bit about Miramoglu, who doesn't get as much attention, so that was OK. I would be VERY interested to read or listen to what you have to say about Freddie Hubbard, ( Do you agree with my appraisal of Out To Lunch, for instance!), and please send me the link for it when it comes out. Please keep listening!
I was listening via spotify, no context except the title. I came here after to find out a little more.
Since you guys said you'd consider doing Songmy live. The downbeat review from October 14th 1971 says
"Sinn Me A Song of Songmy is a work of
monumental proportions, and it is doubtful
that it could ever be staged live as effectively
as on record. The advantage of recording is
that a composer can enter a studio with con-
cepts. ideas of sounds in mind that cannot be
approximated by instruments known to man,
but through the use of electro-musical equip-
ment. he can realize his dream sounds. (If
anyone ever turns Rahsaan Roland Kirk loose
on a Moog Synthesizer . . watch out.)"
I'm hoping to be able to talk to Freddie's son and ask him some questions. So much to do. I didn't mean to be critical, I was just glad to find anything at all about this album. I'm more of a Creed Taylor production fan(obviously) than a jazzhead... so appreciated the comments about his playing.
I think it was a mistake not to deal with the context for this album, before trying to review it. Wah, I'm 31-minutes in and you've not mentioned the significant social/political aspects. It's nuts. It's like reviewing a Christmas Cake without discussing Christmas. Yeah... you got there at 45-minutes. You mentioned the war.... (I know John Cleese knows not to mention the war).
Hubbard's involvement in this project came about because of the treatment of black soldiers in Vietnam. More than twice as many black soldiers were dying as white. Around this time there were a number of albums on social/political commentary especially Bob Thiel's albums on Flying Dutchman.
Were you listening to the Sing Me A Song Of Songmy episode?
https://gasgiants.substack.com/p/sing-me-a-song-of-songmy#details
Yes. Brit expat here. I stumbled across your episode while searching for reviews of five Bob Thiele albums and the Songmy album, I'm working on a write up for Hubbard's April birthday.
I actually think songmy is a great album in context. Freddie Hubbard wasn't prepared for the pushback the album got. I was interested in what other thought,
Where do you publish your writings?
I'm the main writer for ctproduced.com
I've decided to separate out the Hubbard SONGMY album which will be published April 7th, and the Thiele social/political commentary albums which will come out after the 14th. Combined it would have just been unreadable.
I will look forward to it.
Happy New Year, friends. And the same to enemies too.