Freddie Hubbard says he’s tamed his reckless ways. A prodigy of brass who burst on the jazz world of New York in the late ‘50s, Hubbard has spent four full decades wielding his horn through the stiffest musical challenges posed by veterans, innovators, up ‘n’ comers and audiences alike. After enforced time off, Hubbard returns with "New Colors" (Hip Bop) as an older and wiser enfant terrible, soloing on flugelhorn, tempering his physical exertions with canny craft while shaping a fresh young ensemble - the New Jazz Composers Octet - in his own image.

Throughout his career Freddie Hubbard has forged countless classic performances, impressing his personal stamp on works crossing all stylistic boundaries. He has an inimitable sound, muscular yet lush, and many of his compositions have become jam session favorites. His recordings are treasured by countless

listeners, and have also been widely sampled. But Hubbard’s wild style has taken a toll on his chops, those precious muscles of the mouth with which a brass player kisses the horn. Chops are vulnerable -playing hard, fast and loose can damage them. And Hubbard, by overextending himself, shortcutting necessary warm-ups and facing the demands of continuous tours and studio sessions, developed lip problems. They jeopardized his appearances and kept him from his own projects for almost four years.

“ I’ve been working with them for about a year and a half,” Hubbard says of the band led by trumpeter-arranger David Weiss, who had studied his ouevre while attending the famed jazz school at North Texas State University, “and they’re going to be fine”. Collaborating with Weiss on little-big-band charts for several of his best known songs and tunes dedicated to Dizzy Gillespie (“Dizzy’s Connotations”) and Miles Davis (“Blues for Miles”), Freddie has also coached a circle of exciting players including saxophonists Kenny Garrett, Javon Jackson, Craig Handy, Myron Walden, Chris Karlic and Ted Nash, trombonists Luis Bonilla and Steve Davis, bassist Dwayne Burno and pianist Xavier Davis in his signature style, which mixes the pretty and the strong. Calling on seasoned drummers, Joe Chambers and Idris Muhammad, to propel his forthright rhythms, Hubbard has painted eight bright warm pieces, including his hit “Red Clay”, his feature “One of Another Kind” from the great VSOP band, and Chick Corea’s “Inner Space” (originally recorded by the late trumpeter Woody Shaw) in indelible hues.

Hubbard’s entire story, though endures as a heroic tale, beginning with his attraction to the toy tonette, then the e-flat horn, trombone, tuba, french horn and finally trumpet in junior high school in Indianapolis. Frederick Dewayne Hubbard was born April 7 1938, the youngest of six children, and recalls his teen years following his parents’ separation as “pretty tough”. But after his brief college sojourn and introduction to the jazz profession by local heroes Wes, Buddy and Monk Montgomery (Freddie made his recording debut on one of their Pacific Jazz albums, now out-of-print) he headed for New York, and won support from Miles Davis (who heard him playing in Philly Joe Jones’ band and introduced him to Blue Note Records), then gigs with Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, J.J. Johnson, Quincy Jones, Dexter Gordon, and Art Blakey. Following the release of Open Sesame, his Blue Note debut as a leader in 1960, Hubbard replaced Lee Morgan in Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and through ’64 formed a stellar Messenger frontline with saxophonist Wayne Shorter and trombonist Curtis Fuller.

During the ‘60s a cataclysmic era in jazz, Hubbard helped define the Blue Note book of sophisticated, original post-bop, blues and boogaloo (collaborating with his Brooklyn room-mate Eric Dolphy as well as Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Andrew Hill, Bobby Hutcherson, Sam Rivers, Shorter and significant others). He stretched himself to record with strings and a 16 piece-orchestra on his Body and Soul (Impulse!), push the limits on Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz and give his all to John Coltrane’s Ascension. Throughout the decade he was prodigiously productive, etching his bold compositions and stirring solos on albums including Ready for Freddie, Hub-Tones and Breaking Point (all on Blue Note), Backlash, High Blues Pressure and electronic composer Ilhan Mimaroglu’s unusual Sing Me A Song (all on Atlantic). In 1970, Hubbard essentially founded jazz-soul-fusion with his immensely popular album, Red Clay, on CTI Records, which he followed with Straight Life, First Light, Sky Dive and several more sessions in league with such artists as George Benson, Milt Jackson, Keith Jarrett, Hubert Laws and Jack De Johnette that gave rise to a smooth, still funky jazz and forecast the coming quiet storm.

The first stage of Hubbard’s career crested in the 70s with a string of albums for Columbia Records, the most memorable being Super Blue with Benson, Laws, Henderson, De Johnette, Kenny Barron and Ron Carter. Since then he’s free-lanced avidly, recording live and in-studio dates for Pablo, Enja, MPS, Prestige, Atlantic, Blue Note (Doubletake, his album of duets with Woody Shaw, is especially noteable) and Music Masters, before contracting with Hip Bop. In 1998, he produced Hubsongs for Blue Note; trumpeters Tim Hagans and Marcus Printup played “the music of Freddie Hubbard, including such compositions as “Hub Cap”, “Crisis“, and “Up Jumped Spring”. David Weiss was Hubbard’s co-arranger and Javon Jackson, a member of Hubbard’s working band at the time, played tenor sax. Hubbard is also represented on video and laser disc by Ride Like The Wind, performing before both a string orchestra and a big band.

“I better come back - all the young guys are playing my stuff,” said Hubbard, two years after a biopsy and treatment for a lip blister, similar to those that afflicted Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie and which threatened his career. “I tell you honestly, I was discouraged at first when I couldn’t get my level of technique up to what it was before. The trumpet requires discipline for life; it’s very demanding physically and mentally. I’ve got my mental faculties, and have been getting my physical faculties back. I can play, but I’m not going to lie - I can’t play as long as I used to, and I have to practice every day to try and get my embouchure back, to build it up and keep it tight.

“There’s no rushing the healing. If you rush it, you just tear yourself up again. So I’m going to take my time. But there are things I haven’t played that I want to play. The ideas are there, the feeling and the sound. But the strength - I have to pace myself. I used to come in blasting; I kept thinking I had to compete with myself. Well, the ideas I played in the past I don’t have to play again. Sonny Rollins told me to quit the high notes, and stick to the middle register. That’s okay, as long as I can keep my edge.”

Hubbard currently works out ideas on piano before trying them on his horn or his band, and New Colors attests to his ability to tailor his personal identity to a contemporary cohort. Besides the patented Hubbard smear, timbre, innate fire and lyricism, freddie inspires his younger followers to daring leaps of expression and solid section work, written to accentuate harmonic depths, a spectrum of hues.

“I’m trying to play even prettier, more ballads, softer and settled down”, Hubbard maintains. “I’ve always played with so much energy, now I want people to say, ‘Wow!" and stop and listen to me. I’m 63 this year, a survivor of the guys I came up with - so many of them are gone. What I can do now will last longer than all that energy I used to use. I want people to know I’m eager to work, I’m going to show up, I got my health together, my chops are coming back. I was laid up, but no more hanky-panky now! It’s full steam ahead!” From what we hear of New colors, Freddie Hubbard retains the youthful ardor - yes, edge - of his earlier days, and has donned a new mantle of maturity.

THE NEW JAZZ COMPOSERS OCTET was formed in the summer of 1996 to provide an avenue and a vehicle for talented jazz composers to nurture their skills and explore their ever-expanding musical capabilities. The five horn frontline provides an ideal setting for the composers to fully realize their work. This particular instrumentation makes for a unique and versatile ensemble. The collective is comprised of some of the most talented composers/musicians working in jazz today.

The Octet is lead by trumpeter, David Weiss, from New York City. He has performed with many accomplished musicians in various musical contexts including Barry Harris, Jaki Byard, Jimmy Heath, Billy Hart, Wynton Marsalis, Dave Holland and Junior Cook. David has also performed in Moscow with Mingus Dynasty Epitaph in 1991. He has recorded with Bob Belden, The NY Funk All-Stars featuring Stanley Turrentine and Reuben Wilson, The Tom Harrell Big Band and on the Bop City CD Hip Strut. David has arranged and transcribed material for several major recording projects on Verve, Atlantic, and Blue Note Records. His credits as an arranger include the Main Theme from “The Cosby Mysteries” for NBC, recordings by Freddie Hubbard, Rodney Kendrick, Alto Summit featuring Phil Woods and Vincent Herring and a Rahsaan Roland Kirk Tribute CD entitled, "Haunted Melodies", featuring Joe Lovano, Donald Harrison, James Spaulding and many others.