Jazz giant Freddie Hubbard dies

The 70-year-old, who played with the likes of Herbie Hancock and Thelonious Monk, was regarded as one of the foremost hard-bop trumpeters in the US.

• He won a Grammy in 1972 for crossover album First Light, which was recorded with Miles Davis’ band members George Benson and Jack DeJohnette.
• The star had been in hospital since suffering a heart attack in November.
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• Born Frederick Dewayne Hubbard in Indianapolis, the musician started out playing the bugle-like mellophone in his school band.
• A year later, he moved into the trumpet section, having already begun to learn the instrument, which three of his siblings also played.
• Trademark trill
• After moving to New York in 1958, he recorded his first album, Open Sesame, and enjoyed a meteoric rise in jazz circles.
• He hooked up with such jazz legends as Monk, Davis, Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins.
• Later, the star recalled playing with John Coltrane as one of the early highlights of his career.
• “I met Trane at a jam session at Count Basie’s in Harlem in 1958,” he told the jazz magazine Down Beat in 1995.
• “He said: ‘Why don’t you come over and let’s try and practice a little bit together?’
• “I almost went crazy. I mean, here is a 20-year-old kid practicing with John Coltrane.
• “He helped me out a lot, and we worked several jobs together.”
• Eventually, Hubbard’s own style – including a trademark trill known as a “shake” – became influential in itself.
• “He influenced all the trumpet players that came after him,” trumpeter Wynton Marsalis told the Associated Press news agency.
• “Certainly I listened to him a lot. We all listened to him. He had a big sound and a great sense of rhythm and time and really the hallmark of his playing is an exuberance.”
• Hubbard played on some of the greatest jazz records of the 1960s, including Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, Coleman’s radically experimental Free Jazz, Coltrane’s Ascension, and his own classic, Ready for Freddie.
• But he enjoyed his greatest mainstream success with a run of solo albums in the early 1970s, including Red Clay, Straight Life and the Grammy-winning First Light.
• His glossy tone, brilliant high register and bluesy, squeezed half-valve notes made him a close contender for Miles Davis’ title as the era’s greatest jazz trumpeter.
• “I’ve played some things that I don’t think too many cats can play that are alive today,” he said last year as he promoted his last album, On The Real Side.
• His career was threatened in the early 1990s when years of constant touring and recording led to a lip injury, after which he was only able to play on an occasional basis.
• “I advise any young trumpeter not to do what I did because that style could be hazardous to your health,” he said last year.
• Hubbard is survived by his wife of 35 years, Briggie Hubbard, and his son, Duane.