freddie

hubbard
pinnacle
Live & Unreleased from Keystone Korner

freddie hubbard pinnacle Live & Unreleased from Keystone Korner

Track Listing
1. The Intrepid Fox (8:02)

(F. Hubbard) Recorded October 22, 1980

2. First Light (10:13)

(F. Hubbard) Recorded June 20, 1980

3. One of Another Kind (12:26)

(F. Hubbard) Recorded October 22, 1980

4. Happiness Is Now (7:11)

(F. Hubbard) Recorded June 22, 1980

5. The Summer Knows (Summer of 42) (8:28)

(M. Legrand) Recorded October 21, 1980

6. Blues for Duane (9:18)

(F. Hubbard) Recorded June 20, 1980

7. Giant Steps (8:45)

(J. Coltrane) Recorded October 21, 1980

FEATURED ARTISTS

Freddie Hubbard trumpet, flugelhorn

Billy Childs piano, Rhodes
Larry Klein bass
Phil Ranelin trombone (1-4, 6, 7)
Hadley Caliman
tenor saxophone (3, 6, 7)
David Schnitter tenor saxophone (1, 2, 4)
Eddie Marshall drums (3, 5, 6, 7)
Sinclair Lott drums (1, 2, 4)
Produced by: George Klabin,
Todd Barkan, & David Weiss
Associate Producer: Zev Feldman
Recorded Live at Keystone Korner, San Francisco,
June & October, 1980
Mixing and sound restoration by George Klabin
and Fran Gala
Mastering: Fran Gala
Art Direction & Design: Burton Yount
Cover Photo by Tom Marcello
Interior photos by Warren Berman, Kathy Sloane,
Brian McMillen, Gary Wieneke, Michael Wilderman;
mural by Josie Grant
Special thanks to Duane Hubbard

t was my first time in New York City. Im sitting in my dark little room in The Wellington Hotel
on 7th Ave. at 55th and the phone rings. It was Freddie, Its freezing outside! I dont know how
people live here in New York! You wanna go for a walk? I put on my old winter coat and rushed
down to the lobby. He walked out of the elevator in a sharp gray suit and hat, a big smile on his face.
He nodded towards the door, New York City! Lets go! We walked down 7th Ave. together as he
told me about some restaurants close by, both of us smiling at a couple of beautiful women walking
the other way. We stop at the corner of 53rd St., and wait for the light. Im in New York! The light
changes, and I step off of the curb to cross. In the same moment, I feel something quickly pull back
on the back of my coat; a taxi roars by, running the light. Im on the road for one day, and my boss has
already had to save my life.
After an audition and a couple of quick rehearsals, to my surprise, Id gotten the bass gig with
Freddie Hubbard. To a 19-year-old kid from suburban purgatory in L.A., this felt like the beginning of
a new life. I had listened to Freddie for years, transcribed his solos, played along with his records, and
harbored the notion that someday I might play with him. After the second rehearsal, Freddie patiently
sat at the piano, showing me how he had written one of my favorite tunes of his, then gave me my
airline ticket saying, I have to get back there early for a record date; Ill see you in New York!

Freddie Hubbard backstage at Keystone Korner.

Photo by Kathy Sloane

To say that Freddie was a mentor is a vast understatement. His presence in my life was one of the
turning points that all restless souls wait for. Aside from showing us all what could be possible on the
trumpet, he provided a nightly environment where one could experiment and create, testing the very
limit of what one was capable of on their instrument. He had created a musical language for himself,
and was never satisfied with players around him unless they were tirelessly striving to do the same.
Freddie was several people. He was a teacher, a demon, a loyal and
kind friend, an irresponsible rogue, a generous mentor, and a merciless
taskmaster. Like Miles, whom he idolized, he had reinvented the
trumpet. He had come up from the streets of Indianapolis, through
the ranks of Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers, and risen to the top of the
New York scene, before coming to Los Angeles. He had been hazed,
headbutted, ripped off and shorted, and he wasnt going to let anyone
get through his band without letting them pay the price too.
To my mind, much of his best playing occurred outside of the
recording studio, in live settings, when the fatigue of travel on the
Larry Klein at Keystone Korner.
road had worn off the veneer of self- consciousness that we all have
to wrestle down within ourselves. This album is a good example of what might have happened on a
night when all of our defenses were down. On nights like this it felt like we were flying. Nobody ever
played the trumpet like this.
Larry Klein

opened the Keystone Korner in San Francisco in

July of 1972, as a beer-only bar (with 32 brands
of barley and hops from all over the world) with
world-class live jazz music. In February of 1973,
Freddie Hubbard joined forces with McCoy Tyner,
Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Ron Carter and Elvin Jones at
the 3,500-seat Paramount Theater in Oakland to play
a special benefit concert for Keystone Korner that
raised enough money to buy the club its full liquor
license from the State of California.
In January of 1975, Grover Washington, Jr. and George
Benson donated their musical services for a similar
kind of fundraising event at the Paramount which paid
for the expenses of adding a full-service kitchen that
enabled the Keystone Korner to admit all ages of jazz
fans, students and patrons, and to increase its capacity
from 130 to 175 seats.

Keystone Korner interior with mural by Josie Grant,

upagainstthewall-murals.com
Photo by George Auxier, courtesy of Josie Grant

Freddie Hubbard was one of the founding fathers of Keystone Korner as well as one of the artistic
pillars of this home away from home for so many jazz giants during the thousands of magical nights
in its storied 11-year run, during which time Freddie played the club over a couple of dozen times
with his own bands, and with special ensembles featuring Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson, McCoy
Tyner, Cedar Walton, Eddie Gomez, Al Foster, Billy Higgins, Louis Hayes and the Heath Brothers.
Shortly after his comeback to worldwide touring and a concert at the Concord Pavilion on September
26, 1981, Miles Davis was enjoying a brief hang with Freddie in my Keystone back office after the
second set, and he told his fellow trumpeter that you may never realize it, but you are the baddest
mother****er on the planet right now. And so he was.
With all the focus on his awesome pyrotechnics and soaring sound, what was most often overlooked
about his trumpet playing was that nobody played with any more heart, soul and swing than Freddie
Hubbard. And nobody ever will.
Todd Barkan, January 2011

Sidebar Photo Credits (top to bottom):

Todd Barkan at Keystone Korner. Photo by Gary Wieneke
The Keystone Korner office. Photo courtesy of Todd Barkan

opened the door to Keystone Korner [on my first visit in 1976] and walked into what felt like Manhattan.
The jazz club was small and dark, and the sounds coming from the bandstandthe honks, the cries, the
sirens of the streets, the confinement and freedom of New Yorkrushed at me with such force that I
stood in the doorway as though rooted to the floor. Home. I didnt even realize how homesick I had been.
When I went back the next week to hear Elvin Jones, my friend Bob introduced me to Keystones owner,
Todd Barkan and told Todd that I should be allowed to photograph in the club. Todd agreed that I could
come in whenever I wanted, without paying, as long as I gave Todd a print of whomever I photographed.
It was an incredible offera gift, really. Elvin Jones was the first musician I photographed, and for the next
seven years, I spent two or three nights a week at the club. I wouldnt have been able to do that if Keystone
Korner hadnt been, as musicians described it, a family kind of place. I often brought my daughter with me
and she was always welcomed. When she wasnt helping collect tickets with the door-people who adored
her, she was hanging out with musicians or sleeping in the back room.
The light was atrocious in Keystone Korner. Overhead spots made hot light on the protruding planes of the
musicians faces and cut deep shadows under their eyes. I learned my craft looking at highlights and dark
places. I just worked with what I had, and learned more about the effects of light and the limits of film than I
ever would have in a classroom. I wanted to capture both the rush of being in the moment and the power of
the people creating music on stage, those great artists who were telling us all about freedom.

Freddie Hubbard and Billy Childs.

Photo by Kathy Sloane

Wanting to be taken seriously as a photographer I established a routine that kept me in good stead with the
musicians. I knew the ways in which black musicians had been disrespected and I didnt want to contribute
to that. So I would go to the club on Tuesday night when the band opened its week-long stay, listen to
the music, introduce myself, and ask the bands permission to make photographs. The musicians seemed
genuinely pleased that I sought their consent, and nobody ever refused me. On Thursdays, I would return to
Keystone to photograph, and on Sunday, the last night of each engagement, Id bring prints for each of the
musicians, as well as one for Todd Barkan.
My one regret was that I didnt tape the stories I was privy to as I sat in the back room between and
after sets listening to the musicians talk with each other. The back room was where the elders taught the
youngsters the things theyd need to know about in addition to mouthpieces and harmony. How theyd
need to step around disharmony or become their own mouthpieces when a club owner refused to pay
them or when their bus was stuck in an Iowa snowstorm and they couldnt call Triple A. Embedded in the
musicians tales that evoked knowing laughter were the tools for hammering together an improvised life.
You couldnt make the music and survive without this knowledge and those lessons didnt come in school
or in the booksthey came from the stories shared in the club back rooms and on the back seats of buses
during the long nights the itinerant musicians traveled in order to make a living. Keystone was, for all the
musicians, a home and a haven.
Kathy Sloane
The previous article is an excerpt from My Years at Keystone, an essay which appears in Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club, my book of oral histories and photographs.
2011 Indiana University Press. Reprinted with permission of Indiana University Press.

hanks to Todd Barkan, who has allowed us to dip into his formidable archive of jazz recordings,
we are privileged to release this recording of a true giant of jazz, the late Freddie Hubbard. I
have been a fan of Freddie ever since, at the age of 19, I booked him for a concert in the mid60s at Columbia University in New York.
There have been many recordings of Hubbard, but few show him at his absolute best like this one.
Every moment on this CD, chosen from live performances he gave at the famous Keystone Korner
Jazz Club in San Francisco in 1980, is full of the patented Hubbard passion and excitement. This
is the mature Hubbard, astounding with his amazing power and technique, with equal helpings of
inventiveness and creativity.
We feature five of Freddies original compositions,
some well known, some lesser known. We are
also thrilled to be adding to recorded history
by including his performance of John Coltranes
Giant Steps, which was never previously
recorded and released by Freddie Hubbard.
It is so important when choosing posthumous
material that the artist is respected, that the
choices made are based on quality and musicality.
Thanks to our team of Todd, David Weiss and
myself, we have created a celebration of some of
Hubbards brightest moments, which is why we call
this CD, Pinnacle.

Phil Ranelin
Photo by Warren Berman

I hope that, once you have heard this CD, you will know why Freddie Hubbard is considered by many
as the greatest jazz trumpeter ever. If you would like to learn more about this recording, please visit
our website ResonanceRecords.org where we have video interviews with three of the musicians who
perform with Freddie on this CD, Bassist Larry Klein, Pianist Billy Childs, and Trombonist Phil Ranelin, all
integral members of his longest running band. George Klabin, President, Resonance Records

Sidebar Photo Credits (top to bottom):

David Schnitter. Photo by Brian McMillen
Eddie Marshall at Keystone Korner. Michael Wilderman/jazzvisionsphotos.com
Hadley Caliman at Keystone Korner. Michael Wilderman/jazzvisionsphotos.com

Also available on Resonance Records

Andreas berg My Favorite Guitars A Tribute to the Great Jazz Guitarists . .................................................................... RCD-1002
John Beasley Letter to Herbie with Christian McBride & Jeff Tain Watts........................................................................ RCD-1003
Mike Garson Conversations with My Family.......................................................................................................................... RCD-1004
Cathy Rocco Youre Gonna Hear from Me............................................................................................................................. RCD-1005
Christian Howes Heartfelt....................................................................................................................................................... RCD-1006
Lori Bell The Music of Djavan.................................................................................................................................................. RCD-1007
Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute to Oscar Peterson.......................................................................................................... RCD-1008
Jermaine Landsberger Gettin Blazed................................................................................................................................... RCD-1009
Greta Matassa I Wanna Be Loved.......................................................................................................................................... RCD-1010
Angela Hagenbach The Way They Make Me Feel................................................................................................................ RCD-1011
Dado Moroni Live in Beverly Hills........................................................................................................................................... RCD-1012
Dado Moroni Live in Beverly Hills (Blu-Ray)........................................................................................................................... RBD-4012
John Beasley Positootly!......................................................................................................................................................... RCD-1013
Marian Petrescu with Andreas berg Thrivin Live at Jazz Standard................................................................................. RCD-1014
Andreas berg Six String Evolution...................................................................................................................................... RCD-1015
Christian Howes Out of the Blue............................................................................................................................................ RCD-1016
Tamir Hendelman Destinations............................................................................................................................................... RCD-1017
Gene Harris Quartet Live in London (never-before released) Heirloom ........................................................................... HCD-2001
Claudio Roditi Brazilliance x4 Heirloom................................................................................................................................. HCD-2002
Bill Cunliffe The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Take 2 Heirloom ........................................................................................ HCD-2003
Toninho Horta To Jobim with Love Heirloom........................................................................................................................ HCD-2004
with Gal Costa, Bob Mintzer, Dave Kikoski
Scott Lafaro Pieces of Jade Heirloom.................................................................................................................................... HCD-2005
Gene Harris Quartet Another Night in London Heirloom ................................................................................................. HCD-2006
Claudio Roditi Simpatico Heirloom ....................................................................................................................................... HCD-2008
Harris Simon The Mastery of Passion Heirloom ................................................................................................................... HCD-2009

you are invited to hear all of our music at www.resonancerecords.org

7

The Keystone Korner was the quintessential

jazz club. With the down-home feeling of your
favorite neighborhood watering hole, and
with the special spark of international artistic
charisma that a knowledgeable jazz audience
brings to any environment, the Keystone was
a happy home to people of all persuasions.
Musicians love playing there. I remember
doing some concerts for elementary school
kids when I was a member of Art Blakeys Jazz
Messengers. The Keystone was one of those
rare places enjoyed by angels and demons
alike. What more could you ask for? I love it
and miss it. Wynton Marsalis
Keystone Korner is far and away the best jazz
club in the world. Stan Getz
The Keystone is the Birdland of the 1970s.
Mary Lou Williams
My favorite place to play. George Benson
My heart belongs to Keystone. Art Blakey
My home away from home. This is where the
music is played. Dexter Gordon
You have some of the best jazz audiences in the
whole world right there at the Keystone Korner,
just about every night, open and giving a lot of
heart and soul to our music. McCoy Tyner

Keystone Korner. Photo courtesy of Todd Barkan

 1. The Intrepid Fox (8:02)

2. First Light (10:13)
3. One of Another Kind (12:26)
4. Happiness Is Now (7:11)
5. The Summer Knows (8:28)
6. Blues for Duane (9:18)
7. Giant Steps (8:45)
Recorded Live at
Keystone Korner, San Francisco,
June & October 1980

Freddie Hubbard trumpet, flugelhorn

Billy Childs piano, Rhodes
Larry Klein bass
Phil Ranelin trombone (1-4, 6, 7)
Hadley Caliman tenor saxophone (3, 6, 7)
David Schnitter tenor saxophone (1, 2, 4)
Eddie Marshall drums (3, 5, 6, 7)
Sinclair Lott drums (1, 2, 4)

Produced by George Klabin,

Todd Barkan & David Weiss
Associate Producer: Zev Feldman
p2011 Resonance Records, a division of Rising Jazz Stars, Inc.
5711 West Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90016. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction is a violation of applicable laws.
www.resonancerecords.org