The Enduring Freddie Hubbard
God Bless The Child has been interpreted a thousand ways … but I’ll bet you never heard it quite like this (Above)! In 1991, at Internationale Jazzwoche Burghausen in Germany, Freddie Hubbard and his quintet dazzled the audience with an arrangement that was both reverent and softly-swinging. Freddie was joined by Don Braden on tenor, Benny Green at the piano, Jeff Chambers on base and Louis Hayes playing drums. Earlier, in 1967 (Below), Hubbard teamed up with Kenny Drew (piano), Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (bass), and Alex Riel (drums) to perform an original tune named Birdlike at the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway. You can bet the ‘Bird’ referenced here had a horn but no feathers!