This is a complete note-for-note album transcription of Freddie Hubbard’s record “Ready for Freddie”. Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard really came into his own during this Blue Note session. He is matched with an all-star group of tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Art Davis, and drummer Elvin Jones in addition to Bernard McKinney on euphonium, introducing two of his finest compositions (“Birdlike” and “Crisis”), and is quite lyrical on his ballad feature, “Weaver of Dreams.” Hubbard’s sidemen all play exceptionally, and this memorable session is highly recommended; it’s one of the trumpeter’s most rewarding Blue Note albums.

This book is part of a series of complete album transcriptions of Freddie Hubbard’s incredible catalog by Erik Veldkamp. See them all at this link, see the sound list and album review below, and samples to the left. Then, grab yourself an immediate digital download above.

Song List

1. Arietis
2. Weaver of Dreams
3. Marie Antoinette
4. Birdlike
5. Crisis
6. Arietis (Alt Take)
7. Marie Antoinette (Alt Take)

Album Review

Among the warmest and most affable of the many classic albums released within the set of performance motifs critics and record companies took to calling “hard bop,” 1962’s Ready for Freddie is both an instrumental showcase for its frontman and a dense sonic weave, irreducible to just one person. The complex and distinctly jazzy dynamic whereby the boundaries of individual-vs.-group are by turns muddled and emphasized has been written about a lot, but you’re unlikely to find a record as replete with the pleasures of this Schrödingeresque improvisational rapport than this session, recorded when trumpeter Freddie Hubbard was a mere 23 years old.

Ready for Freddie is one of those records that is sonically pleasing from any given perspective, played at any time of day, front to back or in snippets, at the gym (OK…maybe) or in the kitchen. The aesthetic gratification even the most casual jazz fan will find in this album is surely an effect of the world-class talent on display. You may not know Kiane Zawadi f.k.a. Bernard McKinney—who is superb here—but that’s because nobody knows anyone who plays the euphonium. Otherwise, I mean, c’mon: McCoy Tyner? Art Davis? Honorary best-drummer-ever Elvin Jones? Even Wayne Shorter, whose chintzy tone (yeah I said it) does nothing for me on his own 1960s records, plays with a flow that is smooth and profound in equal measure.

A slate of well-regarded names represents only part of the story, however; one of the marks of Ready for Freddie’s greatness is the ease with which its constituent musicians slide in and out of spotlight. Hardly self-abnegating, these musicians nonetheless proceed from a concept of camaraderie as hand-in-hand with personal expression, so that each part adds up to a whole and is a whole in itself.

What’s so beautiful to witness within and beyond this level of care is that Hubbard stands tall even among this world-class sextet. On the evidence of the records to which he contributed—Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (1960), Out to Lunch! (1964), Ascension (1965), you name ‘em—this guy deserves as much credit as just about anyone else for moving the compositional motifs of jazz music forward into a brave new era. But he was always a man of classical pleasures at heart, and this record bears out his belief in the basic expressive potential of jazz improvisation. Like his forebear Clifford Brown, Hubbard is attuned to the power of repetition as a means to various ends—erudition, precision, humor. The echoing phrase Spotify tells me occurs two minutes and fifty-seven seconds into “Weaver of Dreams” is the proof in the pudding: dancing lightly over Jones’ brushstrokes and Tyner’s poignant open chords, the trumpeter finds Heaven in four or five notes—Hell if I can tell the difference—yoked closely together by a quick tongue and finger. Moments like these disclose the uniquely spontaneous articulations of jazz music and the genius of those articulating. Highly satisfying when taken as a whole, Ready for Freddie is the kind of consummately rendered product that might do more than merely satisfy us—it might even have a lesson to teach us about our own potential.