dreadpirateroberts Hubbard works funk in to his high quality hard bop.

This album of Freddie Hubbard's showcases his exploration of funk, while still holding on to that hard bop sound. Solos are wild and the sidemen both support and egg Hubbard on through the set.

'Red Clay' is a monster of a track (however, it is eclipsed by the live version included with the CD reissue) and deserves its accolades. With an almost swaggering opening from the horns and the perfect beat from Lenny White, the song is a great example of a band and leader feeding off each other. White's drumming becomes increasingly complex as Hubbard begins to solo. He's soon joined by Henderson then Hancock, and toward the end, before the coda, White really lays into his kit.

'Delphia' slows things down next, and we hear some organ and flute mixed into the softer moments, in a song that picks up the mood every few minutes, having an almost blues or soul feel to the track. While 'Suite Sioux' has some wildfire soloing from the horns it isn't one of the stronger tracks and makes way for the messy opening of 'The Intrepid Fox', a track that quickly becomes a race through the next ten minutes, with Henderson and Hubbard lockstep for a while, and White and Carter urging them on as Hancock stabs at the electric piano. It's followed by the Lennon cover, 'Cold Turkey' which doesn't quite work for me, despite energetic efforts all round.

As with most band leaders, when they have enough clout (and sometimes even when they're just starting out) they pull together a great cast of supporting players. Here is no exception, with Hancock, Carter, White and Henderson on board for all songs except for the live take of the title track.

For this version of 'Red Clay', a live bonus track, Cobham replaces White, Turrentine ditto for Henderson and Benson (among others) joins the group for a smoking version of 'Red Clay.' It's harder, wilder and more out of control than the original, and you can really hear the crowd and band getting into it, as they stretch the song out to 18 minutes. The album is worth it for this version of the track alone.

For any one exploring the early moments of funk's incorporation to jazz, this album has much more jazz than funk, but is important in any event. Fans of Hubbard will not miss his frenetic solos here either, four stars, excellent stuff.

FunkFreak75 Recorded at Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on January 27-29, 1970, and then released to the public by CTI in May. This was Freddie's first album produced by Creed Taylor, thus announcing a new style and sound that would become Freddie's signature over the next decade (despite only working with Creed and Rudy for the next five years).

A1. "Red Clay" (12:05) Lenny White's muscular, more-rock-inspired drums are noticeable from the get-go as are Herbie Hancock's electric piano and Ron Carter's hyper-active electric bass. I love how Freddie and Joe both seem to feed off of the energy coming from Lenny and Ron, while Herbie tempers everybody with his smoothed out electric piano sound and play. I can see why everybody loves this song: great enthusiasm captured here! High marks for Ron's play alone (though when given a solo he's rather subdued and toned down)! And then there is the wonderfully-synchronized whole band staccato play in the last 90 seconds to finish. I would definitely call this a Jazz-Rock Fusion song. (23/25)

A2. "Delphia" (7:25) opening with that long-held discordant chord on the organ is genius--especially in light of the gorgeous, gospel-bluesy song that comes out of it. Freddie's trumpet play is so smooth--this despite the raw and raunchy organ play from Herbie. The bass and drums seem much more aligned with Freddie's mood and melody, but it is Herbie's dirty organ play that takes the song's simple "purity" out of the realms of guileless innocence and makes it rather suggestive and risqué--even winning over the horn players to the side of sin and temptation over the course of the song's seven minutes. Wow! What an honest though disturbing scene to have to witness! Like watching an innocent, unassuming young girl be seduced into giving up her virginity! The suggestive storytelling power of music! (Despite the fusion of innocence with lechery, this is not very fusion music.) (13.5/15)

B1. "Suite Sioux" (8:40) more relaxed and upbeat than the previous song, the song opens with a light conversation between Herbie's organ and Fender Rhodes and the two horn players until 1:10 when Freddie takes off into the first of two alternating bop motifs, the rhythm section beneath him seeming to be alternating between two (or three) very different lanes on the free way (or air currents over the Badlands). Whatever their instructions or motivations, the seemingly-random switches between the three motifs are quite radical: requiring quite a little skill and focus from the bass and drummer (deftly manifested by both Ron and Lenny). The soloists flying on the air currents above seem hardly to take notice, even when Ron and Lenny fly into unexpected wind gusts. At the six-minute mark we get the launch into a drum solo that is rather unusual for its loud and pronounced bass drum and then oddly subtle dénouement. The horns and Herbie come back to the motif of the opening "conversation" while Ron and Lenny hit an even more strangely different pattern beneath. Wow! What did I just hear?! Some intrepid (and extended) étude? Some kind of alchemical magic? Listening to Lenny White alone makes for a fascinating and mind-boggling experience. (18.25/20)

B2. "The Intrepid Fox" (10:40) sounds like music rooted very firmly in the hard bop jazz of the 1960s despite the free reign given to Herbie Hancock and his electric piano. Even Lenny sounds quite disciplined to constrain himself within the rigors of standard jazz practices here. (17.375/20)

Total time 38:50

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of highly diversified music that spans a spectrum from be-bop, hard bop and the new Jazz-Rock Fusion. In terms of adding to the J-R F lexicon, the opening title song is definitely the most fitting, but even "Delphia" and "Suite Sioux" express experimental elements that will go far to influence other artists dabbling in the medium. Definitely a landmark album for both Freddie and the rapid maturation of Jazz-Rock Fusion.

Sean Trane Like many “standard” (everything relative, of course) jazzmen around the turn of the 60’s, Hubbard faced a choice to either adapt to electric jazz or JR/F) or face a possible loss of contract, since the usual jazz wasn’t selling much anymore. He signed to Creed Taylor’s new label CTI, a subsidiary to the A&M label - before CT stroke it out on its own and eventually falling into the CBS stable a decade later. Grabbing a hold of Hancock, Carter and White (all from the Miles crowd), adding Benson and Henderson and the formula paid: he hit pay-dirt almost right-away as Red Clay became his (then-) best selling album, but don’t think that this is steaming fusionic lava flow either.

Opening on the 12-mins title track, the album does take a flying leap-start, as outside Hancock’s Rhodes it sounds quite standardy (hard-boppy) enough still. Hubbard and Henderson’s horn tooting remains fairly traditional, even if the closing wails announce more adventurous things to come. The shorter bluesy Delphia and the very-boppy Suite Sioux feature Herbie on the organ (and the Rhodes), but it doesn’t change much to the traditional bop scheme.

On the flipside, the almost-11mins Intrepid Fox is indeed an intrepid electrified hard-bop piece, but again, we’re facing some fairly standard jazz runs, where only Herbie’s Rhodes gives it a non-50’s slant, because both Freddie and Joe remain within the bop frame. The closing Cold Turkey starts out quite a bit more adventurous, as it features a dissonant intro, before striking a slightly funky rhythm and hitting at some witchy beverage, and at times we’re not Miles away from the real thing. Definitely the album’s most interesting track, if you ask this fusionhead, despite some floating moments.

The early 00’s remaster also gives a bonus extended live version of the title track, with only Benson and Carter still in, but it’s definitely a more energetic and relatively fusionesque version, which in my case, adds much value to the original album; Soooo, if you’re hoping for steaming fusion album (well except for the closing Cold Turkey), you might want to wait until Hubbard’s following opus Straight Life.