from the LP Keep Your Soul Together, CTI Records, 1973So what’s the deal with jazz purists anyways…I mean, do they wake up on the wrong side of the bed every single day, or what man?! By the time of this phenomenal release, they had essentially turned their backs on virtually every single jazz musician who dared to step outside their meticulously constructed boundaries for what “jazz” was “supposed to be”---really?! I mean, what kind of douchebag walks up to an artist and says, “not only don’t we like what you’re doing, but we will rail against it and you personally in hopes that you will obey us, the critics, your masters…”?!? That’s some crazy bullshit man, so no wonder after Bitches Brew led the way everybody else jumped ship and began experimenting as well; for me, other than Miles himself, there is no better trumpeter than Freddie Hubbard, and this LP finds him well into his post-pure-bob period. This track struts along pretty damn good, thanks in no small part to the funky bass-playing of Ron Carter and the loose keys of George Cables, but it’s Hubbard’s inspired blowing that makes this inimitable; to be honest, when comparing their work in the ‘70s anyways, Hubbard perhaps put in more effort and churned out more creativity on a song-to-song basis than the master Davis himself…
