Freddie Hubbard

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SOLVANG SALUTES FREDDIE HUBBARD:Although the Solvang Jazz Festival is but a toddler at this stage, with only two fests behind it so far, with this September’s third annual affair, the festival will be celebrating a sense of circular history—going back to the head, so to speak. As announced by festival founder/director/chief architect Stix Hooper last week at the Old Mission Santa Inés, the Saturday-night program of the now two-night festival, on September 25 and 26, will involve a tribute to the late, great Freddie Hubbard.

Trumpet Prometheus Hubbard was the focus of attention, as legendary presence if not so much musically, in a multi-player concert in the first Solvang Jazz Festival, in 2007. After debilitating lip troubles—trumpet being an especially cruel and demanding instrument—Hubbard’s abilities toward the end had little to do with his glory years, but that didn’t diminish his importance in jazz history or the lineage of virtuoso jazz trumpet. On that crisply cool yet musically heated Saturday night in the Solvang Outdoor Festival Theater, Hubbard looked sharp and seemed vibrant, although he knew, more than anybody that the sound coming from his horn wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Other musicians on hand—including Hubert Laws, Airto Moreira, Patrice Rushen, and Bob Sheppard—deferred kindly to the legend in the house.

In an odd coincidence, a similar fate befell the old Santa Barbara Jazz Festival, which featured Stan Getz at the Arlington (with Kenny Barron, Anthony Cox, and Ben Riley) as the prize attraction of the festival’s inaugural year, in the late ’80s. Getz died of cancer not long after that memorable show.

For the 2009 festival, guest spots and blanks remain to be filled in. So far, the Hubbard tribute night features the astonishing vocal group Take Six, and Friday night’s show includes the fine Russian-born pianist Eugene Maslov and trio.

For a taste of Hubbard in his heyday, before going commercial in the ’70s or struggling with health problems in later years, check out Blue Note records’ newly released archival jewel, Without a Song: Live in Europe 1969. Blowing robustly, lyrically, and inventively, Hubbard leads a quartet, with pianist Roland Hanna, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Louis Hayes, in a set framed by the melodic “Without a Song” (a fitting farewell to Hubbard) and his energized original “Hub-Tones.” He duly burns it up, and veers into avant-garde neighborhoods on “Space Track.” His reflective solo work on “Body and Soul,” including a solo cadenza working on and off the microphone, takes on a special, almost confessional intensity in the retrospective glow of his posthumous period. Yes, his “posthumous period”: the rediscovery of Hubbard has only just begun.

TO-DOINGS:Up Ojai way, two of the town’s illustrious world citizens—guitarist Robben Ford and his wife, singer Anne Kerry Ford—will perform in the warmly, wonderfully intimate Theater 150 tonight, June 11. Each Ford has a particular, yet flexible, gift: Anne goes down the cabaret road, with a special take on Kurt Weill, and humble guitar hero Robben carries a set of stylistic maps in his hip pocket, with blues, jazz, and soul accounted for, in his tasty signature way. For her set, Anne will sing with pianist Michele Brourman as accompanist. Robben will “sing,” guitar-wise, with drummer Gary Novack, and guest keyboardist Russell Ferrante (with whom Robben played in the original formation of the Yellowjackets nearly three decades ago).

Tonight at the Santa Barbara New Music Series, at Muddy Waters, a dynamic duo reunites: The monthly series was launched by musical comrades Colter Frazier, on reeds, and Rob Wallace, drums, but for the past year, Wallace has been working on a post-doc in Guelph, Ontario (home to a wonderful and left-leaning festival in late summer, by the way). As of tonight, Wallace begins a year back in town, and the musician list for the free-ish festivities includes Jim Connolly, Hal Onserud, and Phil Murphy.

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