Freddie Hubbard - Goin' Up (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series 180g Vinyl LP)

Freddie Hubbard - Goin' Up | Vinyl LP - 2026 Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series Reissue (BST 84056, all-analog mastering by Kevin Gray, 180g pressing at Optimal Media)

• Hubbard's second Blue Note album, recorded at twenty-two with a quintet featuring Hank Mobley on tenor saxophone and Miles Davis's rhythm section of Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, plus McCoy Tyner on piano
• Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series reissue, mastered all-analog from the original tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal Media in Germany
• Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder at Englewood Cliffs on November 6, 1960, with Reid Miles cover design, Francis Wolff photography and Ira Gitler liner notes

Freddie Hubbard recorded Goin' Up five months after his debut Open Sesame, and the difference in confidence is audible from the first bars. He was twenty-two and still building his voice out of the Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan tradition, but the playing here is more patient and more assured, particularly on the slower material. The rhythm section has a lot to do with that. Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones were Miles Davis's rhythm team, and their feel is instantly recognisable, Jones driving the uptempo pieces with that distinctive snap while Chambers anchors everything underneath. McCoy Tyner, not yet a member of Coltrane's quartet, is the third element, and his comping on "The Changing Scene", Mobley's medium-tempo blues, is worth the price of the record on its own. Mobley is in exceptional form throughout, having just come off a productive run as a leader on Blue Note, and his two compositions ("The Changing Scene" and "A Peck a Sec") sit comfortably alongside the two Kenny Dorham pieces that open and close Side A.

"Asiatic Raes", Dorham's melody also known as "Lotus Blossom", sets the tone with Hubbard's solo building over Jones's commentary in a way that sounds spontaneous rather than constructed. "Karioka", Dorham's other piece, is harmonically denser and pushes all three soloists to work harder, with Tyner's solo particularly well developed. Side B opens with Mobley's "A Peck a Sec", a brisk swinger that gives Jones room for an extended solo. "I Wished I Knew" is the ballad feature, and it may be the best track on the date, Jones switching to brushes while Hubbard plays with a lyricism that his uptempo work doesn't always suggest. "Blues for Brenda", Hubbard's sole original on the album, closes the session as a relaxed blues. Mobley recorded his own Roll Call at Van Gelder's studio just one week later, with Hubbard again on trumpet. This Classic Vinyl Series edition was mastered all-analog by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal Media in Germany. Liner notes by Ira Gitler.