Freddie Hubbard - Here to Stay (2025 Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series LP)

Freddie Hubbard - Here to Stay | Vinyl LP - 2025 Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series 180g (6514965, Kevin Gray/Cohearent Audio, Optimal Media GmbH)

Freddie Hubbard recorded six albums for Blue Note between 1960 and 1962. Alfred Lion shelved this one. The session took place December 27, 1962 — Hubbard was twenty-four. Wayne Shorter was on tenor, Cedar Walton on piano, Reggie Workman on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Hubbard, Shorter, Walton and Workman were all in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers at the time; only Jones was outside that organisation. The chemistry that implies is audible throughout.

Two of the six tracks are Hubbard originals: "Philly Mignon," named for Jones, opens Side A fast; "Nostrand and Fulton," a Brooklyn cross-street intersection, is slower and more fluid on Side B. Two tracks come from Cal Massey, the Philadelphia-born composer and trumpeter who wrote prolifically for other Blue Note artists — "Father and Son" and "Assunta." "Body and Soul" is the Green/Heyman/Sour standard, given long and searching treatment. "Full Moon and Empty Arms" takes the melody of the third movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, which Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman had fitted with words in 1946. Hubbard's quintet plays it as an instrumental, dropping the pop register entirely.

Reid Miles designed a cover for the planned 1963 release, BST 84135, which appeared on Blue Note inner sleeves advertising forthcoming titles but never materialised. The recording sat until 1976, released as half of a double album alongside Hub Cap (1961). This 2025 Classic Vinyl Series pressing is the first time the full album appears in its original planned form with the Miles cover, mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original analog master tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal Media GmbH.