Breaking Point!

Occupation

• Trumpet: Freddie Hubbard
• Alto saxophone, flute: James Spaulding
• Piano: Ronnie Mathews
• Bass: Eddie Khan
• Drums: Joe Chambers

Breaking Point is a jazz album by Freddie Hubbard, opened on 7 May 1964 and the same year by Blue Note Records.

The album

Breaking Point was Freddie Hubbard's first album with a solid "working" band; a few months earlier he had left Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, whose member he was two and a half years. Most recently, he had worked on his Blue Note album Free for All. In addition, he has previously been involved in projects of Quincy Jones and Oliver Nelson had recorded several albums with changing instrumentation for Blue Note and Impulse. For the Breaking Point album he won his long-time partner, alto saxophonist James Spaulding, with whom he had in 1962 the album Hub Tones recorded and had appeared at various festivals. The other members of Hubbard band were relatively unknown at that time; were added, the pianist Ronnie Mathews, who had previously played at Session of Max Roach and Booker Ervin, and the little-known bassist Eddie Khan and the then 22 -year-old drummer Joe Chambers for this session.

The programmatic title track "Breaking Point" has a brittle calypso character; the following " Far Away" reflects the modal style of play of his colleague Miles Davis in its composition Teo ( 1961). "Blue Frenzy " is a Blues Waltz; the title was - as well as the coming of Joe Chambers ballad "Mirrors " - added also in a shorter version, and released as a single. The CD they are attached as additional takes.

The music of Freddie Hubbard band from 1964 that responded musically to the current challenges by innovators such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy was - apart from the decoupled single -takes - for the then prevailing taste not commercial enough, so Bob Blumenthal in its review in 2003, in order to exist in the longer term can. Freddie Hubbard was hardly gigs, the band finally broke after the recording of The Night of the Cookers ( Blue Note, 1965) and worked in the band of Max Roach.

Reception Album

Scott Yanow who excelled in Allmusic the album with the second highest rating, emphasizes in his review that Hubbard's music of that era is located somewhere between hard bop and the avant-garde and expanding the boundaries of modern jazz mainstream. "This exploratory trips were much more interesting than what should be produced three decades later ," says Yanow. He had also broken here with his early game that have not been heavily under the influence of Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan and found to be a personal style.

The critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton, who also gave the album the second highest rating to see in Breaking Point, the most (positive) from the series falling Blue Note album Hubbard and especially increase the role of James Spaulding forth.

The title

The title 1-5 appeared on the Blue Note BST 84172 album

Literature / Sources

• Bob Blumenthal: liner notes ( 2003), "Breaking Point" ( Blue Note Records)
• Richard Cook & Brian Morton The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD 6th edition. ISBN 0-14-051521-6
• Leonard Feather: original liner notes (1964 ) to " Breaking Point " ( Blue Note Records)