Some last words from Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard was the baddest trumpet player on the planet, and everyone knew it. His virtuosity and inescapable soulfulness snagged him invites to the hippest bandstands and studio sessions of the day, from a worldwide jaunt with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and his playing on Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth to his somewhat atypical inclusion on such avant-garde classics as Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz and John Coletrane's Ascenscion. Of course, he also released a string of classic albums under his own leadership on the Blue Note and CTI labels, and penned the standards "Little Sunflower" and "Up Jumped Spring." And while a devastating lip injury pretty much put the kibosh on his career in the early '90s, it could hardly diminish Hubbard's lasting influence on the jazz world, which should be recognized all the more following his passing on Dec. 29 at age 70.

I interviewed Hubbard in 2005, preceeding a gig he was playing at the Jazziz Bistro at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino. The show itself was just sad: Hubbard had nothing left and simply couldn't make the notes. Fortunately, he was backed by the excellent band of saxophonist Jesse Jones Jr., and the audience was more than polite and respectful. But my interview with Hubbard remains a favorite. He was as cool and laid-back as can be, and surprisingly candid about the folks he worked with and his own damaged chops. Here are some excerpts.

On first arriving in New York from his native Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1958, at the age of 19-20: "When I got to New York, man, it was rough. I was walking around the streets of Harlem, talkin' 'bout, 'What's up?' But it was fun. I went to Adam Clayton Powell's church, I hang with him. I listened to Malcolm X and Farrakhan make speeches everyday at 126th and Seventh Avenue. I used to live right by the Apollo, I used to follow James Brown and all them cats into the Apollo, Dinah Washington. I'd be sittin' up there, and they say, 'Who are you?' I'd follow all the cats around. I saw Wilson Pickett. Sarah Vaughan. She used to come over my house, man. Carmen McRae. They were all so great."

On avant-garde alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy, with whom he shared an apartment in Brooklyn: "We practiced all the time. Eric was out there. I used to have to lend him money, because he didn't want to take no regular gigs. He wrote this record Outward Bound [on which Hubbard played], the cat got popular for a while. I know nobody sounded like that. You know, he used to sound like Cannonball. He was with Chico Hamilton, when he was playing with Chico, he was playing in. When he got out there by himself, he said, 'Man, I'm not gonna play no more conventional music.' "

On playing avant-garde sessions with Dolphy, Coltrane and Coleman: "All those records were out. I didn't know what I was doin' half of the time, I was just blowin. I said, 'Ornette, why you want me on your record?' He said, 'I want your energy.' But man, that was some of the weirdest music, I mean, at that time. Some of it sounds regular now. But when [Ornette] first started playing that stuff around New York, Leonard Bernstein went down there kissing him on the lips. They didn't know what it was. But Ornette, he's quiet, but he takes care of himself, takes care of business."

On recording only one song, the title track, on Sonny Rollins' East Broadway Run Down: "He said, 'I don't want to hear none of that Coltrane shit.' I said, 'Well, you got Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones here. What you mean you don't want no Trane stuff? Why'd you get them?' He gave me $600 and I was gone."

On replacing Lee Morgan with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, which also included Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton and Curtis Fuller at the time: "After Lee left, I said, 'Ohh, what am I gonna do?' 'Cause Lee had the hit with [Blakey], you know, 'Moanin'. And after he did The Sidewinder, he was hot; he was hotter than Miles. Everybody was followin' Lee around. So I was going in there behind him. He got kinda messed up, bless his soul. But that was a helluva band, man. We went all over the world. We were all young, and we got to write and arrange. We were tight. We stayed together about three years."

On the ups and downs of working with Blakey, who was known as a taskmaster: "Oh my goodness. Boy, that was the time of my life, cause we did some music. He let us all start writing. I did that thing on 'Pensativa,' you know we did 32 takes? I said, 'Aww, what are you tryin' to do, kill us?' I had to go home and soak my lips in some ice water. Thirty-two takes all the way through. When I think about it, I get mad. ... Aw, man, we were like little Muslims and shit up there, standing up straight, suits, bow ties, uniforms. We were clean, though. I got some tapes and DVDs of when we played. It was funny, man. Everybody was skinny."

On the influence of the Epistolic church in Indianapolis, and his mother, who was a faith-healer: "They was sanctified and shit. I had to play my trumpet in church while they hollered and stuff, jumped up and down. That's the kind of religion I'm talkin' 'bout, the Holy Spirit. 'Ahhh!' My mother would jump up and throw her pocket book up in the air. I'd say, 'Ma, don't throw the bag away, you might lose it.' So I'd run and catch it. She'd be dancin' and gettin' the Holy Ghost. They really did get into that."

On the reaction to his political recording Sing Me a Song of Songmy: "That was some weird stuff. They banned the record. 'Man, you ain't supposed to be talkin' about Vietnam and all that shit.' I was talkin' bout, 'Black man, don't go in the Army.' People sayin' 'What are you talking about?' They said, 'Take that shit out.' I put that record on in my house, people started knockin' on the walls and shit. I lived in an apartment building. 'I don't know what that shit is, Freddie, but take it off.'"

On recording Red Clay for CTI in 1970:"Creed [Taylor] told me, 'Write a hit, man. Write something somebody will remember.' I didn't think nothing about it when I did it, but I did it. Of course, he told me to get Herbie [Hancock] and Ron Carter to make it good, you know. Joe Henderson played his can off."

On his more commercial recordings for Columbia: "I was makin' money, man. I was livin' up in Hollywood Hills, big house, swimming pool, cats comin' up sayin' 'You rich, man!' I say, 'No, I'm just workin'."

On his lip injury in the '90s: "Aw man, I was playin' too much. I was jumpin' out the Blue Note [in NYC], flyin' to Finland, flyin' back to New York. I was working so much, man, flying all over the world, trying to make all the records, make all the gigs and shit, and I split my lip. It's been funny ever since."

"I had a sore on my lip, and it was getting bad and it never would heal. I kept playing on it, and one day, it said, 'No mo'.' Man, I lost feeling in that thing, 'cause I couldn't put it on that spot, it cause me so much pain. So I start tryin' to move it around. Didn't work."

"I got ready to quit for a while. I took a layoff, and I went back to work and it felt good ... then it broke open again. I got to playin', I thought I was playing better than I was before I had the spot. But I did it too quick."