Friday, June 13, 2008

Freddie Hubbard - "Polar AC" (1975)






Released in 1975, this was trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's sixth and final release for Creed Taylor's CTI Records, made at a time when he was already exploring new styles over at Columbia Records. It's his only CTI release that remains out of print - apart from a very brief Japan-only CD release some years back - but it's got some great tracks, players, textures and arrangements.

Hubbard was prolific in his output throughout the 70s as both leader and sideman.
After a string of albums on the Blue Note label in the 60s, he released two albums in 1969 that in some ways foreshadowed the two sides of his 70s work. While "The Black Angel" reaches out to the Bitches Brew Miles Davis crowd, with growling rhodes, experimental textures and spatial jams, "A Soul Experiment" lurched into soul-jazz over a Bernard Purdie backbeat. Hubbard was to continue to slip into the cracks between jazz and funk throughout the 70s.

Things got underway quickly in 1970 on CTI with two releases - the beautiful "Red Clay" began to stretch the hard bop textures with a new electric feel, often courtesy of Mr Hancock's rhodes, while the looser "Straight Life" hit a new groove with added percussion (including Weldon Irvine on tambourine!). 1971's "First Light" expanded the palette with Don Sebesky's string orchestrations taking things to a different level, with the album reaching a wider audience and even nabbing a Grammy award. 1972's "Sky Dive" continued the same pattern, with Sebesky's added string arrangements once again ensuring commercial success.

In the early 70s, CTI frequently toured its high-profile roster of jazz stars - who included George Benson, Stanley Turrentine, Hubert Laws, Hubbard and others - and released the live results on a great series of albums under the name "The CTI All-Stars". Hubbard's tracks featured on both 1971's "California Concert - the Hollywood Palladium" and 1972's three-album set "CTI Summer Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl". Also, check out this nice 1972 live bootleg.

In early 1973, CTI released two blistering live albums under the title "Freddie Hubbard / Stanley Turrentine In Concert" - Volume 1 and Volume 2 - with several Hubbard originals, and Herbie Hancock working overtime on the rhodes on 'Hornets'. Later in the year, Hubbard pulled back to a septet for the beautiful "Keep Your Soul Together", an almost perfect merge of hard bop, soul jazz (Junior Cook on tenor sax is a standout) and funky rhodes from Mr George Cables.

in 1974, he took virtually the same band with him to Columbia Records to record the funky "High Energy". There's a play with various styles here, and Hubbard seems atuned to the modal electricity of other jazz artists who were branching into post-Davis funk-jazz, like Eddie Henderson and Bobby Hutcherson. Cables is adding clavinet counter-rhythms to his rhodes, and the funk is pushing through to the front.

In 1975's "Liquid Love", Hubbard lets the funk take centre stage. Apart from the extended latinesque workout of "Kudu", where Hubbard channels amplified and echoed Miles Davis wails, he sits back in a combo funk effort. Cables' rhodes and string synthesiser become more textural and harmonic backing, with more straight-ahead funk emanating from the guitars of Ray Parker Jr and Johnny Guitar Watson, and even a group funk vocal track with "Put It In the Pocket". Later in the year, the group recorded the double-live set "Gleam" in Tokyo, with tracks drawn from his last three albums.


Sometime between those two 1975 albums, CTI released this Freddie Hubbard album, Polar AC. It's a lush, heavily orchestrated, accessible piece of jazz that in some ways continues on from "First Light" and "Sky Dive" - the final track is an adaptation and extension of the title track from the latter album. Don Sebesky and Bob James tag-team the orchestrations and arrangements on two tracks each, with the band pulling back to septet for the final track. While I can't find exact recording dates, it has a definite pre-Columbia feel to it, and I wonder if it was held back while Hubbard was working his way out of his contract ...

Hubbard's playing is superb, but he gives just as much solo space to flautist Hubert Laws - at times it's almost a duo album, with the two intertwining over Sebesky and James' orchestrations, often joined by guitarist George Benson and rhodes player George Cables. Sebesky and James almost seem to be having a pissing competition with their alternating string arrangements, the sense of competition often producing great results.

The highlight is the Bob James-arranged "People Make the World Go Round" previously performed by Hubbard on the superb Milt Jackson CTI album "Sunflower" in 1972. It starts with Airto doing his "talk to the animals" percussion noises against distorted patches of Rhodes colour from Cables. Whereas Don Sebesky's arrangement of the track on the Milt Jackson album worked its way into an angular keyboard-led funk, Bob James' arrangement here takes things deeper into the melodic melancholy that emanated from the Stylistics' original, with winding crescendoes of string melodies gradually providing a bed for Hubbard's solos. Bob James also orchestrates another Stylistics track, "Betcha By Golly Wow".

On the title track "Polar AC", Sebesky builds up the tension with orchestral flourishes over a solid, joyous bass line from Ron Carter, anchored by some crazy snare and cymbal work from Jack deJohnette. Hubbard plays in and around the building strings with some great solo work. The other Sebesky-arranged track is a cover of Nat Adderley's "Naturally". Hubbard and Laws solo over the solid jazz trio of Benson, Carter and Billy Cobham, while Sebesky snakes in big band and woodwind sections to suddenly broaden the texture.

We finish off with the (relatively!) sparser septet of the thirteen-minute "Son Of Sky Dive", Junior Cook's saxaphone harmonising the main melody with Hubbard, while George Cables gets down to some rhodes playing over Lennie White's flailing toms.

Anyway, I hope this post helps some of you complete your 70s Freddie Hubbard collection!

TRACKLIST 

01 "Polar AC" (Cedar Walton)
02 "People Make The World Go Round (Bell/Creed)
03 "Betcha By Golly Wow" (Bell/Creed)
04 "Naturally" (Nat Adderley)
05 "Son Of Sky Dive" (Freddie Hubbard)

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Produced by Creed Taylor
Recorded at Van Gelder Studios
Rudy Van Gelder, Engineer
Cover photograph by Pete Turner
Liner photograph by Fred Valentine
Album Design by Bob Ciano
This album is also available on stereo 8 track and cassette tapes.


POLAR AC
Arranged by Don Sebesky

Trumpet - Freddie Hubbard
Bass - Ron Carter
Drums - Jack DeJohnette
Guitar - George Benson
Flute - Hubert Laws
Strings - Al Brown, Paul Gershman, Emanuel Green, Harold Kohon, Joe Malin, Charles McCracken, David Nadien, Mathew Raimondi, George Ricci, Tosha Samaroff, Irving Spiece, Manny Vardi.
(Maybe one of these guys will google themselves and say hi?) 

PEOPLE MAKE THE WORLD GO ROUND
BETCHA BY GOLLY WOW
Arranged by Bob James

Trumpet - Freddie Hubbard
Electric Piano - George Cables (on "People")
Bass - Ron Carter
Drums - Lenny White (on "People")
Guitar - George Benson
Percussion - Airto
Flute - Hubert Laws
Strings - Max Ellen, Paul Gershman, Emmanuel Green, Theodore Israel, Charles Libove, Harry Lookovsky, Joe Malin, David Nadien, Gene Orloff, George Ricci, Tony Sophos, Manny Vardi


NATURALLY
Arranged by Don Sebesky

Trumpet - Freddie Hubbard
Bass - Ron Carter
Drums - Billy Cobham
Guitar - George Benson
Flute - Hubert Laws
Woodwinds - Phil Bodner, Wally Kane, George Marge, Romeo Penque
Brass - Wayne Andre, Garnett Brown, Paul Faulise, Tony Price, Alan rubin, Marvin Starren


SON OF SKY DIVE

Trumpet - Freddie Hubbard
Piano - George Cables
Bass - Ron Carter
Drums - Lennie White
Tenor Saxaphone - Junior Cook
Flute - Hubert Laws

POST CREDITS

Vinyl rip by Simon666.

Other album links in this post go to :

Oufar Khan, Jazz & Beyond, My Jazz World, Sophisticated Squaw, Sinkane, You Got Rhythm, Martini and Jopparelli, Pharoah’s Dance, Into the Rhythm, Music Selections, Ubu Roi (list to be updated)

Please thank and support the above bloggers if you click through and download.

Please leave a comment if you grab these files, I do all of this for the music conversation :

DOWNLOAD WAV - MP3 


93 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link to my site... And for tge great selections on your blog..

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  2. Thanks to link my page, like ur blog.

    Do you want to exchange link?

    Hit me up!

    Keep up ur great work.

    Greetings from Italy

    Marty from Martini & Jopparelli

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  3. wow man
    thank you

    only problem is the decompression fails and i dont know why

    but thank you for all your work on the less

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  4. Hey Marty -
    Thanks, have added you here.

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  5. Will -
    Which file was this ? MP3 or WAV ? Rapidshare, Zshare or Megaupload?

    Amyome else got problems?

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  6. Simon -

    I downloaded the mp3 version twice from ZShare and once from Rapidshare. They were all bad.

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  7. Damn.
    OK give me two hours, will re-up post back ...
    Sorry about that ...

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  8. Cool did the same.

    Peace

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  9. no need to be sorry

    youre doing us a favor

    and thanks for the music again

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  10. hey fellow bloggers - there's no way of editing a "comment" is there? I can only delete? Want to replace the first comment when I get this re-upped ...

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  11. OK, please try this Zshare -95 mb download and confirm that it's OK ...

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  12. Thanks for this. I dig Hubert Laws.

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  13. Michael, which one did you download ?

    Could someone also check this one : rapidshare-99mb

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  14. Freddie Hubbard – Polar AC (1975)

    (MP3 links now replaced, please inform if any problems)

    Vinyl rip
    Choice of MP3s or full WAV files below.

    * All downloads include a 200 dpi front cover scan, so you can see that Freddie IS , in fact, wearing pants.

    * Leave a comment, or a thankyou, or a hi, and tick the notification box : then you’ll be informed when I scan the back cover and inner sleeve sometime soon.

    * Right-click the links if you’re in the small comment window.

    * Also, don’t miss the 12 album blog links in the post itself.

    Enjoy!

    * MP3 @ 320kbps
    rapidshare-99mb
    OR
    Zshare -95 mb

    * WAV files

    Megaupload - ALL WAV TRACKS–390 mb

    OR

    Four Rapidshare wav tracks and one Megaupload wav track :

    Rapidshare Track 1

    Rapidshare Track 2

    Rapidshare Track 3

    Rapidshare Track 4

    Megaupload Track 5

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  15. Just needing that one confirmation that the new Rapidshare or Zshare links are OK now ...

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  16. Hi, The RS link is fine.

    Thanx for the share

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  17. The Zshare link is good, too.

    Tip of the cap to you, sir!

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  18. Thanks guys, glad it's working now

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  19. Great versions of the mellow Stylistics songs.
    Thanks for sharing.

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  20. Thanks Simon. Thought I had this one...but I didn't!

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  21. thanks simon!
    z share is working right now!
    wonderful!!!

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  22. thanks guys .
    Ish - I think a lot of people miss this one - was going through my vinyl to see what as 'unposted' , and was surprised that this seemed to be the only Hubbard not out there in Blogworld ...

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  23. gracias por este disco saludos de Music-a-k-o. http://www.yougotrhythm.blogspot.com/

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  24. Congratulations for further exposing Freddie's work - and thanks for the link! Vesper

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  25. looking forward this one.
    great post as ever

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  26. simon-its not freddie on the cover!Its a male model who Pete Turner was using for a photo shoot on Utah's Salt Flats for Arrow Shirts.You can find the same guy on the cover of Bola Sete's Shebaba.What a mine of useless information I am.

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  27. Hi Simon, great album, though sometimes some CTI-albums turn me off :-) -if you're interested I did a guest post over at Scholar's place a while back on the Stylistics song...check it here:
    http://souledonmusic.blogspot.com/
    2008/03/people-make-world-go-round.html
    Over at the coments are some nice contributions as well...
    peace, E-mile

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  28. Hey Bacoso did you say Shebaba as in the Airto song, but by Bola Sete? Is that akbum any good? Got a link?

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  29. vesper and Katonah, great to see you guys here ;)

    e-mile - checked it out, a good collection, going to upload a few more versions there later ...

    Bacoso - I'm glad i'm not the only one who tracks down 'useless' detail! That reminds me that I still need to scan the inner sleeve and post here .... there's a pic of freddie inside, his hair at the time was similar to the front cover model , so i just assumed :)
    There's also a note inside that you can send Creed Taylor $1.50 to get a copy of the cover pic without the text, not sure if the offer still holds 33 years later ....

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  30. probably not, I used to think of him as "Greedy" Taylor :-)

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  31. ISH-got the info about shebaba from my pete turner/cti color of jazz book.grab the lp here
    http://loronix.blogspot.com/2006/06/bola-sete-shebaba-1971.html

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  32. Looks a bit like Pete had made the poor guy stand there all day until he fell over at sunset ...

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  33. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  34. Simon666
    Of course I am here, where good music is! One of my favourite daily visits. Let's say Bacoso ranks 1, Reza 2, Ish@Ileoxumare 3, well, you may be 4, but that's because you arrived later :)

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  35. Thanks for the tip on the Bola Sete Bacoso. I believe Shebaba--Xibaba-means joint. Puff!

    And I'm honored to count among such great blog company!

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  36. Thanks for the effort,much appreciated.Great post.

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  37. looks like http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OBDRBWVC is corrupted.
    vesper: i don't have a blog but it aint good to give a rank as everybody does what he can do, and competition is the worst feeling created by human beings... most of all you forgot to mention blogs that probably would beat any other, all depending on which side of music one finds his favorite stuff...
    no, ranking definitely means nothing. it's too much of a subjective thing, and there's nothing to win, so why...? the only thing it could bring is jealousy and frustration, think about it!

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  38. Oui, do you have any comments to make on the music?
    So far you've (incorrectly) said that one of my rips is in print; check it again; questioned whether another, that came from a 5 year od fileshare, could come from a site that does not contain it, and now questioned a light hearted comment from Vesper about which blogs he enjoys .... all in all, not a stellar contribution.

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  39. .... and megaupload working fine here, anyone else ?

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  40. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  41. ok oui,
    i'll try a re-upload to megaupload at work tomorrow (my home internet is slow for five days as i've ... you guessed it ... downloaded too much music).
    One more thing : can you usually download from megaupload ? I know in some countries it doesn't work ....
    simon

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  42. OOOPS i removed my comment because i wrote stanley instead of freddie... but you already had replied and i did not see!
    to reply your question, yes i can usually download from megaupload.

    so here goes the deleted message again:

    simon666: sorry about the too hurried comment, my next one will consider your point of view ;)
    basically realityunit removed all his shares when he began to work for the music industry, but i guarantee that this album was shared there one day. i remember he mainly shared his own rips but there's a probability that he took the rip at the same place than your friend did. i just wanted to mention that realityunit had an important place in the blog history.
    about the big megaupload file: it's the truth. i just re-downloaded it right now for the 2nd time and the result is unfortunately the same. no big deal, i will get the separate files. thanks for this fabulous album in hi-q, stanley rules.

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  43. another stellar album. big ups.

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  44. thanks, great album!
    is it just me or is there distortion on treble (trumpet, cymbals)?

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  45. Hi ガブリエル君,
    I wouldn't call it distortion, maybe a little 'sizzly' up top. I bought this copy 2nd hand in the 90s and I think it'd been played a lot before then, so it's a bit worn, as 33 year old vinyl can be ...
    Was very careful with my recording levels, so I think this is as good as it gets :)
    simon

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  46. Hi guys,
    I've added Part One of "Freddie Hubbard / Stanley Turrentine in Concert" to the blog chronology of albums in this post (just had part 2 there before). You can get it direct from Pharoah's Dance here

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  47. anyone knows where i can get more CTI lp? they are pretty hard to find on blogs,..like paul desmond LP thank you

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  48. Hi Palojoe,
    you could try (or ask) here :
    http://cti-kudu.blogspot.com/

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  49. Have added a blog link within this post to Freddie Hubbard's "Black Angel" (1970)

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  50. What an effort according to the above.
    But what a record!! Thanks a lot. Not sure about the pants tough..

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  51. Excellent post. The liner notes are a nice bonus.

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  52. Hey Simon666. Thanks for sharing some wonderful music with me. It's great to hear some old vinyl in crystal clear digital. There's so much space in some of these 70's recordings. Hubert Laws complements Freddie beautifully on this one. also loved the Paul Chambers composition Early Minor on your Rhodes comp It reminded me of some of the reflective tunes that he did with Bobby Hutcherson in the 60's.something quite Oriental about it that I can't put my finger on!

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  53. fantastic album thank you for sharing

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  54. Don't know how I missed this outstanding post earlier in the year -- but making up for lost time now.
    Freddie on CTI, so much good stuff -- but this one I never heard, so much appreciated≥
    thanks as always for all the background context too.
    cheers
    TN

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  55. Thanks for the comments guys.
    Glad that you found it TN :)

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  56. RIP Freddie Hubbard. I'm even more grateful for this record, which I think is among his CTI best.

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  57. Sad indeed, thanks for letting ,e know Ish.
    I've cleaned up this post, replacing a few dead album links.

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  58. Many thanks Simon!! Am loving the blog..Just another R.I.P Freddie here..The man had soul, fire and deep groove..Blessings to all.

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  59. Did not have this one. Thanks Simon.

    ThorZeen

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  60. Thanks a lot for this Hubbard gem! I am getting more and more into his CTI work (used to focus mainly on Blue Note period...)

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  61. thanks Simon!!
    groove
    groove
    groove

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  62. Thank you.
    Great quality rip and a very nice album. After all these decades the CTI/KUDU sound is completely distinctive - the thinking person's disco. And Freddie! I don't think I've heard an album of his that disappoints in any way.
    It might be worth noting to anyone going after the WAV version that only the individual links now work. The other 2 megaupload links produce a file but it cannot be uncompressed. Yes, I know you warned that the 1st megaupload link didn't work but I employed haste over observation and missed it.

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  63. Hi, thanks for this and all of your posts. Beautiful stuff. Can you re-up the mp3 version to rapidshare?

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  64. new MP3 link :

    http://rapidshare.com/files/280294410/FHubbard-PolAC_mp3.zip

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  65. Killer album! Thanks for the super-detailed credit and info about all the albums. Great work! R.I.P Freddie, one of my biggest influences...

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  66. Just found my way to your site - amazing work. Thanks for the diligent reposting of this gem!

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  67. Grazie mille per la grande opportunità offerta. Un blog che è diventato un vero riferimento!! Grazie ancora

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  68. A BIG BIG THANX MAN!!! I'm waiting for this post for a long time. This is great, fuckinghotshit...

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  69. Thanks I did get some much needed info on Freddie and boy I loved the efort jiven to be so complete is woderful and two thumbs up.. ~ rick

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  70. Thank you for puttin´this up as well as all the effort laid therein with keepin up this gorgeous site !!
    It´s much appreciated.
    KUDOS
    Henry777

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  71. thanks for wav !!(flac would be very appreciated too)
    i'm going to rip vinyl of Hubbard Freddie High energy 1974
    let me know if u need it, i'll up the flac

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  72. Brother Simon, thank you so much for this wonderful jam. jazztech

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  73. awesome site, come here every so often to get new stuff. Keep up the great work.

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  74. You're welcome anonymous, thanks for commenting.
    Thanks also to Jazztech, Kosta, OldHippieRick, Maximillian and various other anonymous for comments :)

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  75. Thanks for this one, my vinyl copy is very worn.

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  76. You're welcome Jazzfan23 and becks dark :)

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  77. Hi
    I can't find track 5 in the wav set
    Am I missing something?
    regards/jj

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  78. Hi jakejazz, here's track 5, now added to post as well :

    https://rapidshare.com/files/1796081469/05_SOS.wav.zip

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  79. Thanks Simon666
    That's a really nice 'alternate' track to Sky Dive
    regards/jj

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  80. appreciate the reup on the dead link to the last piece of the WAV puzzle ... especially years later!

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  81. Incredible archive! My ears will thank you forever!

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  82. A couple of notes - "Polar AC" is a rework of Cedar Walton's "Ugetsu" (aka "Fantasy in D").

    Also worthy of note is that it was not uncommon for Creed Taylor to have strings and other backgrounds orchestrated after the horns and rhythm had already recorded their base, so that the orchestration could build on the natural energy of the soloist versus vice-versa.

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  83. I'm really indebted to you, and all blog hosters, for your research and effort in making these references available, so I can just google someone like Eddie Henderson and read all about this guy. Makes my world go round finding awesome new music like this! Thanks!

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