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Review 1
Freddie Hubbard had already worked with John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Slide Hampton when he made Open Sesame, his debut as a leader, in June of 1960 (at age 22). His precocious musicianship and knife-sharp trumpet attack are indelibly stamped on this fiery quintet session.
Joining Hubbard in the frontline is the long-overlooked tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks, who offers some of his finest work on record. The pianist on the date, McCoy Tyner, was still several months away from his first recording with John Coltrane - an event that Hubbard practically foreshadows by quoting "Mr. P.C." on the master take of Brooks's "Gypsy Blue." Bassist Sam Jones and drummer Clifford Jarvis infuse the entire session with a heady, swinging momentum. (Jarvis would join Hubbard again on 1962's Hub Tones.)
Brooks penned not only "Gypsy Blue" but also the uptempo title track, which shares harmonic characteristics with Dexter Gordon's "Cheesecake" - and with "Topsy," as Ira Gitler noted in his liner notes to Gordon's Go! (Alternate takes of both Brooks tunes are included in the RVG Edition of Open Sesame.) Hubbard shines on "But Beautiful," a brisk reading of "All or Nothing At All," and a loping, midtempo "One Mint Julep." His sole original composition, "Hub's Nub," involves challenging chromatic motion and a stop-time structure on the head.  |
Players
Freddie Hubbard: Trumpet; Tina Brooks: Tenor Sax; McCoy Tyner: Piano; Sam Jones: Bass; Clifford Jarvis: Drums |
Tracks
1 Open Sesame
2 But Beautiful
3 Gypsy Blue
4 All Or Nothing At All
5 One Mint Julep
6 Hub's Nub
7 Open Sesame (alternate take) *
8 Gypsy Blue (alternate take) * |
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