Night of the Cookers 1 & 2 [Original recording remastered]

Freddie Hubbard | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 13, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Blue Note Records
• ASIN: B0002IQ9QY
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,720 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A really exiting live-date, August 14, 2004

By 

G. Schramke (Vienna, Austria) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Night of the Cookers 1 & 2 (Audio CD)

If you want to hear some really hot, exiting music played by some of the greatest players of that most productive period of the sixties, I'm sure you will like this. Sit down and relax, close your eyes and imagine you are in the audience of a jazz-club. This is no music for radio-playing, the sound quality isn't the very best, but everybody is really stretching out and taking chances. so this is music played for the fellow musicians and of course for a hip audience. Besides that, this is a rare occasion to hear two of the greatest trumpeters playing together. By the way, both Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan did many albums for the BlueNote-Label, and each of them had played with Art Blakey for a long period. The first tune "Pensative" starts with Lee Morgan using the harmon mute (one of the rare occasions where he uses it), while James Spaulding is playing flute, so it's a soft start with that kind of relaxed samba-feeling, but then thing turn out to be a "friendly trumpet-battle" between Hubbard and Morgan. "Walkin" is Morgan's feature and shows him really at the peak of his power. James Spaulding on alto is also exciting. Though he never got very much recognition, he really could play everything from bop to free, making really important contributions to many recording-sessions of the sixties. It is very interesting to compare the next tune "Breaking Point" with the studio version of the album with the same title, which sounds more like avantgarde with it's "free-sections", while the live-version here is more conventional with it's steady calypso-feeling. "Jodo" is my favourite tune on that album. It is Hubbard's feature and he really plays some fantastic trumpet , much faster than on the studio version of the same tune, done a few weeks earlier for Hubbard's album "Blue Spirits". Pianist Harold Mabern also plays beautiful piano solos on each tune, and just dig Pete La Roca and "Big Black"....they really have a lot of "percussion discussion" running on that exiting live gig.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Night of the Cookers" Simmers, July 13, 2004

By 

Michael B. Richman (Portland, Maine USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Night of the Cookers 1 & 2 (Audio CD)

After a brief absence in the Blue Note catalog, Freddie Hubbard's "Night of the Cookers" has been reissued via the RVG series. Though I have to confess, as I stated in my recent review of Hub's "Breaking Point," it would have been nicer so see rarer OOP titles like "Here to Stay" or "Blue Spirits" back in print instead. These live volumes, originally released as two LPs back in the day, capture a rare pairing of Blue Note's greatest trumpeters, Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan, live in performance at Brooklyn's Club La Marchal. These April 9 & 10, 1965 concerts also feature James Spaulding on alto sax & flute, Harold Mabern on piano, Larry Ridley on bass, Pete LaRoca on drums and Big Black on congas. The four songs presented on this 2CD set are lengthy improvisations on material quite familiar to Hub fans -- "Pensativa" from Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers' "Free For All," the classic standard "Walkin'," "Jodo" (one of the tunes from Hub's previous album, "Blue Spirits") and "Breaking Point." However, these extended, groove-laden jams bear little resemblance to their aforementioned counterparts. This is not entirely a bad thing if you're looking for a great soul-jazz album, but I personally think Hubbard was at his Blue Note best on his own "Ready for Freddie" (see my review), in the company of Blakey, or on classic albums like Herbie Hancock's "Empyrean Isles," Bobby Hutcherson's "Dialogue," or Eric Dolphy's "Out to Lunch." It is blatantly obvious that with this effort, the trumpeter was trying to take his music to a larger audience, particularly with the inclusion of Morgan who had attained that desired fame with "The Sidewinder." But as is evidenced by album's like "Backlash" (again, see my review) and his later CTI recordings, when Hub was looking for more commercial success, it often came at the cost of artistic success. Others may disagree, but it is my opinion that Hub cooked best in a more modern setting, and that he only simmers on "Night of the Cookers."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cooks in Many Ways...So Does the Audio..., January 29, 2009

By 

Mike DiMartino (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Night of the Cookers 1 & 2 (Audio CD)

The "youngsters of the digital generation" always give themselves away. If they detect the slightest real life--LIVE!--ambience, they immediately critique the audio as being lousy. Then you have the holy hip reviewers who just don't get what this date is about, because they were projecting what THEY thought the date should be. There's a lot of burnin' energy happening on these tracks, and many contrasting playing styles to enjoy: from James Spaulding's somewhat out-there, powerful alto, to Lee and Freddie's fat, firey, spankin' trumpets--captured up close by Orville O'Brien's microphones, as are the you-are-there acoustics of Club La Marchal. Quite intense! An added pleasure is the solos of congero Big Black. Lots of Pete LaRoca's drums too.

All too often, you'll see reviews here of live performances wherein the reviewers are too quick to snub the audio. They have no idea of the prevailing circumstances--and engineering challenges--on the date of the recording. For instance on this recording's "Pensativa", a RESPONSIBLE reviewer would've listened more closely and would've heard Freddie sometimes moving about the bandstand, to and away from the microphone, the spontaneity of which the engineer has no control over. Thus it is unfair and just ignorant to call this date an "amateurishly recorded production."