Customer Reviews

Sky Dive

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Along with Keep Your Soul Together and In Concert (w/Stanley Turrentine), this album was one of Freddie Hubbard's last good albums before he signed to Columbia and started putting out commercial schlock. For starters, just look at the band on this date: George Benson, Hubert Laws, Keith Jarrett, Ron Carter, and Billy Cobham plus the usual extended cast of CTI studio musicians. Few bassists can lay down the funk tastefully like Carter, and his intro on "Povo" will make you say "Good Gracious!" For groove addicts like myself, this and the title track are alone worth the price of the album. There aren't too many surprises on Sky Dive, and it lacks the fire of Hubbard's earlier masterpieces Straight Life and Red Clay, but it's a real treat to hear all these guys coming up with some creative, funky music before things descended into disco hell. By the way, this is also great driving music.

This, the last Freddie Hubbard outing on CTI, has all the good qualities that you associate with the label CTI. An all-star lineup, very good playing, imaginative arrangements for a large backing ensemble of strings and horns that is used sparingly enough not to overshadow the small group feel and exteneded solos, a beautiful slick sound. The overall slickness is also the weakness of this and other similar CTI albums: The music is polished and if not exactly unadventurous at least decidedly mellow. It aims to please and sell but is saved from blandness by the sheer quality of work. So this is an album for those of us who want to lay back and enjoy the spacious sound, fine solos of top players and the general smoothness of the production. Another Hubbard CTI album in much the same vein is First Light, whereas the excellent Red Clay has more fire and Straight Life propelled by drummer Jack De Johnette is very funky (in the Miles Davis' Bitches Brew sense).

I used to have this on a CTI album and what a album it is.I got this when my cousin who played trumpet in a r&b group told me to get Sky Dive and ive loved this one ever since.It reminds me so much of the early 70's CTI sound with all the great musicians they had like Ron Carter what a bass he lays down.Im glad i finally got this on cd its long overdue and Red Clay is next.

This Creed Taylor gem from the early 70's sounds even better now than it did then. Freddie Hubbard is, or at least was, a remarkable trumpet player - a genuine virtuoso with terrific tone, meldodic sense and emotional range. The songs are unusual, beautiful and in the groove. Ditto for everyone else on the album, which - I hadn't noticed this 30 years ago - includes Keith Jarrett. Ron Carter's bass is mesmerizing. Listening to his riff on the first song helped me appreciate the power of nuance and a subtle riff well placed.

In the early 1970s, when Sky Dive was released, the more commercially oriented jazz produced by Creed Taylor and arranged by Don Sebesky for CTI records seemed to many a tad tame and too slick. In retrospect, the music sounds polished to be sure yet still adheres to the fundamentals of jazz. Most especially, the individual musical personalities of the players are allowed to take center stage; in this case, Hubert Laws (THE man on flute back then), George Benson (not just soloing but also comping), Keith Jarrett (playing electric piano on a couple of tracks, very rare), Ron Carter (droning brilliantly as well as swinging), Billy Cobham (hard to believe he was in Mahavishnu Orchestra at the time) and of course Freddie Hubbard. No, this is not an Art Blakey session from the 60s with Freddie blasting out brilliant hard bop. But Freddie still plays with great technical fire and artistic taste, drawing on certain fusion elements without the use of electronics or guitar-wannabe rock motifs as well as his wide experience in free jazz contexts. CTI at its best.

I first heard this album when i was about 14 and i fell in love with it. At the time i knew of Ron Carter and Freddie Huddard. But i never paid much attention to the key board players on the album at the time. Now that im 48 years old and hearing it on CD i can now tell how great a young Keith Jerrit was man he was such a wizard on keyboards.I am very glad to add this CD to my very long list of Jazz colletions.

I suggest to anyone who love jazz and especially the trumpet, to listen to sky dive. I feel this is a masterpice in jazz music. MR. Fredie Hubbard is at his all time best, also he keep up the fantastic legends with all the great jazz trumpeter before him ,and all new and upcomeing trumpeter in the future.

GEORGE BENSON , KEITH JARRETT, RON CARTER, BILLY COBHAM, HUBERT LAWS AND FREDDIE HUBBARD WERE SOME OF THE MOST PROLIFIC JAZZ RECORDING ARTISTS OF THE 1970'S AND THEY ARE ALL HERE ON THIS CTI RECORDS RELEASE FROM THE MID 70'S. I HAVE HAD THIS RECORD/CASSETTE/CD SINCE IT CAME OUT, IT IS AS GOOD TODAY AS IT WAS WHEN IT WAS RELEASED. I AM GLAD ALL OF THE OLD CTI RECORDS ARE FINALLY BEING RELEASED BY SONY ON CD, IT'S ABOUT TIME.