Mr Pitiful at his most powerful, with the MGs in 1965.

‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

‘Classic vinyl.’

Leading a sextet for the Jazzline label in 1961, with Pepper Adams and Duke Pearson.

In the ‘Blue Note Classic Vinyl’ series.

‘Audiophile analogue remastering.’

The trumpeter in peak form, leading a crack band through extended versions of CTI killers like Povo and First Light.
Kent Brinkley and Michael Carvin from Hugh Masekela’s band; George Cables from Child’s Dance and Capra Black; Horace Silver’s saxophonist Junior Cook, playing with surprising intensity.
Recorded in 1973 for French radio.

For Michael Carvin — who in the next couple of years would play on Pharoah Sanders’ Elevation LP, and Lonnie Liston Smith’s Expansions — the session was something else: ‘I felt that we were being used by a higher force. That’s the first time we played that way, and it was the last time we played that way. We actually got the lightning in a bottle, we caught the magic… we caught it.’

Aged 25, signing off Impulse! with a wayward flourish, Hubbard plays beautifully throughout, boldly leading an orchestra and string section, 16-piece big band, and a septet with Curtis Fuller, Eric Dolphy, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Reggie Workman, and Louis Hayes. Shorter is arranger and conductor. Buckle up for Dolphy flipping his wig in Clarence’s Place.
‘Verve By Request.’

One of the great soul singers, with classy recordings made between better-known stints for Colpix and Shout, making the very most of sometimes poppy material.