The first album released posthumously after jazz legend Freddie Hubbard's passing in 2008, the recordings that make up Without a Song: Live in Europe 1969 actually sat in the Blue Note archives for 40 years. Recorded while Hubbard was touring Europe with producer Sonny Lester's The Jazz Wave on Tour revue, the album features performances culled from three separate nights - two in England and one in Germany. While Hubbard had already released many of his most famous Blue Note solo albums by 1969, in truth the trumpeter had only started leading his own full-time touring band around 1966 after leaving Max Roach's ensemble. In that sense, Without a Song showcases Hubbard in his technical and creative prime as one of the premiere virtuoso jazz trumpeters of his generation…
After having been out of print for nearly thirty years, this classic mindblower from 1971 has at last been reissued on CD. This is much more than a 'jazz' recording by Freddie Hubbard. Quoting the original album cover, what we have here is SING ME A SONG OF SONGMY, "A Fantasy for Electromagnetic Tape, featuring Freddie Hubbard and his Quintet, with Reciters, Chorus, String Orchestra, Hammond Organ, Synthesized & Processed Sounds,Composed & Realized by ILHAN MIMAROGLU on Poems by Fazil Husnu Daglarca & Other Texts". What the CD reissue liner notes fail to emphasize is that this is really an Ilhan Mimaroglu album. Not to devalue the first-rate performances by Hubbard & his group, but calling this a Freddie Hubbard album is somewhat misleading.