Miles Davis sharply criticized Freddie Hubbard in the 1970s?

[BrassPapa]

So basically, Miles was very supportive of Freddie early in his career. He said great things about him early on in interviews and according to Freddie himself, Miles helped him get signed to Blue Note.

However, from the late 1960’s and onward, Miles became increasingly critical towards Freddie. In a blindfold test Miles criticized the band Freddie had on his cut “On The Que Tee”. Stating that Freddie needs the right band to push him to play his best. In several interviews during the 70’s and 80’s Miles openly bashed Freddie for playing too many notes in his solos and being too flashy. On the Japanese liner notes to his own 1975 album Agharta, Miles took some time to remark how Freddie sounds like he practices too much and even compares his playing to a woman who bares everything at once and doesn’t know the art of seduction! 😮
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1941 Conn 48B Vocabell trumpet
1950 something Conn Coprion cornet
1961 Conn 38B Connstellation trumpet
1970 Olds Recording trumpet
1973 Olds Ambassador trumpet (customized)

[Rhondo]

[Shifty]

[so what]

[markp]

[BrassPapa]

[JoshMizruchi]

I’ve done a decent amount of research on this very topic.

The first thing is their relationship was very complicated. They seemed to be friends, but there was criticism (mostly from Miles).

As BrassPapa pointed out, Miles bashed Freddie’s recording of “On the Que Tee” from his 1968 album Backlash. You have to remember that in 1968, Miles was in a very different place musically than Freddie was. Miles was experimenting with electric instruments and funk, while “On the Que Tee” is a very straight ahead, hard boppish tune; almost the opposite of what Miles was into at that time. Miles says, as he did more than once, that Freddie was a great trumpet player, but Miles felt the straight ahead 32 bar form had been done to death, and felt Freddie needed to do something more musically current. I understand that from Miles’s perspective, that makes perfect sense. FWIW from me, I love “On the Que Tee” and that whole album, but that is my opinion. It IS possible that if Leonard had played Backlash’s title track or “The Return of the Prodigal Son” that Miles MAY have liked it more, as those tracks had a more rockish feel and were more his cup of tea at that time (maybe), but that’s just speculation.

In Miles’s autobiography, he only mentions Freddie one time, where he is listing up and coming trumpet players in the 1980s. He says he thought Freddie Hubbard was “going to be a great trumpet player,” high praise, but, not stating that he already WAS a great trumpet player, so kind of a backhanded compliment I guess, although he had already said Freddie was a great trumpet player in the blindfold test. Hugh Masekala, Jon Faddis and Olu Dara also get mentioned if I remember correctly, along with the sadness that Lee Morgan, Woody Shaw and Booker Little were no longer around.

The version of the story at Birdland in the late 50s that I heard was that Freddie was actually playing a Miles solo note for note, and then Miles walked in! I heard Miles then said, “Hey man, why don’t you play your own sh*t?” Freddie, a bit embarrassed, then did, and Miles told Alfred Lion, the co-founder of Blue Note Records, who was also in the audience, to sign Freddie, which he did. Here’s an interview where Freddie discusses this incident:
https://www.npr.org/2001/08/11/1127264/freddie-hubbard-a-jazz-icon-remembered

One other article, where Miles gives his most scathing critique of Freddie (that I’ve seen), can be read here:
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/miles-davis-he-loved-him-madly-an-appreciation.188238/page-3

Miles says he likes Thad Jones but says of Freddie, “I don’t go to hear Freddie because I don’t like him. I’d rather hear Thad miss a note than Freddie make twelve.” Ouch. This comment actually made me listen to Thad again. I can see why Thad was more Miles’s style, but this is a matter of personal preference.

What did Freddie say critically about Miles? Almost nothing that I’ve found. The closest was when he said, “Then I heard Miles, and I thought, well, I wanted to play with more fire than that.”
http://www.jazzprofessional.com/interviews/Freddie%20Hubbard_1.htm

You also have to remember that Miles was an elder to Freddie; almost twelve years older, and also clearly an influence, given that Freddie used to play his solos note for note. I think they had a genuine musical disagreement; Miles was big on music of the senses. He listened to people like Rachmaninoff, Ravel, and Michelangeli. Even Stockhausen at one point. He also listened to Ahmad Jamal. Even later when he was listening more to pop music, he was looking for certain textures. That wasn’t really what Freddie was about. Freddie was more in the tradition of guys like Fats and Clifford. He had a hard bop sound in a lot of the stuff he did. He also was more technical, and less subtle. They had kind of a stylistic meeting in the 1970s, but even there they did things very differently.

Miles was of course very outspoken. I think his musical criticisms were in the interest of the music and not ego because he criticized people who played different instruments too, like Eric Dolphy and Cecil Taylor. He even criticized Coltrane, saying he didn’t like the stuff he did later on. Miles had extraordinarily strong opinions and wasn’t afraid to share them. He criticized Monk’s comping, asking him to lay out behind his solos. He even criticized Pops and Dizzy for clowning around too much onstage. You might not agree with everything Miles said, but he always had a clear reason for his beliefs. He wasn’t criticizing just to be mean, and it was a different time. Back in those days, musicians in general were more outspoken. Dr. Barry Harris, who was one of the last surviving musicians of that generation, also openly voiced his distaste for many of the musicians we love and admire. It’s how things were in those days, and for better or worse, it was what it was. Now, it’s not really cool to talk like that anymore, but we can still look at what these masters said, learn from it, and respect their uncompromising musical principles and honesty, which led to some of the greatest music ever made.

Josh
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Josh Mizruchi
http://www.joshmizruchi.com

[peanuts56]

In early 82 while I was at Berklee, Freddie was playing a couple of nights at a club. I went with a drummer friend. When I got there, almost every trumpeter I knew from Berklee was there.
After the first set, Freddie sat at the bar to talk story with everyone. This was shortly after Miles had released his first recording in 5-6 years.
After a while,Freddie excused himself to go in back and relax before the 2nd set. As he was walking away my drummer friend asked Freddie what he thought of Miles new recording. Freddie said, sounds like Herb Alpert!!!!! Cracked everyone up.

[Halflip]

[kehaulani]

Josh - thank you.
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"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird
"I wouldn't play like Wynton Marsalis even if I could play like Wynton Marsalis." Attributed to Chet

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[JoshMizruchi]

[peanuts56]

[quote="Halflip"]

[Brent]

There was a 2022 documentary called 'Round Miles. It features a round table discussion with a number of musicians, including Freddie Hubbard. They don't 'sugar coat' Miles. Mr. Ron Carter at about 45:30 into this.

I could listen to those legends talk all day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJk48-8rSh8&ab_channel=RoundMiles-2022Documentary
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Brent

[kehaulani]

Thank you. Brent. I had heard that before in the past but heard so much more this time.
_________________
"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Bird
"I wouldn't play like Wynton Marsalis even if I could play like Wynton Marsalis." Attributed to Chet

Yamaha 8310Z Bobby Shew trumpet
Benge 3X Trumpet
Benge 3X Cornet

[DAVIDTHEWRITER]

[DAVIDTHEWRITER]