The Night Of The Cookers is a two volume live album from Freddie Hubbard, that’s a pretty pure embodiment of what jazz is. Whatever else we get into with jazz— with groove, dynamics/development, arrangement, fancy playing— this is the music’s center.
It was recorded in a club in New York in 1965, in jam session format— there are four tunes total on the two records, the shortest of which is just under twenty minutes long. There are three horns, and everybody is blowing for a long time. There’s a consistently high level of energy all the way through.
Pensativa – 204 bpm / half note = 102
Latin tune, that feels very restricting for the rhythm section. I find it that way. The form is 64 bars long, but it feels short— AABA, each section is 16 bars, with a stop in the middle of every section, that gets played through the blowing and everything— though the drums play through it on the solos. There’s nothing to do but grind it out, you’re not going to shape it or go someplace else with it.
Pete La Roca just plays the samba groove all the way through here, and doesn’t get into anything too dramatic. It’s hard for me to do that— I always feel I need to be doing more— but, if you listen as Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan are trading, who’s going to think “I am needed here” and get in and tangle with that?
Walkin’ – 205-310 bpm / half note = 102-155
A blues written by Miles Davis, and regular part of his concert set from ~’63-’65. Tempo is relatively moderate here, faster than the original version, much slower than it ended up being with the Tony band.
It does speed up dramatically, starting at ~205, cruising at ~240 well into the first solos, up to around 280 in the middle, about 310 during the trading with the drums/congas, maybe getting slightly above that by the head out.
There’s more room for La Roca to play, and he’s consistently active throughout. Between him and the conga player, there’s a lot of percussion activity, that is not necessarily real interactive with the soloist— they’re more creating an environment, and matching energy. La Roca and congas trade with the horns, and again— we’re playing energy and momentum, you’re not going to make some personal statement out of it. The horns are a freight train, and trying to take charge and take it someplace else, you would simply get run down.
Jodo – 272 bpm / half note = 138
The tune is a Freddie Hubbard-composed burner, I’ve never played it.
Again, the tempo picks up a lot. It’s what we’re doing here, we’re burning, running down the street naked. You can’t be thinking about good taste or worrying that your hair isn’t combed.
La Roca plays hard on his solo, and at the end, just has to stop— I would be trying to make an ending there, but sometimes you have to just take the horn out of your mouth. I can’t imagine being a conga player on this gig.
Breaking Point – 300 bpm / half note = 150
Another Freddie Hubbard tune, a funny pastiche of calypso, a kind of Mexican/toreador song, with a gospel figure at the end. Driven by the piano and percussion— La Roca is in there playing the toms, not so much snare drum and cymbals, he’s blending with the congas. As the energy builds he plays bigger.
It’s a prodigious event. You’ve got Godzilla and King Kong both on trumpet, maybe Rodan on alto, and they’re driving this, being superstars, leaving everything on stage. I always assume the rhythm section, even with someone as great as Pete La Roca, are normal mortals, and feeling some heat, servicing these monsters. Per normal, the horns blow their faces off for 19 minutes, and then the drums have to solo after that— even worse for the congas, with extended unaccompanied solos on these last two tunes. His hands can’t be feeling great by this point, you couldn’t tell it from his playing, he carries it, maintains the energy.
There are more nuanced albums in the world, with more varied energy, more interest, greater displays of skill or improvising genius, this is still the center of the music, which could be summarized something like: play, m_______er.
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