Freddie Hubbard, the Grammy-winning jazz musician whose style influenced a generation of trumpet players and who collaborated with such greats as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, died Monday, a month after suffering a heart attack. He was 70. A towering figure in jazz circles, Hubbard played on hundreds of recordings in a career dating to 1958, the year he arrived in New York from his hometown Indianapolis, where he had studied at the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music and with the Indianapolis Symphony. In his earliest recordings, which included “Open Sesame” and “Goin’ Up” for Blue Note in 1960, the influence of Miles Davis on Hubbard is obvious. But within a couple years he would develop a style all his own, one that would influence generations of musicians, including Wynton Marsalis. “He influenced all the trumpet players that came after him,” Marsalis told The Associated Press earlier this year. “Certainly I listened to him a lot. … We all listened to him. He has a big sound and a great sense of rhythm and time and really the hallmark of his playing is an exuberance. His playing is exuberant.” Hubbard played on more than 300 recordings, including his own albums and those of scores of other artists. He won his Grammy in 1972 for best jazz performance by a group for the album “First Light.” As a young musician, Hubbard became revered among his peers for a fiery, blazing style that allowed him to hit notes higher and faster than just about anyone else with a horn. As age and infirmity began to slow that style, he switched to a softer, melodic style and played a flugelhorn. His fellow musicians were still impressed….and that never seemed to stop.
