Straight Life

Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Herbie Hancock (electric piano), Ron Carter (electric bass) and Lenny White (drums). From the album Red Clay (1970).

This album can be included within the jazz-funk style, but wrapped in a brighter and more polished production. It’s full of improvisation, spectacular tonality and energy. Almost every musician playing on it have recorded with Miles Davis at a certain point and Freddie Hubbard incorporates all that talent into one group.

Jazz-funk is a subgenre of jazz that consists of a marked rhythm, the use of electric sounds and the appearance of the first analog synthesizers. The mixture of funk, soul and rhythm and blues with jazz produced the formation of a genre whose scope is quite extensive, ranging from pure jazz improvisation to soul, funk or disco music with solos, riffs and jazz arrangements.

Hubbard makes the introduction doing some of his trumpet pranks and having a dialogue with Landrum, and then the rest of the group joins in to expose the theme. The melody has a certain funky sound and is pleasant to the ear. Right away Henderson enters with an expressive and imaginative solo including all kinds of musical motifs and wanting to get off the scale. Then Hubbard starts playing prudently, but he soon puts in acrobatic and impetuous while Hancock encourages him from below, although he calms down in the end. Next comes Hancock more calmly with a refined and elegant melodic line using occasional chords. He is followed by Benson inventing singable and melodic phrases with a fluid and coherent speech that makes you listen carefully. Now it’s Landrum’s turn, who makes an intervention full of contrasts, and then Hubbard reappears to enjoy himself a little more. At last, the group re-exposes the theme fading out.