Immediately after leaving
Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, trumpeter
Freddie Hubbard formed his own quintet and set the modern jazz world on its collective ear with this incredible album. Beyond hard bop and into early creative territory,
Hubbard explored a sonic deliverance based on his fiery personality and a refusal to stand still or be satisfied with standardized phrasings and nomenclature. His effective teaming with the unique alto saxophonist
James Spaulding and pianist
Ronnie Mathews is particularly telling, as this set of
Hubbard originals and one from drummer
Joe Chambers constitutes some of the most powerful jazz music of this time period. The expansive style of
Andrew Hill is identifiable especially during the title track, with the piano of
Mathews leading a startling charge of several short and swift mini-theme clarion bursts, moving into calypso. This is one of the more astonishing pieces ever conceived in modern music. "Blue Frenzy" and "D Minor Mint" both display uncanny original themes within mainstream frameworks, bearing the stamp of
Hubbard's fierce approach to post-
Dizzy Gillespie-type trumpet. The former piece is an easy 24-bar blues activated into cool constraints via the style of
Horace Silver but fired up by the antics of
Mathews, while the latter track sports a chatty melody, humorously cackling onward. "Far Away" is the most intriguing piece rhythmically and sonically, moving from 6/4 and 3/4 to 12/6, again similar to
Andrew Hill's harmonic concept with
Spaulding's piquant flute accenting a hip, agile melody. The pure energy
Hubbard injected into this ensemble, and the sheer originality of this music beyond peers like
Miles Davis and
Lee Morgan, identified
Hubbard as the newest of new voices on his instrument.
Breaking Point has stood the test of time as a recording far ahead of mid-'60s post-bop, and is an essential item for all listeners of incendiary progressive jazz. [Some reissues offer alternate takes of "Blue Frenzy" and the pretty
Joe Chambers composition "Mirrors," wavering via Spaulding's flute, a reaching-for-the-stars ballad that has become a standard.] ~ Michael G. Nastos