Product Description Open Sesame was Freddie Hubbard's recording debut, and it announced the arrival of an extraordinary trumpeter, both technically and artistically. This album teamed him with tenor saxophonist and composer Tina Brooks (they would reconvene a week later to record Brooks's True Blue) and pianist McCoy Tyner a few months before he joined John Coltrane's quintet. Open Sesame is one of those stunning Blue Note records where the musicians mesh and the tunes, arrangements and solos get as close to perfection as imaginable. This remastered version adds alternative takes of the two Tina Brooks tunes, "Open Sesame" and "Gypsy Blue", to the originally issued album. .co.uk Recorded in 1960, Freddie Hubbard's Open Sesame is not only a very good CD: it dramatises history in the making. The trumpeter was not unknown then, but he was still in his early years; so was pianist McCoy Tyner, for whom a momentous association with John Coltrane was just around the corner. Indeed, the best-known musician at the time of recording was bassist Sam Jones, and while he went on to bigger things with Cannonball Adderley and then Oscar Peterson, it was Hubbard and Tyner who would emerge as unambiguously major figures. That by rights should also have characterised tenorist Tina Brooks, but this superb player (his work on "But Beautiful" here is exquisite) never got the recognition he deserved, dying almost forgotten in 1974 at the age of 42. Further highlights include the leader's "Hub's Nub" and the two takes apiece of the title track and "Gypsy Blue", both excellent compositions by Brooks. Mention should also be made of drummer Clifford Jarvis, a young lion steeped in Blakey, and of Rudy Van Gelder's predictably flawless engineering. The music both invigorates and enchants, and its reappearance, handsomely packaged, is most welcome. --Richard Palmer
