| Red Clay | |
| Type: | Studio Album |
| Artist: | Freddie Hubbard |
| Cover: | FreddieHubbard RedClay.jpg |
| Released: | May 1970 [1] |
| Recorded: | January 27–29, 1970 |
| Studio: | Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ |
| Genre: | Jazz fusion, soul jazz |
| Length: | 38:57 (original LP) |
| Label: | CTI CTI 6001 |
| Producer: | Creed Taylor |
| Prev Title: | The Hub of Hubbard |
| Prev Year: | 1970 |
| Next Title: | Straight Life |
| Next Year: | 1971 |
Red Clay is an album recorded in 1970 by jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.[2] [3] It was his first album on Creed Taylor's CTI label and marked a shift toward the soul-jazz fusion sounds that would dominate his recordings in the later part of the decade. It entered at number 20 on Billboard’s Top 20 Best Selling Jazz LPs, on June 20, 1970.
Bill Milkowski of JazzTimes commented: "...Red Clay, an album that would not only define Hubbard’s direction over the next decade while setting the template for all future CTI recordings, but would also have a dramatic impact on a generation of trumpet players coming up in the ’70s. ’Red Clay’ would become Hubbard’s signature tune throughout his career."[4] Thom Jurek of AllMusic stated: "This may be Freddie Hubbard's finest moment as a leader, in that it embodies and utilizes all of his strengths as a composer, soloist, and frontman. On Red Clay, Hubbard combines hard bop's glorious blues-out past with the soulful innovations of mainstream jazz in the 1960s, and reads them through the chunky groove innovations of '70s jazz fusion... This is a classic, hands down." Tom Moon, in 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, wrote that "Red Clay is one of those records that mucks up the neat evolution narrative of jazz."[5]
All compositions by Freddie Hubbard except where noted