Hong Kong jazz lost one of its great stalwarts last week with the sudden passing, on his 70th birthday, of John Edwin Hubbard.
Hubbard, who died in his sleep in the early hours of Monday morning, was known to many as the singer and trumpeter of the Victoria Jazz Band, which he joined in 1972 and led from 1994 until his death.
He came to Hong Kong in the 1970s as an advertising industry professional, but was always more enthusiastic about jazz than his job. Music seems to run in his family. His brother, Neil Hubbard, is one of Britain's leading session guitarists.
John Hubbard wasn't a founding member of the Victoria Jazz Band, or VJB, which was established in 1971, but his distinctive trumpet and vocal styles as well as his humorous frontman's persona had been defining elements of the band for most of their more than four-decade history.
A proficient player, Hubbard had the flexibility to play in the full range of jazz styles incorporated into the VJB's repertoire over the years. For many years he also carried on with his advertising day job while performing in the evenings with the VJB, which held residencies at The Godown, the Pacific Rim restaurant at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Café Deco and, more recently, Grappa's Cellar.
Hubbard eventually devoted himself entirely to being a full-time musician. "I decided years ago that I would never be remembered as the man who successfully launched new brands of shampoo," he told the Post's Mansha Daswani in 1998. "They'll remember me as the guy who played trumpet in the Victoria Jazz Band … for the enjoyment I've brought people rather than the money I've made for large American corporations."
The Elaine Liu photograph accompanying this article nicely captures the John Hubbard many will remember. He is seated at the bar of the old Jazz Club, trumpet in one hand, cigarette in the other, pondering a crossword puzzle clue. Besides jazz, crosswords were his favourite form of recreation.