Andrew Hill

Over nearly half a century, composer-pianist-ensemble leader Andrew Hill gained international jazz renown for his uniquely original music and recorded ouevre, which is by turns dark, fragile, funny, stark, unforgettably tuneful, percussive, insightful, oblique, transparent and mysterious. With the release of Dusk (Palmetto Records), his first album in ten years, Hill reaches another peak, equaling high points of composition and collaboration he achieved in the 1960s with such innovators as Eric Dolphy, Kenny Dorham, John Gilmore, Roy Haynes, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Elvin Jones, Sam Rivers, Tony Williams and Reggie Workman, most often commissioned by Blue Note Records.

A folio of songs for sextet loosely inspired by Cane, Jean Toomer's classic volume of stories and poems published during the Harlem Renaissance, Dusk features Hill's New Point of Departure Sextet of virtuosi and the mature vision of an artist who has always flourished just beyond fame's spotlight, the better to see, hear, feel and create without its insistent glare. At age 63, Hill is especially gratified that there's plentiful new interest in his impeccable, elusive music — his teasing, just-beyond-grasp lyricism, his improvisations that simulate processes of thought, his themes that come together as naturally as night falls towards the end of a long day.

Hill was born in Chicago (despite mistaken information which prevailed for years that he arrived there in early childhood with his parents from Port au Prince, Haiti), raised in the heart of that city's black South Side, and discovered playing accordion and tapdancing outside his neighborhood's nightclubs and theaters by the great Earl "Fatha" Hines, who liked what he heard and told young Andrew, "I should be your master." Stan Kenton's arranger- trombonist Bill Russo also encouraged Hill, and introduced him to German composer-music theorist-in-exile Paul Hindemith, who corrected the notation of the youth's nascent yet intriguing compositional style.

Hill began gigging in 1952, and in the summer of '53 accompanied alto saxophonist Charlie Parker at the Greystone Ballroom, in Detroit. In the mid '50s he rehearsed with Miles Davis, worked with Dinah Washington and Coleman Hawkins, then organized his own trio and recorded So In Love, his debut (featuring bassist Malachi Favors, a founder of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and drummer James Slaughter) in 1955.

Upon moving to New York in 1961, Hill performed with Rahsaan Roland Kirk before being contracted as a leader by Alfred Lyons, the founder of Blue Note Records who proclaimed Hill his "last great protegé" at the 1986 Mount Fuji Festival celebrating Blue Note's legacy. Hill's Blue Note sessions from November, 1963 through March '66 were released as the albums Black Fire, Smokestack, Judgement, Point of Departure, Andrew!, Compulsion, One For One and Involution and are compiled in the seven-CD boxed set The Complete Blue Note Andrew Hill Sessions (1963-66) on Mosaic Records. Hill returned to Blue Note in 1989 and '90 to record Eternal Spirit and But Not Farewell, both of which featured saxophonist Greg Osby, and again late in '99 as a guest on Osby's album The Invisible Hand. He also released albums on the Arista-Freedom and Black Saint/Soul Note labels during the '70s and '80s, but spent most of those years (until the death of his wife Laverne in 1989) on the West Coast, offering solo concerts, classes and workshops in prisons, social service and academic settings, also playing occasionally at international fests.

Andrew Hill Sextet Plus 10: A Beautiful Day, Revisited

Read "A Beautiful Day, Revisited" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
November 13, 2024

Registrato dal vivo al Birdland dal 24 al 26 gennaio 2002, il materiale di questo doppio CD (nonché doppio vinile) raggiunge oggi i quasi 83 minuti di durata, aggiungendo, rispetto all'edizione originaria uscita pochi mesi dopo il concerto, un'alternate take inedita del brano che intitola l'album e una versione ampliata di “11/8," riposizionando nel contempo i nove brani complessivi in quanto a “ordine di apparizione." Ne vien fuori un'opera che possiamo tranquillamente definire monumentale, anche proprio per la ...

Album Review

Andrew Hill Sextet Plus Ten: A Beautiful Day, Revisited

Read "A Beautiful Day, Revisited" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 21, 2024

The heyday of pianist Andrew Hill (1931-2007) happened during his hang with Blue Note Records, where he released ten albums between 1963 and 1970, including 1964's Black Fire, a splendid quartet session featuring saxophonist Joe Henderson; 1964's Point Of Departure), that featured a freewheeling sextet that included Henderson, multiple reedist Eric Dolphy and trumpeter Kenny Dorham; to Passing Ships (1969), with an exuberant multi-horn group that included trumpeter Woody Shaw, trombonist Julian Priester and flutist Joe Farrell. For those with ...

Radio & Podcasts

Andrew Hill, Gaia Wilmer, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Anat Cohen & More

by Ludovico Granvassu
October 18, 2024

Unearthed gems, re-releases and brand new albums showcasing the work of piano masters, up-and-comers, and champions of Brazilian music.Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Ryuichi Sakamoto “The Sheltering Sky" Opus (Milan) 6:24 Host talks 8:16 Ryuichi Sakamoto “Last Regrets" Coda (WEWANTSOUNDS) 10:17 Host talks 8:16 Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Dongfeng Liu “Ode to the Yellow River" China Afro Cuba (Zoho) 12:04 Anat Cohen Quartetinho “Coco Rococo" Bloom (Anzic) 18:19 Host ...

Radio & Podcasts

A Free Form 45 Format + Davis, Rollins & Hill

by David Brown
July 2, 2024

This week, for our first hour, we'll present a free-from 45 format. Spinning singles from this box of mini platters I have right here. Reading the recently released book titled “In with the In crowd, Popular Jazz in 1960s Black America" by Mike Smith, I was reminded that jazz artists in the mid-century were part of pop culture--electrifying dance clubs, permeating radio waves and releasing top-selling records. Jazz 7" singles thrived as a medium to deliver the music to the ...

Album Review

Andrew Hill: Point of Departure to Compulsion!!!!! Revisited

Read "Point of Departure to Compulsion!!!!! Revisited" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
December 4, 2023

Point of Departure di Andrew Hill, inciso nel marzo 1964 e pubblicato dalla Blue Note una manciata di mesi dopo, è uno degli album di culto di quello che viene definito appunto Blue Note Style, ciò che la gloriosa etichetta fondata un quarto di secolo prima da Alfred Lion e Francis Wolff seppe brillantemente “illustrare" in particolare in quei turbolenti sixties, anni di grandi rivoluzioni culturali cui il jazz diede una mano tutt'altro che secondaria, come la stessa Blue Note ...

Album Review

Joe Henderson: The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions

Read "The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions" reviewed by Scott Gudell

by Scott Gudell
November 22, 2021

If an artist stamps his jazz passport with any one of these labels--Blue Note, Verve, Milestone--it's pretty much a guarantee that you've arrived in style. Tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson has traveled with all three and more. The 2021 reissue from the prestigious Mosaic Records focuses on Henderson's 1960s tenure with Blue Note offers a new opportunity to experience an abundance of rich and creative jazz from the decade. Big band and bop were duking it out in the ...

Radio & Podcasts

Blue Note 50th Anniversaries for March and More

by Marc Cohn
March 20, 2020

It's time for Blue Note 50th anniversaries. We present material from Andrew Hill with voices and The Three Sounds live in L.A., which was released decades after the actual recording dates. In addition, Jack McDuff recorded with a big band in London, released on LP as To Seek a New Home, but never released on CD and not presently commercially available. The really way-back machine yields Blue Note 19 with Meade Lux Lewis playing blues and boogie on the harpsicord! ...