But Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill - Black Fire (1963) + Dance With Death (1968) {2004 Blue Note Remaster}
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© 2004 Blue Note / Capitol | 7243 5 96502 2 7 / 7243 4 73160 2 9 | 24-bit remaster
Jazz / Post Bop / Piano

Black Fire, Andrew Hill's debut record for Blue Note, was an impressive statement of purpose that retains much of its power decades after its initial release. Hill's music is quite original, building from a hard bop foundation and moving into uncharted harmonic and rhythmic territory. His compositions and technique take chances; he often sounds restless, searching relentlessly for provocative voicings, rhythms, and phrases.

Originally released in 1969, Lift Every Voice was one of the last of Andrew Hill's early Blue Note sessions, and easily one of the most unorthodox. Featuring a jazz quintet augmented by a small choir, the album brings to mind some of Steve Lacy 's work with Irene Aebi, or the vocal tracks on Ornette Coleman's Science Fiction, or in a way, even Dizzy Gillespie's 1963 album with the Double Six of Paris. The original five cuts feature Woody Shaw on trumpet, Carlos Garnett on tenor sax, Hill on piano, Richard Davis on bass, and Freddie Waits on drums. Hill was moving deeper into Blue Note's brand of soul-jazz by this point, but only he could make it sound like this. ~ AllAboutJazz

Andrew Hill - over nearly half a century, composer - pianist - ensemble leader Andrew has gained international jazz renown for his uniquely original music and recorded ouevre, which is by turns dark, fragile, funny, stark, unforgettable tuneful, percussive, insightful, oblique and mysterious.Hill began gigging in 1952, and in the summer of '53 accompanied alto saxophonist Charlie Parker at the Greystone Ballroom, in Detroit.

Andrew Hill was, like Herbie Nichols, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, or Sonny Clark, an individualist, a follower of his own internal beat, and a rare example of humaness laid out for all to see. An individualist is someone most people want to be, and who most people pretend to admire, but ironically someone who many people despise in actual practice. As a composer and player Andrew Hill could draw violent, venom-spitting reactions by simply following this own way towards a melding of the avant-garde and jazz tradition through the prism of his particular and unique point of view. ~ Amazon

Andrew Hill was one of the greatest pianists of the '60s, but he never quite received his due. Hill was a skillful, cerebral musician that consciously positioned his music between hard bop and free. He was at his peak in the mid-'60s, as his playing and composing continued to explore new territory. All of his seminal recordings for Blue Note between 1963 and 1966 are collected on the limited-edition, seven-disc box set The Complete Blue Note Andrew Hill Sessions (1963-66). During those three years, he recorded with an astonishing array of talents, including Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Sam Rivers, Joe Henderson, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Richard Davis, Joe Chambers, John Gilmore, and Kenny Dorham. The box features 15 alternate takes, including ten previously unreleased cuts and a composition that has never been released…

Andrew Hill - Time Lines (2006) {Blue Note}
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© 2006 Blue Note Records | 0946 3 55533 2 1
Jazz / Modern Creative / Post Bop / Piano

Andrew Hill has been, in the gentlest of cases, an idiosyncratic player, composer, and bandleader. But often, reviews of his work have been quite strident and refer to him as an iconoclast. That's okay; some critics thought of Monk and Herbie Nichols that way, too. Time Lines has Hill back – for the third time in his long career – with Blue Note, the label that gave birth to his enduring classics like Black Fire and Judgment!. But Hill is still every bit the creative and technically gifted musician he was back in the day; perhaps more so. His band features seasoned veteran Charles Tolliver on trumpet, saxophonist Greg Tardy (who also triples on clarinet and bass clarinet, and beautifully, to say the least), and a rhythm section composed of bassist John Herbert and drummer Eric McPherson.

As the '60s drew to a close, Blue Note spent less time than ever with adventurous music, since it didn't sell as well as soul-jazz or mainstream hard bop. So, it may seem a little strange that the label invited Andrew Hill back to record in 1968, two years after he last cut a session for the label. Hill's work for the label stands among the most challenging cerebral post-bop of the '60s, but there was another side of Hill that wasn't showcased on those records: He also had a knack for groove and melody, as indicated by his composition "The Rumproller," a hard-grooving hard-bop classic made famous by trumpeter Lee Morgan. That was the side that Blue Note wanted to showcase on Grass Roots. Hill and his band were working from the basic template of making a commercial hard-bop album, but nevertheless pushed themselves to challenging territory…

Anyone familiar with Andrew Hill's music will find the cover to Andrew!!! a little bizarre, to say the least. Hill was one of the most intense and cerebral musicians on Blue Note's roster, incorporating avant-garde and modal techniques into his adventurous post-bop. The cover to Andrew!!! apparently is an attempt to humanize Hill - it's a soft-focus close-up of a smiling Andrew Hill, who looks more like a teen idol than a serious jazz musician, and the first-name title is adorned with no less than three exclamation marks and a subtitle, "The Music of Andrew Hill," which suggests that it's an album of romantic, easy-listening standards. It's not. Andrew!!! is just as adventurous and challenging as any of his other albums, which is to Hill's credit…

Andrew Hill & Chico Hamilton - Dreams Come True (2008) {Joyous Shout! ‎JS10010 rec 1993}
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© 1993, 2008 Joyous Shout! ‎| JS 10010
Jazz / Post Bop / Piano / Drums

More than anything, music is similar to line. Music is also unidirectional; it cannot back up within the same context and repeat what has just been done. Excluding the shallowness or depth of the resonance of sound, the dimensionality in music stems from the intersection of lines as one instrumental line overlaps the other. An example of this interrelationship comes in a 1993 duo date with drummer Chico Hamilton and the late, unsurpassable pianist, Andrew Hill, on Dreams Come True.

Andrew Hill - Smoke Stack (1963) {2006 BN Rudy Van Gelder Remaster}
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© 2006 Blue Note | 0946 3 37777 2 9 | 24-bit remaster
Jazz / Post Bop / Piano

This 1963 trio session was only the avant-garde pianist and composer Andrew Hill's second release for Blue Note, with whom he would enjoy a fruitful association throughout the decade. Already, on the previous BLACK FIRE, Hill had established himself as a worthy, somewhat more mainstream alternative to the radical Cecil Taylor. His musical style is heavily chromatic, both dense and angular, similar in part to McCoy Tyner's equally muscular explorations. For the most part however, SMOKE STACK takes things at a ruminative, deceptively leisurely pace. Still, the venerable drummer Roy Haynes remains energetic, supple. and busy throughout the set, much like the fiery Elvin Jones with the John Coltrane Quartet. One highlight: Richard Davis's arco bass stylings, moaning and keening throughout the exotic "Wailing Wall."