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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.
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Andrew Hill: Point of Departure to Compulsion!!!!! Revisited
by Alberto Bazzurro
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 ...
read moreJoe Henderson: The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions
by Scott Gudell
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 ...
read moreBlue Note 50th Anniversaries for March and More
by Marc Cohn
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! ...
read moreThe Hard Bop / Avant-Garde Synergy of Andrew Hill (1963 - 1965)
by Russell Perry
Blue Note Records in the 1960s released such iconoclastic projects as Cecil Taylor's Unit Structures and Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, but the label was best known for music on the Art Blakey--Horace Silver axis. As Ted Gioia has noted ..."other, less radical Blue Note releases showed that there could be a meeting point between hard bop and the avant-garde. Important projects such as Andrew Hill's Point of Departure [1964], [and] Bobby Hutcherson's Dialogue [1965]... were anything but drab repetitions ...
read moreBlue Note releases from November 1969: Hill, Hutcherson, Cox & Pearson
by Marc Cohn
Time for Blue Note 50th anniversaries from November 1969, with released by Andrew Hill (Passing Ships), Bobby Hutcherson (Now!), Kenny Cox (Multidirection) and a short Duke Pearson session that ended up on I Don't Care Who Knows It. There's also BN-15, a 78 from Meade Lux Lewis. Along the way: 13-year-old Brandon Goldberg on the 88s & tenorist and lawyer Ari Ambrose. Enjoy the show and thanks for listening, especially to our top listeners of last week in: Strasbourg (France), ...
read moreBlue Note 50th Anniversaries: October 1968 & More
by Marc Cohn
The first show of the month means it's time for a dive into the Blue Note vault for our monthly celebration of Blue Note 50th anniversaries. Before that, the doctor presents a selection of recent music that caught his ear. As a bonus, you will find Albert Ammons, from the second Blue Note release, which was recorded at the first Blue Note recording session ever in 1939 (the original 78s of Blue Note's first release, from Meade Lux Lewis, are ...
read moreAndrew Hill: Point of Departure – 1964
by Marc Davis
I have put off writing this blog post as long as possible. For three weeks, I've been listening to Andrew Hill's Point of Departure and contemplating what I can say that isn't blatantly subjective and negative. I give up. I just don't like it. I honestly thought I might appreciate this, even though I don't generally like avant-garde jazz. Almost everyone seems to love this record. Let me count the ways: The new ...
read moreHarlem Stage Presents Eternal Spirit: Vijay Iyer & Friends Celebrate the Music of Andrew Hill on March 1-2, 2024
Source:
Michael Ricci
Friday, March 1, 2024 7:30 PM 9:30 PM Additional Performances March 2, 2024—7:30PM Harlem Stage 150 Convent Avenue New York, NY 10031 (212) 281-9240 Seating: Reserved Seating Described by The New York Times as a “social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker, and multicultural gateway,” composer and pianist Vijay Iyer is one of the leading music-makers of his generation. Iyer returns, following his Harlem Stage commissioned work, Holding It Down, to guest curate and perform in ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Andrew Hill
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Andrew Hill's birthday today!
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 ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Andrew Hill
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Andrew Hill's birthday today!
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 ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Andrew Hill
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Andrew Hill's birthday today!
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 ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Andrew Hill
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Andrew Hill's birthday today!
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 ...
read more
NEC Faculty Member Jason Moran Led A Performance Of "The Music Of Andrew Hill"
Source:
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
As the culmination of one of his regular teaching residencies, NEC faculty member Jason Moran presented a performance of the music of his mentor Andrew Hill in a concert titled simply “The Music of Andrew Hill" on Thursday, January 28. Moran led NEC students in the re-imagining of Hill's music, including material drawn from several landmark albums. The concert took three different approaches to the world of Andrew Hill. Interspersed through the evening, four pianists took on songs dating from ...
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Andrew Hill
Instrument: Piano
Born: June 30, 1931
Died: April 20, 2007
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