12/11/2023 0 Comments Andrew hill smoke stackNot So (Remastered 2003/Rudy Van Gelder Edition) 6. Ode To Von (Remastered 2003/Rudy Van Gelder Edition) 5. Wailing Wall (Remastered 2003/Rudy Van Gelder Edition) 4. The Day After (Remastered 2003/Rudy Van Gelder Edition) 3. Smoke Stack (Remastered 2003/Rudy Van Gelder Edition) 2. If I had any sense I would not have bid because of the sellers location, but fortunately, at the time, I had no sense at all. The good news was that it eventually arrived without problem. I recall many days nail-biting wait, as the seller was based in Croatia, which around had not long emerged from the break up of Yugoslavia. This was one of my first Blue Note purchases on Ebay. Crank up the volume a little, and you are in the centre of a universe unknown and unimaginable to almost everyone you know. Well suited to the small-group format of acoustic instruments, suspended in space, it has a power in its own right. Liner Notes: readable and interesting liner notes by Leonard Feather, rendered in LJC Super-Sharp ™ text.Īfter long periods of listening to seductive, silky, perfectly engineered full-stage stereo, it was a necessary shock to be reminded how powerful room-filling Blue Note original mono presentation can be. As people have already commented, it took a lot of Three Sounds and Jimmy Smith album sales to fund one Andrew Hill.Īfter all the recent reissues and overseas pressings and stereo editions at LJC, a Blue Note original in mono seemed long overdue. It highlights the courageous vision of Alfred Lion to lead rather than follow, and keep leading when the followers must have been few and far between. The Sidewinder Sisters in shift-dresses have retired to the bathroom to pick over their current man-troubles. Hill’s music sits out in the cerebral, intellectual corner of listening music. This is a million miles from popular formats like be-bop, soul jazz, big band, or Hollywood strings and west coast sunshine. Hill subverts hard bop structure and brings in rhythmic and harmonic elements from modal jazz and the avant-garde… complex, fluctuating between dissonant chords and nimble, melodic improvisations. Is it a Hill album or a Hutcherson album? Does it matter? Richard Davis and Elvin Jones are active protagonists too, in a complex interplay of musical directions, though Hill remains first among equals. On Judgement!, Hill’s piano jousts with the ethereal vibraphone of Bobby Hutcherson, contrasting textures and angular, elongated lines. Five albums in seven months shows how much Lion believed in Andrew Hill, though Andrew! was shelved for fear of saturation, but is a delight in itself with its audacious blend of both Gilmore and Hutcherson. Leader of all the sessions, with Alfred Lion granting him free choice of sidemen and studio time, the artistic decisions were all his to make. These thoughts, or something like them, must have been on Hill’s mind. For dessert, I can recommend anything from the sweet trolley. The mains among the five LP dishes are either meat (Henderson or Gilmore on horns) or fish (Hutcherson on vibraphone). The drums add heat and spice in varying proportion – Haynes: rhythmic polished solid, Jones: more assertive and muscular, Williams: dazzling intricate complex, Chambers: the post-bop drummer of choice, comfortable with the “uncomfortable”, knowing where to go when no-one else does. Judgement! was chronologically the third session, but they are all so closely linked in time they share the same point in Hill’s artistic development, differing only in the choice of players and size of the ensemble, musicians as ingredients in a sort of Musical Masterchef.īeginning with the quartets and working up to sextet and quintet, the common ingredient is Richard Davis, whose provides a supple and inventive bass to offset Hill’s introspective and complex piano creations. In the short space of seven months Andrew Hill recorded five albums for Blue Note:Ĥ151 Black Fire Nov 9, 63 Henderson/Davis/HaynesĤ160 Smoke Stack Dec 13, 63+ Khan & Davis/HaynesĤ159 Judgment! Jan 8, 64 Hutcherson/Davis/JonesĤ167 Point of Departure Mar 21, 64 Dolphy/Dorham/Henderson/Davis/WilliamsĤ203 Andrew! Jun 25, 64 Hutcherson/Gilmore/Davis/Chambers Hill showing he can play in the grand melodic/rhythmic piano manner, but with a subversive twist.īobby Hutcherson (vibraphone) Andrew Hill (piano) Richard Davis (bass) Elvin Jones (drums) recorded Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, January 8, 1964 Bonus selection (Countdown to Christmas!) : Yokada Yokada (Hill)
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