BLP 4151

Andrew Hill - Black Fire

Released - May 1964

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 8, 1963
Joe Henderson, tenor sax #1-3,5,7; Andrew Hill, piano; Richard Davis, bass; Roy Haynes, drums #1,2,4-7.

tk.3 Land Of Nod
tk.9 Cantarnos
tk.15 McNeil Island
tk.17 Tired Trade
tk.20 Pumpkin
tk.23 Subterfuge
tk.27 Black Fire

Session Photos

Rehearsal

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Pumpkin	Andrew Hill	08 November 1963
Subterfuge	Andrew Hill	08 November 1963
Black Fire	Andrew Hill	08 November 1963
Side Two
Cantarnos	Andrew Hill	08 November 1963
Tired Trade	Andrew Hill	08 November 1963
McNeil Island	Andrew Hill	08 November 1963

Liner Notes

Any avant-garde develops in waves, with the first wave of innovators attacking the academy’s shibboleths head on, and the second wave operating in the relatively less hostile and freer atmosphere created by their progenitors. Movements in jazz come about in such a fashion. Four or so years ago there was John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, and Ornette Coleman and their coteries, and almost no one else who was concerned with methodology which was not essentially mainstream. By this I don’t mean to suggest that there were no other individuals or talent with recognizable styles playing jazz four years ago, nor do l mean to optimize the shock value of music that is merely different. But that there has been until almost yesterday a sickening familiarity about the jazz mainstream, and that the most apparent extra-musical value of Coltrane, Coleman and Taylor has been that they’ve made the jazz mainstream uncomfortable in its learned devices, and thereby liberated younger musicians whose main interest in music is finding their own voice through playing jazz.

The musical value of these innovators is that they’ve reconstructed the broader systems of group and solo playing in vitally useful fashions. Coltrane’s contribution may be said to be in harmonic improvisation, Coleman’s in rhythmic structure, and Taylor’s in tonal progressions. None of these concerns is antithetical to the others, nor has one man's preoccupation with the techniques of, say, chord based improvisation, precluded a manifest interest in rhythmically free group improvisation; but the academy of the ’50s left us with such pat approaches to all aspects of jazz playing that it required a life’s work to break down any of the particulars of the established concept.

So a musician like Andrew Hill occurs who has a relatively freer sense of time, harmonies, chord changes, group action, melody, etc., all focused into a style recognizably his own. It's not that he’s garnished the elements of his music from the innovators discussed above, but that the incidental benefit of being a part of the second wave of the avant-garde is that one can relax and make his own music without having to feel that one has to do it all, that is, beat down all the shibboleths singlehandedly to the accompaniment of the derision of one’s peers.

You can hear it all on Andrew Hill's first date as a leader: Roy Haynes playing a cadence which sharply contrasts with that of Richard Davis and Joe Henderson; Hill putting chord changes under the saxophone that take Henderson far, far beyond his point of departure in his earlier Blue Note date; Hill’s own soloing, with a style that includes most of the history of modern jazz piano playing without losing its individuality; a music, finally, whose total preconceived effect is a kind of contemporary impressionism.

Andrew Hill was born in Port au Prince, Haiti, in 1936. His family moved to Chicago when he was 4 "so that we could starve a little better,” where Hill, a sickly child, attended the University of Chicago Experimental School. Hill started playing jazz at 13 with his own ”baby band,“ a trio which used to copy all the techniques then on the Chicago air. He remembers copying Bud Powell’s, Thelonious Monk’s and Art Tatum’s solos verbatim, and it is these three gurus who one hears most in Hill’s playing.

“Monk’s like Ravel and Debussy to me, in that he’s put a lot of personality into his playing, and no matter what the technical contributions of Monk’s music are, it is the personality of the music which makes it, finally. Bud is an even greater influence but his music is a dead end. I mean, if you stay with Bud too much, you’ll always sound like him, even if you’re doing something he never did. Tatum, well, all modern piano playing’s Tatum."

Richard Davis has been called the new Percy Heath, by which I certainly don’t mean to suggest that there’s anything wrong with the old Percy Heath. The analogy means that Davis is a bassist with a distinctly masculine style who can do anything the leader requires at him while moving the band with a rock hard spontaneity that’s all his own. Like Hill and Henderson, it’s a very safe bet to say that Richard Davis will become a major force on his instrument.

Roy Haynes, the Beerbohm of bebop, "the best of the bebop drummers,” ”the most complete drummer in modern jazz,” well, Roy Haynes is Roy Haynes, the one jazz musician of whom I have never heard it said that he gave a bad or indifferent performance.

Andrew Hill has a deep appreciation for these musicians, he feels that scoring for each man’s talents is the best way to achieve a genuinely communicative group performance, and that only in a group that communicates and that moves can he get to his own highly personal music.

Since I don’t find it particularly useful to describe every tune in a set, as the listener will have to fit them to his own ear anyway, I'll use one tune as an example of how Hill manages to achieve a subtly programmatic and difficult end by using all the peculiar skills of his side men. Subterfuge he says, represents ”people talking, saying one thing when they are really meaning something else.” Then he’s describing conversation.

But the tune has a Latin base that’s certainly apparent enough though Hill has a studied aversion to playing directly on the beat. “That’s simply playing bebop, that 1, 2, 3, 4 pattern. I’d rather imply the beat than pronounce it.” Subterfuge opens with a 4 bar head which Hill means to be the tone of the conversation. This head is followed by a sharply different refrain, which Hill means to suggest the actual thoughts of the speaker. Through the denouement of the tune, the group improvises around the first line, but Hill insistently repeats the refrain every 4 bars. The contrast is kept up, and takes on new meanings. The dialogue in the beginning is between piano and piano, thereafter between piano and drums, piano and bass, horn and group. The solos, like Richard Davis’, are fabulous, and have an unusual context: the entire tune is articulate programmatically, musically, and personally, and that’s not an easy thing.

- A.B. SPELLMAN

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT BLACK FIRE

Some corrections and qualifications to A. B. Spellman's original liner notes are an order. Hill was born in Chicago, not Haiti — a fabrication of the pianist's own doing that was perpetuated for several decades. This was not his first album as a leader, although it appears that all commentators of the time also overlooked the obscure Warwick session So in Love with the Sound of Andrew Hill, which disappeared almost immediately upon issuance at the end of the '50s. And, given his low profile outside of Chicago, it is understandable that Spellman got the first name of saxophonist Von Freeman wrong.

Of perhaps greater concern to the appreciation of the present music is Spellman's placement of Hill within the second wave of the '60s avant-garde. Surely Hill would push at the accepted boundaries of modern jazz with greater force in later efforts, but here he is best appreciated as a complex and highly personal voice within the accepted rules of chord changes and chorus structures. Michael Cuscuna, the producer of the RVG reissue series, was much closer to the truth, at least regarding Black Fire, when he wrote in 1995 that "although [Hill's] music had melody, harmony, and rhythm, his conception of each was so unique that he was categorized with the avant-garde. This music was avant-garde in the strictest sense, but it was anything but free form. As Monk was lumped into the bebop movement because he was there, so was Andrew put into the freedom bag. His music was free of cliché, but that was about the extent of it."

Indeed, there is a resolute sense of form, albeit idiosyncratic form, in the compositions heard here. In addition to the sustained contrast of "Subterfuge" that Spellman discusses, note the irregular phrase lengths, even when A-A-B-A schemes are applied, of "Pumpkin" and "Tired Trade," and the even more curious shapes of "McNeil Island" and "Land of Nod"; the abstracted Latin feeling of the modal "Cantarnos"; and the contrasting use of triple meter in "Land of Nod" and the title track. Unlike many composers who write unusual wrinkles into their music, Hill does not abandon his notions for more conventional blowing forms once the solo choruses arrive. There are glimpses of his acknowledged sources (especially on "McNeil Island," which is as close as this listener can recall anyone coming to the aura of "Monk's Mood"), but for the most part Hill is revealed here as sui generis.

His playing is also far more than Monk-plus-technique, which again was the way that many commentators treated Hill at the time. Dissonance and angularity may have made the comparisons obvious, yet there is a swift, overflowing quality to Hill's creations that set them distinctly apart from Monk's more blunt and concise notions. The brusque, rolling and tumbling quality of Hill's improvising was reinforced perfectly by his accompanists here, particularly Roy Haynes, whose polyrhythmic genius finds an ideal forum in Hill's music. How odd that Philly Joe Jones was originally slated to play on the album, and was only replaced after scheduling problems made him unavailable. Richard Davis, the ideal blend of virtuosity and idiosyncrasy, adds his own prickly edge, while Joe Henderson rises to the unconventional challenges here with some of his strongest recorded playing. Each of these men would record with Hill again, with Davis becoming a mainstay on Hill's next five Blue Note sessions as well as on Bobby Hutcherson's Dialogue, where Hill played piano and contributed the majority of the compositions.

Hill also deserves applause for constructing the present program in such a felicitous manner. He avoids routine by mixing three trio tracks (Henderson is out on "Subterfuge" and "Tired Trade," Haynes on "McNeil Island"), and by varying the solo sequences. And there are few if any albums around that leave as much room for bass and drum solos while avoiding the rote quality that often ensues when every member of the band is afforded improvising space. Davis's audacity and Haynes's insistence on a melodic approach to percussion has a lot to do with this; but Hill provided the inspiration that encouraged the bassist and drummer to respond with such creativity. Two alternate takes are included here, and each was under consideration for release when the original album was assembled.

Other triumphs lay ahead for Hill on Blue Note. A short list would have to include the Point of Departure session in March '64 where the pianist, Henderson, and Davis were joined by Kenny Dorham, Eric Dolphy, and Tony Williams; and the recently unearthed Passing Ships nonet from 1969. Black Fire belongs among these as one of the recordings that define the genius of the still-amazing Andrew Hill, and one of the greatest "debut" albums of the '60s.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2003

Udiscover Notes

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/black-fire-andrew-hill-blue-note-album/

On Friday, November 8, 1963, Andrew Hill walked into Van Gelder Studio at Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, for his maiden recording session for Blue Note Records. Following a second stint at the studio the following day, he emerged with Black Fire. It marked the beginning of what would be the first, and longest, of three separate stints (1963-70, 1989-90 and 2006) with Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff’s iconic New York-based jazz label.

But anyone that regarded Hill, then a 32-year-old pianist/composer originally from Chicago, as a recording novice was very mistaken. He had, in fact, recorded a brace of 10” singles for the small Ping label, in 1956, and that same year cut a long-forgotten trio album (So In Love) for Warwick, which consisted mostly of standards and didn’t get released until 1960. More significantly, just prior to his debut Blue Note session, he worked on albums by multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk (before the latter prefixed his name with Rahsaan) and vibraphonist Walt Dickerson. It’s also worth noting that Miles Davis must have held Hill in high regard, as he hired the pianist to play on some of his band’s Chicago gigs in the mid-to-late 50s.

Brimming with passion Though Black Fire was only his second solo recording, it’s a mature, fully-formed collection of self-penned material revealing that Hill had already discovered his own distinctive voice in jazz. His sui generis approach to melody, harmony, rhythm and compositional structure has no parallel, except, perhaps, in the similarly idiosyncratic figure of Thelonious Monk, also a pianist/composer who created his own personalized form of jazz.

Monk certainly exerted a big influence on Hill, especially in regard to the latter’s angular chromatic melodies and jaunty rhythms, but, as Black Fire reveals, Hill’s concept was entirely individual. In fact, the latter’s take on jazz was so different from the bop mentality that largely prevailed at Blue Note that he found it difficult to find simpatico musicians on the same wavelength. This resulted in a great many of his later sessions for the label (such as Dance With Death and Passing Ships) being shelved until later dates.

Thankfully, on Black Fire, Hill doesn’t have this problem and leads a fine, intuitive quartet that seems to be wholly in tune with him as well as the sometimes exacting demands of his material. The estimable Joe Henderson, renowned for his robust, growling tenor saxophone (and who, in 1963, had just released his Blue Note debut LP, Page One) is the only horn player present, while the rhythm section consists of Hill’s fellow Chicagoan, bassist Richard Davis, and noted drummer Roy Haynes (who, at 39, was the oldest member of the quartet). The latter brought with him much experience and a highly-nuanced polyrhythmic style that would both complement and enhance Hill’s music.

The first notes we hear on the album are Haynes’, coming from his busy hi-hat and cymbal patterns in tandem with Davis’ elastic bass. Together, they announce the opening bars to “Pumpkin,” the first of seven original Hill tunes on the album. The piece boasts a knotty but memorable main theme, enunciated by Henderson’s sax, before Hill takes the first solo; its tumbling sequence of notes epitomizes the composer’s singular piano style. Henderson, meanwhile, navigates his way through the tricky changes with aplomb.

A highly original musical mind Hill’s piano is more jagged on “Subterfuge,” which sees the 26-year-old Joe Henderson sit out. The song is built on throbbing ostinato rhythms churned out by Haynes and Davis, who are both allowed solo spots. In sharp contrast, the album’s title tune, rendered in a jaunty 3/4 time, finds Henderson back in the fold and is distinguished by a highly infectious Monk-like main theme.

“Cantaros” is different again and defined by a quasi Latin-esque rhythm, though it’s far from conventional: the Hispanic influence is implied rather than stated, and refracted through the prism of Hill’s imagination. “Tired Trade,” meanwhile, has more of a blues feel, though, again, it’s not entirely orthodox. With Henderson dropping out once more, reducing the group to a trio, Hill’s roving piano is the main focus and it allows us to get a good glimpse of his slightly stilted playing style. There are also solo passages by Davis and the ever-ingenious Haynes.

“McNeil Island” – named after a small piece of land in Washington’s Puget Sound – is a short ballad that reveals Hill’s more meditative side, though the sense of stillness it creates is quickly dispelled by Black Fire’s closing cut, “Land Of Nod,” which begins almost raucously thanks to Joe Henderson’s spirited blowing of the main melody over staggering, almost ramshackle rhythms. In truth, though, it’s a track defined by a subtle ebb and flow, between loud passages and softer, more pensive ones.

Though considered to be in the vanguard of avant-garde music, Andrew Hill most certainly wasn’t an apostle of free jazz. In fact, as Black Fire reveals, one of his distinguishing characteristics as a jazz composer was his frequent employment of form and structure, albeit in an unorthodox fashion. Hill’s music could seem oblique and cerebral, perhaps, but it was actually brimming with passion and refreshingly free of bebop clichés. It was also deeply personal and indicative of a highly original musical mind.

While Point Of Departure, recorded for Blue Note four months later, is rightly regarded as Hill’s magnum opus, Black Fire doesn’t lag very far behind in terms of its quality and significance. It, along with many of Hill’s other Blue Note sessions from the same timeframe, has aged exceedingly well. Over five decades after it was recorded, the music on Black Fire still burns brightly.