BST 84330

Andrew Hill - Lift Every Voice

Released - June 1970

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, May 16, 1969
Woody Shaw, trumpet; Carlos Garnett, tenor sax; Andrew Hill, piano; Richard Davis, bass; Freddie Waits, drums; Benjamin Franklin Carter, Joan Johnson, LaReine LaMer, Lawrence Marshall, Gail Nelson, Antenett Goodman Ray, Ron Steward, vocals.

4363 Ghetto Lights
4361 tk.3 Two Lullabies
4359 tk.15 Hey Hey
4362 Love Chant
4360 Lift Every Voice

Session Photos

Photos: © Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images 

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Hey Hey	Andrew Hill	May 16 1969
Lift Every Voice	Andrew Hill	May 16 1969
Side Two
Two Lullabies	Andrew Hill	May 16 1969
Love Chant	Andrew Hill	May 16 1969
Ghetto Lights	Andrew Hill	May 16 1969

Liner Notes

In the six years since the appearance of his first album as a leader, Andrew Hill has been praised for a broad range of artistic attributes: for his highly personal, often dramatic distillation of many pianistic influences. for his independence and insistence on freedom-within-discipline as a composer; for his reluctance to be pinned down as an exponent of any one limited area of musical thought.

The five performances in this latest reflection of Hill’s luminous talent are indicative of a new concept, one that may bring a comprehension of Hill’s multifaceted gifts to a larger audience. This is not to imply that any calculated commercial objective was involved in the conception or execution of these works: on the contrary, Hill’s very sincerity. and the consummate skill with which he has integrated male and female voices, horns and rhythm, would seem likely to play a central role in broadening his appeal.

The most compelling characteristic of the present venture is the unconventional deployment of the three-man. four-girl choir. As Hill told me: “I’ve always been interested in the use of voices. I wrote a jazz opera a while back: it was never performed. but there’s a good chance that the Koussevitzky Foundation may produce it this year.”

For this album, he adds, the aim was to employ a bolder use of voices than has been customary in earlier collaborations between modern instrumentalists and vocal groups. I found particularly impressive the ingenuity with which Hill uses the female and male voices. sometimes as separate units. sometimes jointly. At the same time, as he also pointed out, it was important for the voices not to overwhelm the instruments.

The extent to which this mission was accomplished is immediately discernible on Hey Hey. The rhythm section and the choir both employ an eight-to-the-bar beat, which Andrew describes as "My attempt to capture the mood of what Meade “Lux” Lewis might be doing if he were around today.”

Lift Every Voice displays the use of words, as opposed to the vocalese approach of the preceding track. An uplifting, spiritual quality is implicit in both title and lyrics. Woody Shaw’s solo is poised and controlled, yet emotionally deep and stirring. “He’s fantastic.” says Andrew of the young Horace Silver alumnus, “one of the greatest living trumpet players.”

Two Lullabies, with its gently swinging opening, displays the waterfall-like grace of Hill’s piano, a Shaw solo set to a rhythmically complex undercurrent, and a stabbing. lashing tenor solo by Carlos Garnett. The latter, a musician from the Panama Canal Zone, arrived in New York a couple of years ago and has worked off and on with Art Blakey. Andrew explains the title: “This consists of two pieces that I dovetailed together, combined into one melody that connects lyrically.”

In Love Chant, he says, “I tried to reconstruct an old English type chorale.” One need hardly add that the chorale has been translated into a language far more dramatic and challenging to the ear, Ghetto Lights was previously recorded in 1965 for a Bobby Hutcherson album, Dialogue (Blue Note ST-84198 BLP4198). “Ed Williams, the disc jockey, wrote the few words we used here,” says Andrew. “You’ll notice the writing called for the singers to use an almost operatic control.”

Indeed they do. The perfection of the vocal work (for which conductor Lawrence Marshall must also take a bow) is but one aspect of the unique character inherent in these sides. No less important is the articulate, rhythmically refined support of Richard Davis and Freddie Waits.

Towering over the whole production is the masterful figure of Andrew Hill. Looking back on that 1964 album debut, of which I wrote that it “showed an astonishing maturity of technique and ideas,” I realize now that we could not have had an inkling at that time of the more ambitious ventures with which he was to be involved by the end of the decade.

Andrew Hill is at once one of the most articulate and adventurous, most communicative and reachable musicians of our time. As composer and pianist, he displays a sensitivity, a feeling for contrast that I find all too rarely among his contemporaries. What will he be doing in 1980 if he continues to evolve at his present pace? There is, of course, no answer, but the prospect is fascinating to contemplate.

-LEONARD FEATHER