ST-90417

 Andrew Hill - Passing Ships

Released - 2003/2021

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 7, 1969
Dizzy Reece, Woody Shaw, trumpet; Julian Priester, trombone; Bob Northern, French horn; Howard Johnson, tuba, bass clarinet; Joe Farrell, soprano, tenor sax, alto flute, bass clarinet, English horn; Andrew Hill, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Lenny White, drums.

5515 tk.7 Laverne (The Brown Queen)
tk.17 Untitled No. 1 (Sideways)
5516 tk.21/22 Passing Ships

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 14, 1969
Dizzy Reece, Woody Shaw, trumpet; Julian Priester, trombone; Bob Northern, French horn; Howard Johnson, tuba, bass clarinet; Joe Farrell, soprano, tenor sax, alto flute, bass clarinet, English horn; Andrew Hill, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Lenny White, drums.

tk.27 Untitled No. 2 (Cascade)
5517 tk.35 Noon Tide
5519 tk.36/37 Plantation Bag
5518 tk.44 Tomorrow (Yesterday's Tomorrow)

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images / 
https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Sideways	Andrew Hill	November 7 1969
Passing Ships	Andrew Hill	November 7 1969
Plantation Bag	Andrew Hill	November 14 1969
Side Two
Noon Tide	Andrew Hill	November 14 1969
The Brown Queen	Andrew Hill	November 7 1969
Side Three
Cascade	Andrew Hill	November 14 1969
Yesterday's Tomorrow	Andrew Hill	November 14 1969

Liner Notes

IN THE FALL OF 1974, Andrew Hill and I sat in my apartment planning an album that would become Spiral (Freedom Records). At the time, I was also collecting data on unissued Blue Note sessions with the hope that I might someday get into those vaults. I remembered sitting in Andrew's living room some six years earlier listening to some Blue Note dates of his that were never released. So I asked him what he remembered of his unissued sessions for the label. He proceeded to recite the personnel for eleven sessions off the top of his head, but he warned me that he was having a hard time in those years (1967-70) getting musicians to play the music the way he heard it and that not all of the sessions were successful.

The nonet session on the/this CD was the one that most fascinated me. And when I finally got into the Blue Note vaults, it was one of the first things I looked for. I listened with Andrew's caveat in mind and, sure enough, the stereo tape sounded like a train wreck. After a couple of tunes, I put it on a shelf and moved on. Lenny White used to ask me about it because he said it was his first recording session (actually Miles Davis's Bitches Brew was three months earlier). Years later, Howard Johnson inquired about the session, recalling it vividly and remembering the writing as excellent.

Finally, in 2001 , Andrew called me and thought we should revisit the music. It turns out that stereo tape was only a rough mix; I noticed several instruments were missing, audible only in the echo. So I dug out the multi-track tape, and there it all was! With all the components in place, this magnificent music took shape. There are rough edges, to be sure, but they are minor.

Perhaps it is fitting that this session comes out now. Nothing else in Andrew's discography so clearly foreshadows the kind of writing that he would introduce in 2002 with his big band on A Beautiful Day (Palmetto). What he achieves here with only one reed, two trumpets and three low brass is remarkable. The written horn backgrounds behind the soloists are as inventive as the compositions themselves and the power he extracts with just the right voicings make these six horns sound like twice that.

Besides Andrew, the four principal soloists are Joe Farrell, Woody Shaw, Dizzy Reece and Julian Priester. Joe Farrell was an ideal choice for this project because he was both an adventurous jazz musician and a consummate reader and doubler, who is heard on five different instruments over the course of this music. There were also musical ties; he'd recorded with Andrew a year earlier (Dance With Death), appeared on Dizzy Reece's 1962 Prestige album and worked with Woody Shaw in various Chick Corea-led settings. He was at the time a valuable member of Elvin Jones's trio/quintet and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. After tenures with Willie Bobo, Eric Dolphy and Horace Silver, Woody Shaw, a veteran at age 22, began a freelance period in 1967, working frequently with Andrew Hill, Jackie McLean, Joe Henderson and McCoy Tyner. A lifelong champion of Andrew's music, he later recorded versions of "Catta" and "Symmetry." Jamaican-born Dizzy Reece began his career in London, eventually coming to the U.S. in 1958, making four albums for Blue Note. Just five months before this session, he reappeared on the label for the first time in nine years on Hank Mobley's The Flip, recorded in Paris. Julian Priester is an extremely versatile trombonist who began professionally in his native Chicago playing on R & B sessions for Chess and working with one of Sun Rds early bands. He came to national prominence with Max Roach and appeared on more than a dozen Blue Note sessions throughout the sixties. His most visible stints were with the sextets of Herbie Hancock (early 70s) and Dave Holland (mid-/80s). He and Hill would reunite in1 993 for Reggie Workman's Summit Conference on the Postcards label.

Reece's trumpet and the tenor sax carry the main melody line of "Sideways," a 12-bar melody repeated twice, with moving tones under them by the other horns. Farrell comes out cookin'. A call-and-response between high and low brass announce the piano solo, which is supported by some nice horn backgrounds. The trumpet solo is by Dizzy who is distinguishable by a big, brassy sound.

"Passing Ships" has a beautiful, exotic melody played by Joe on English horn, punctuated by muted trumpets and with a counterline by the bass clarinet and low brass. Priester, Shaw, Farrell (on tenor) and Hill get two choruses apiece — all very melodic and meditative but delivered with a staccato execution in true Andrew Hill style. Ron Carter's sturdy time and strong choice of notes anchor the whole affair. Lenny adds his own flavor, becoming almost Tony Williams-ish at times, especially toward the end of the piano solo.

Built on a funk rhythm and a repetitive bass clarinet figure played by Howard Johnson, "Plantation Bag" has one of the most ingenious melodies ever devised for a 12-bar framework, played by the trumpets and Joe's soprano. He switches to tenor and digs in, taking the funky route and wailing over beautiful horn backgrounds written by Andrew. Dizzy takes a headier approach, working off the bop vocabulary and the unique melodic elements of the composition, acknowledging the funk with a low growl toward the end of his solo. Andrew's solo begins chordally over the initial bass clarinet line and builds into a dialogue with his great horn backgrounds.

Andrew used the 8/8 Latin rhythm in "Noon Tide" four years earlier for his composition "Catta" which appears on Bobby Hutcherson's Dialogue. Here he scores the whole band in that rhythm pattern over which Farrell's alto flute hovers, playing a distinctive, contemplative melody. Great juxtapositioning. Priester's solo seems like an interior dialogue, raising questions with optimism and answering them with finality. Listen to great trumpet lines that Hill created under him. Farrell's tenor has a robust, blistering attitude. Dizzy is declarative, maintaining a sunny attitude rasping over the horns. Andrew is in the pocket — almost nodding to Horace Silver — then breaks into his own after the horn backgrounds. It's probably Woody, who takes the final solo muted.

The lovely melody of "The Brown Queen" is played by Shaw and Farrell (on soprano sax). Andrew's percussive, but fluid solo is great, delicate and concise at first and building in ideas and density. Some of the ever-varying horn backgrounds are so distinctive and different that they could be the beginnings of other compositions; Hill dances around them like a ballet dancer. Woody always loved to play on graceful music and it shows here. Farrell is muscular and Lenny White feeds him well.

Andrew uses the French horn to good effect on "Cascade" and writes some creative horn backgrounds. Ron Carter and Lenny White keep this piece swinging and clearly inspire sparkling solos from Farrell (on tenor), Andrew and Woody.

The melody of "Yesterday's Tomorrow" has a waltz-like quality although the piece is in four. It's a showcase for Hill with some marvelous horn interludes, the first of which is a clever line by Farrell's bass clarinet and Ron Carter and the second of which features a lovely little melody played by the trumpets and Farrell on soprano. Andrew works with the elements of his composition in a measured, well-constructed improvisation.

Thirty-four years after the fact, here is what has recently become some of my favorite Andrew Hill music.

— MICHAEL CUSCUNA 2003