ANDREW HILL
Andrew Hill's first album as a leader, Black Fire, was recorded early in 1964. Blue Note released it in May of that year, with a commentary by A. B. Spellman, who hailed Hill as a musician with an individual sense of time, harmonics, chord changes, group action, melody etc. all focussed into a style recognizable as his own. Hill was characterized as a member of the second wave of the avant garde, following in the wake of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman.
"The incidental benefit of being part of the second wave," Hill remarked, "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 single-handedly to the accompaniment of derision of one's peers."
This evaluation was borne out, not only in music Hill composed and played for his initial album, but in a subsequent series of ventures that found him writing for a broad spectrum of performers. On the occasion of one of these undertakings, an experiment with a vocal group, entitled Lift Every Voice, I wrote: "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."
Since those comments were made in 1969, we are now more than half way toward the date mentioned in that speculative question. Meanwhile Hill has continued to reach out in many directions. Recently he told me, "I've been recording for different countries, like India and Japan. This period is a very active one for me. For the past two years I've been working exclusively for the Smithsonian Institution. I played concerts throughout America, and a few things abroad. Sometimes I play solo piano or I work with a group that will vary in personnel, depending on what mood I'm in."
At a time when the interest in adventurous contemporary music is gaining ground continuously, it is constructive to pause and look back at Andrew Hill's background and evolution and to examine the three stages of that development that are presented here on records for the first time, in the form of hitherto unreleased sessions.
Hill was born June 30, 1937 in Port Au Prince, Haiti to William and Hattie Hille (the original French spelling was Americanized by the dropping of the final "e"). Hill's brother, Robert, was also a talented musician, a fine singer and classical violinist.
Asked whether his early years in Haiti affected his music, Hill once told Don Heckman that he felt every type of musician benefits from his heritage. It is necessary, he observed, to go back into one's own community again to observe the contrasts. "No matter how you work at it, even in a system where the music exists in a sub-culture, the music itself has a foundation, even if it's field cries and blues. That's why I was able to retain my heritage from Haiti. And, of course, it was the only place where drums weren't taken away from the slaves. Maybe that's why I have a little more understanding of the situation than most, why I can say that the problem is not a racial one.
"This heritage is all derived from the drum. In most of your classical periods, classical music is without drums. Everything is more dependent on the melodic than the rhythmic. Everyone is a product of this society, no matter how hard they rebel."
Hill's family came to the U.S. in 1941 and settled in Chicago. "I started out in music as a boy soprano," he told me, "singing, playing the organ and tap dancing. I had a little act and made quite a few of the talent shows around town in 1943, when I was six, until I was 10. I won two turkeys at Thanksgiving parties at the Regal Theatre, sponsored by the Chicago Defender, a black newspaper I used to sell on the streets of Chicago."
It was from Pat Patrick, featured on the first side of this album, that Hill, at the age of 13, first learned the blues changes on the piano. Patrick was then working mainly as a baritone saxophonist, and it was on baritone, as well as piano, that Hill himself played his first real professional job as a musician, with Paul Williams' rhythm and blues band. He was then 16, a product of the University of Chicago Experimental School, He had listened to Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Art Tatum, copying off their solos note for note, "Monk is like Ravel and Debussy to me," he said, "in that he has 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 is Tatum."
Another pianist Hill came to know during the mid-1950s was Barry Harrs, who showed him some new directions, stemming from the innovations of Bud Powell. Miles Davis, too, would come to town occasionally during those years, and made a lasting impression on the youngster.
His early experience came mostly through work with mainstream musicians: Gene Ammons, Johnny Griffin, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster There were also sessions with Joe Segal, dates with Ira Sullivan, Serge Chaloff, the Johnny Griffin-Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis tenor duo, and stints on the road with such singers as Dinah Washington, Johnny Hartman and Al Hibbler. It was after working for Dinah in 1961, that Hill settled in New York for a while. The following year he put in some time in Los Angeles, where he worked regularly at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach and played in Roland Kirk's quartet. Andrew married the talented organist Laverne Gillette, and in 1963 again planted roots in New York.
One of Andrew's most meaningful associations was his friendship and professional collaboration with Joe Henderson. Some ten years ago he said: "Joe is going to be one of the greatest tenors out there. He not only has the imagination to make it in the avant garde camp, but he has so much emotion too. That's what music is about — emotion, feeling. Joe doesn't get into that trap of being so technical that the emotions don't come through."
It was through a session with Henderson, on which Hill appeared as a sideman, that Alfred Lion of Blue Note became acquainted with Andrew, who made a strong enough impression to wind up with his own contract as a leader.
Lion, who had founded Blue Note in 1939, personally produced several of Hill's early recordings, including those on the third and fourth sides of the present album. The others were the work of fellow producer, Frank Wolff, who had Joined the company shortly after its inauguration and who, like Lion, was singularly well attuned to the attempts of a new generation of musicians to establish concepts and directions of their own.
Side One was recorded in 1970, the year when Hill became a composer-in-residence at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. For this session he brought together a group of musicians exceptionally well equipped to adjust themselves to his requirements both as leader and composer.
Particularly important were the roles played by Charles Tolliver and Bennie Maupin. Tolliver, who names Clifford Brown as an early influence, also gained some of his early strength through his association with Joe Henderson, Born in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1942, he was heard in New York in the early 1960's with Jackie McLean, Art Blakey and others, After a year in Los Angeles, where he worked with Willie Bobo's small group and the Gerald Wilson orchestra, Tolliver returned to New York in 1967, joining the Max Roach group and remaining for two years, In 1969 he formed his own first combo, naming it Music Inc. He was still working in that context at the time of this session with Hill. Over the years Tolliver has become co-founder of a record company owned entirely by artists, and has gained international respect for his innovative approach. Tolliver won the Down Beat "Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition" award in 1968.
Bennie Maupin, born in 1946 in Detroit, studied extensively with private teachers, later at the Detroit Institute of Musical Art, and subsequently with teachers in New York City. He was barely out of his teens when he worked with Roy Haynes from 1966-8. After two years with the Horace Silver quintet, there were stints with Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner and Freddie Hubbard, but it was when he joined Herbie Hancock in 1971 that his most important step toward international acceptance was made. Maupin, who names Yusef Lateef, Wayne Shorter, Coltrane and Sonny Rollins among his influences, is a versatile, multi-reedman and has emerged as one of the most skillful players of the post-Coltrane period. Completing the front line is the above-mentioned Pat Patrick, who is perhaps best known for his work with Sun Ras both in person and on records.
Rounding out this group are Ron Carter and Ben Riley. Carter, another Detroit product, is a skilled musician, master of a half dozen instruments, but known principally for his bass work, and for his international tours with Miles Davis from 1963-8. Since then he has become a leader in his own right on a series of admirable albums, Riley, from Savannah, Ga., played his first professional job in 1956 and during the next decade was heard in a multitude of settings: Kenny Burrell, Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, Woody Herman, Ahmad Jamal and Sonny Rollins, to name just a few. He is most closely identified, however, with Thelonious Monk, in whose quartet he was heard for a long stretch beginning in 1964.
The opening track, One for One, strikes me as ranking among Hill's most haunting and sensitively arranged works. The exposition has a mildly oriental effect with its use of flutes, but the characteristic that seems to me most notable is Hill's use of space — first in the thematic writing, which is divided almost equally between the horns and his own statements; later, the same sense of ellipsis governs Hill's solos. Maupin is heard on tenor, joined by slashing inserts on the part of Patrick and Tolliver. The latter is presented in a muted solo that sustains the initial mood brilliantly, as does Patrick's alto.
Joe Henderson, also a composer and leader in his own right, had been working out with Hill since the summer of 1962, when Henderson returned to New York after a stint in the service. "We really enjoy playing together," Hill said. "Joe understands me and I understand Joe in the best possible way; that is, we know how to surprise and inspire each other."
Concerning Richard Davis, it would be fitting to requote an evaluation Hill once gave to Nat Hentoff: "He is the greatest bass player in existence. Most good bass players have one thing going for them. A man may walk a good line, but his intonation may leave something to be desired. A very good bass player may have two things going. He may have good intonation and walk well, but if you ask for octaves and double stops, technical limitations show up. Another bassist may read real good but have no imagination. But Richard can do anything you demand of him. He has a lot of technique but his technique doesn't overpower his imagination. So what I often do with him is to write out what amounts to a piano part and let him pick out the notes he wants to use."
Joe Chambers, like Davis, distinguished himself in many public appearances with Andrew. Born in Stoneacre, Va., in 1942, he was only 21 years old when he played his first job as a member of Eric Dolphy's combo in 1963, Starting in March of the following year he was with Freddie Hubbard's group, then gigged with Lou Donaldson and Jimmy Giuffre before joining Hill in 1965. Influenced by Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Kenny Clarke and Roy Haynes, Chambers is a sensitive and melodic drummer, whose style has been a valuable component of many rhythm sections.
Euterpe is a fast, quizzically swinging piece that takes very little time to reach the free-blowing passages, beginning with Hubbard. Note the tension established by Hill at one point, behind Hubbard's solo, shortly before Andrew himself takes over. The exchange between Hill and Davis shows a rare empathy. Henderson's tenor is a mixture of hard bop and early Coltrane influences.
Erato is a trio track, impressionistic, stately. evocative. Though essentially the focus is on Hill, the backing and filling by Davis is not without its own significance.
Pax starts out as a low key performance, but after Hubbard and Henderson have had their say, Hill's urgent presence becomes part of a more virile and emphatic mood. Hubbard really gets into the core of the changes and Hill indulges in some Monkish downward runs.
Eris is a puckish, upbeat affair, notable for the backing given by Chambers to Henderson's solo, for the cross rhythms and clusters by Hill, and for the exclamatory bursts of energy playing. Though this is the longest track of the album, it is quite remarkable for the sweep and power of its continuity.
Calliope is more of a jazz-oriented swinger. Hubbard's time and rhythmic sense are magnificent in his soaring flight. Henderson demonstrates that exceptional technical fluency can be the servant rather than the master of a style; there are many contrasts and unexpected developments during his solo, which runs more than three minutes, All three members of the rhythm section are individually spotlighted, and at times subtly intermingled. before the head returns.
Looking back on these dates, Andrew Hill made a statement that was characteristic of his honesty and lack of false modesty. "I can't look at any of them as dated, because I think the quality of my work through the years has been so musical that you really couldn't date it. The music sounds as fresh as anything that is happening today, In fact, in my opinion, it sounds fresher."
LEONARD FEATHER
(Author of The New Encyclopedia of Jazz, Horizon press)
