ANDREW HILL SMOKE STACK FREE

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 I ask you to delete the file from your hard drive or device after reading it.Bonus selection (Countdown to Christmas!) : Yokada Yokada (Hill) Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on December 13, 1963. Sin embargo, es un álbum que promete más de lo que da. A pesar de sus defectos, Smoke Stack no es ni mucho menos un disco indigno: el estilo insular e intelectual de Hill puede resultar a veces frustrante, pero su forma de tocar es a menudo provocadora y desafiante, y su grupo de acompañamiento formado por Richard Davis (bajo), Eddie Khan (bajo) y Roy Haynes (batería) ofrece un apoyo simpático. Es una música tenue que requiere concentración, pero que no recompensa necesariamente ese esfuerzo. Parte del problema es que Hill simplemente deambula a lo largo de la mayor parte de Smoke Stack, divagando en secciones silenciosamente discordantes que giran sobre sí mismas. Tampoco es tan exitoso como Black Fire, que trabajó un territorio similar con resultados más vanguardistas.

ANDREW HILL SMOKE STACK FREE

Compuesto íntegramente por composiciones originales de Hill, Smoke Stack se sitúa en un punto intermedio entre el hard bop y el free jazz: no es tan suelto y disonante como el free, pero con sus largas y sinuosas improvisaciones modales y las nebulosas estructuras de las canciones, es mucho menos accesible que el bop. However, it's an album that promises more than it delivers.Įliminando algunos de los ritmos afrocubanos que distinguían a Black Fire, Andrew Hill ofreció un conjunto denso y cerebral de post-bop aventurero en su segunda sesión de Blue Note, Smoke Stack. Even with its faults, Smoke Stack is far from an unworthy record - Hill's insular, intellectual style may be occasionally frustrating, but his playing is frequently provocative and challenging, and his backing group of Richard Davis (bass), Eddie Khan (bass), and Roy Haynes (drums) offer sympathetic support.

It's subdued music that requires concentration, but doesn't necessarily reward such effort. Part of the problem is that Hill simply meanders throughout most of Smoke Stack, wandering off into quietly discordant sections that turn in on themselves. It also isn't as successful as Black Fire, which worked similar territory with edgier results. Comprised entirely of original Hill compositions, Smoke Stack is in the middle ground between hard bop and free jazz - it isn't as loose and dissonant as free, but with its long, winding modal improvisations and hazy song structures, it's a lot less accessible than bop. Trimming away some of the overt Afro-Cuban rhythms that distinguished Black Fire, Andrew Hill turned in a dense, cerebral set of adventurous post-bop on his second Blue Note session, Smoke Stack.

Andrew hill smoke stack