Andrew Hill's Passing Ships: A From the Vaults Must Own for Modern Jazz Collectors

Passing Ships is a slice of modern jazz that belongs In every fans collection. A session from 1969 that sat in the vaults unreleased until 2003.

If memory serves me, producer Michael Cuscuna had heard about this rumored session for years, but Andrew kept saying the production was bad, it wasn't worthy of release.

As it turned out, the problem was, the Session reels were missing a track or 2, but finally the entire session tapes were found, and Cuscuna was blown away by the sound and the performances.

Compositions on Passing Ships: The title track for one, as well as "Noon Tide," the lightly funky "Plantation Bag," and "The Brown Queen" are all killer tunes. Another treat from Passing Ships is the criminally underrated saxophonist Joe Farrell and the equally unappreciated Dizzy Reece on trumpet. Woody Shaw too on trumpet, all three fire off some fantastic solos throughout the session.
Ron Carter also provides a solid elastic foundation on bass, much like his work with the Davis Quintet, a large band on display, with Howard Johnson on Tuba, Julian Priester on Trombone, and Bob Northern on French Horn, many colors throughout Passing Ships.

Sometimes the arrangements feel like a band twice its size. Lenny White also provides solid drum work on the album, only his second ever recording session!

Another interesting thing about passing ships: At the time of its release in 2003, Andrew was just starting to get back into this style again, he had released Dusk in 1999 and A Beautiful Day in 2002. When Passing Ships came out, it was sort of a Rosetta Stone for those great albums.

Those albums, along with Passing Ships, were some of the first real challenging Modern Jazz albums I heard out side the Davis/Coltrane sphere, and remain some of my favorites. All of Hill's other Blue Note's are well worth a listen too.

Passing Ships might be hard to find at a decent price, it was a limited edition in 2003, and now long out of print. I have always wished that they would release Passing Ships On vinyl.

You can check out Passing Ships for yourself.