Pianist Andrew Hill's Blue Note Debut Black Fire

Andrew Hill's (1931-2007) 1963 debut for the Blue Note label is a modern jazz classic.

Amazing when you think about all the debuts on Blue Note that were stone classics.
 John Coltrane's Blue Train, Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, Wayne Shorter's Night Dreamer, and Johnny Coles' Little Johnny C. to name a few.

Andrew Hill is a clear Thelonious Monk disciple, but certainly more advanced and perhaps more quirky sounding?

I actually prefer Andrew Hill over Monk. Sacrilege perhaps, but I do enjoy the Hill's music more overall. I don't mean that as a slight to Monk.

Black Fire is a very fulfilling album, quartet and trio performances, with advances modal styles, with a hint of Afro-Cuban mixed in offering an exotic vibe.

Continually I marvel at how many great post bop Blue Note classics from the 60's tenor Saxophonist Joe Henderson played on. Black Fire is no exception, a muscular tone and searching.

You mustn't think of Black Fire as a pure avant-garde jazz record,  I don't think it is all that "out" there. Sure it's in the neighborhood, but it is not even remotely free jazz.

Black Fire is structured and composed, hardly atonal... it's in the vein of the Miles Davis second quintet, POST BOP rather.

 This music was recorded well before Wayne shorter joined that band; and 2 years before Miles Smiles was released. Imagine Hill with Davis instead of Hancock? I could dig it! Andrew can get a little funky too like Herbie.

The lead off track "Pumpkin" is very different, really gets a Miles Davis quintet vibe going, the Richard Davis bass line is very Ron Carter like, or Was Ron Carter Richard Davis like?

Andrew stretches out all over the map, this seems like free improvisation to me, very off the cuff, has a live vibe. The Roy Haynes drums are recorded remarkably well I might add, Stellar.

This RVG remaster I am listing to while writing this sounds very good, one of the best CD's I have heard lately. Admittedly some of these have had a tinny sound to me, sometimes distortion can bleed through, not this one.

 I have a hard time believing that the vinyl would sound that much better, and I am a vinyl nut. Black Fire happens to be one of the few 60's Blue Notes that I don't own as an original or at least 70's reissue. Always seems like the price tag for near mint copy, even the Liberty issues are well over 50 dollars plus.

I dig the trio track "Subterfuge" Bassist Davis is doing some pretty remarkable playing on this track, even a nice little solo turn, underrated apparently is Davis, never focused on the track like this before, bassist Davis is pretty darned good.

"Cantarnos" is a nice minor key track, that shows Henderson playing in the vein of John Coltrane on the track "Teo" off of the Miles Davis classic Someday My Prince Will Come.

Henderson is seaching and probing, but perhaps not hell bent on destroying Hank Mobley, as it sounds like Coltrane was attempting, and succeeding on that album where Mobley also appeared.

Anyway, that's how it sounds to me on that particular album. Henderson doesn't over do it here, but the vibe did remind of "Teo".

Overall Black Fire really is a stellar post bop record, and proves to me Andrew Hill was an all time great.  He should get more consideration as a one of the real advancers of the music at the same time John Coltrane's classic mid 60's band was taking shape.

As much as I like Davis and Coltrane, you could never convince me Andrew Hill's genius wasn't their equal. When I hear Black Fire, or Hill's Point of Departure for that matter, we are talking about some seriously groundbreaking jazz that today, 50 plus years later sounds like it has not aged at all.  That fact, the music of modern jazz sounding fresh and sometimes completely new 50 years after it was developed, speaks volumes to me. It's timeless, as much as a 200 year old symphony is.

Andrew Hill's Dance with Death: Vintage LP and Connoisseur series CD release.

Original 1980 LP Cover

Andrew Hill's (1937-2007) Dance With Death was left in Limbo for 12 long years, and one wonders why in the world this wasn't worthy of release in 1968?

 I suspect the greasy soul funk that Blue Note was into heavily at the end of the 60's, would have clashed with this high brow inside-outside modern jazz of Andrew Hill at the time.

Man I loved this Blue Note Connoisseur CD series when it was around.

I first got into jazz at the end of the 90's when Legacy started releasing the metal spine Miles Davis Boxes, and then ken Burns came out with his rather incomplete yet still entertaining documentary "Jazz".

 Blue Note's reissue program throughout the early 2000's really gave me a jazz education to savor. Andrew Hill was a pianist I really gravitated toward, the unreleased music of Passing Ships and the Mosaic Box sets were things I listened to first, newer recordings like Dusk were also favorites, then I went to the back catalog checking out albums like Point of Departure and Judgement.

I remember thinking how Hill struck the perfect balance between hardbop and avant-garde jazz. Andrew's music never goes off the deep end, hill reminds me a lot of Monk, and even Ellington, then he will give you this whiff of Cecil Taylor to keep you on your toes.

New vinyl reissue: 

These are just ways for me to describe what I sense when I listen to Hill's music. I always thought Hill's music really works well with husky toned tenor men.

Joe Henderson comes to mind the most, and really they were a perfect match for each other, with Joe appearing on Hill's Black Fire, and Hill on Henderson's Our Thing.

The thing about Dance With Death, beyond the quality of Hill's compositions, is the underrated Saxophone of Joe Farrell.

 Farrell's contributes some haunting soprano sax on "Yellow Violet", a fantastic track that stays in your head, the track would be on my personal favorite list of jazz compositions, hard to shake that melody.

The rest of the album has Farrell playing tenor, you never hear Farrell being mentioned on best saxophone player lists. He would certainly be on my underrated list, all of Farrell's CTI recordings are worth a spin.

Billy Higgins on Drums and Charles Tolliver on trumpet, it's pretty hard to complain about this band, Dance With Death works well all the way around.

Other than possibly Point of Departure, I can't think of too many Hill albums better, crazy to think how so much of his best output wasn't even released until after 1975. Fact is, I don't think Hill created a single mediocre album, they're all good.

CD Reissue

Music from recent releases (the last 15 years), Pax, Change, Passing Ships, and the fantastic 3 disc Mosaic Select set were finally made available in limited edition form including the CD reissue of Dance With Death.

All of this 1960's music was released long after the Blue Note label went off the rails as far as modern jazz being the main source for the label.

  Some of the music was released for the first time on some double albums in the mid 70's, even some of it under Saxophonist Sam Rivers' name. Then finally, this pictured original release of Dance With Death from 1980.

I have to say sonically I find the CD issue to be pretty good, pretty decently faithful to the vinyl sound. A lot of those reissued Blue Note CD's can certainly have a tinny bright sound.  I didn't think this was marred by that defect on CD.

The pictured original LP copy is not easy to find, I was lucky I found it several years ago, but as mentioned, the CD should do just fine.

Mosaic Select 16 Andrew Hill: The Blue Note Vaults are Now Cleaned Out.

Mosaic Select #16 Andrew Hill is one of the best of the select series of reasonably priced 3CD sets that Mosaic has put out in the last 10 years. The sets focus on obscure or neglected artists like Hill.

Mosaic produces these sets limited to 5000 units, and all their sets can bring 2 or 3 times what thye originally sold.

 If you have your sights on any of the out of print sets, don't wait, the prices will rise. In fact, I have noticed many of these 3 CD sets selling at original cost to just 25 to 50% above that price.

Many of you may not know, and here is a tip, many of the Mosaic Select issues are available for download at on line retailers as The Capitol Vaults Jazz Series. and you will not believe how cheap this set is. Of course you won't get the booklet, or be helping an independent company like this to keep up the service they provide to jazz crazed people like us.

I suspect that is another reason for the bottom falling out of the secondary market on these, If your some one who doesn't need the physical product or the quite good liner notes, discographies and essays, that may be the way to go, I did purchase the Don Pullen set in this format, it cost less than 20 dollars, wow!

Michael Cuscuna, Co founder of Mosaic contributes the fantastic liner notes, he gives a first hand account of the music, why it laid in the Capitol vaults for 30 plus years, and many thoughts from the late pianist on the music.

 Liberty Records had bought out Blue note in 1967, and Liberty went a much more commercial direction, therefore artists like hill were on the out side looking in.

Disc 1 is music that reminds me of Point Of departure from 1964 on Blue Note, with the exception of "Diddy Wah" and "Ocho Rios" which bring to mind the Grass Roots session, the last 2 tracks "Monkash" and "Mahogany" and the first 4 tracks on disc 2 "Illusions", "Poinsettia", "Fragments" and "Soul Mate" are Quartet performances augmented by a string quartet.

The first 6 tracks were previously released on the 70's double vinyl One for One that was part of  the Michael Cuscuna produced Blue Note Re-Issue Series.

These are all interesting, with a few tracks being focused on the string quartet, and a few funkier pieces that seem to not really need the strings, but still an interesting
experimentation.

Disc 2, after the 4 string quartet numbers, we have some very interesting trio music from 1967, With Ron Carter on bass and a drummer named Teddy Robinson, he played on Donald Byrd's Chant album, and disappeared into obscurity.

This Robinson is no slouch and offers fine support for some very free sounding piano music, very complex, and any Hill fan needs to hear these trio performances, Andrew actually plays some soprano sax on "Six at the Top" and Organ on sections of "Nine at the Bottom" and "Resolution", again, very interesting hearing the the experimentation in the music.

Disc 3 is the main reason to acquire this set in my opinion, both of these sessions from 1967 are stellar, free jazz, but not completely free from melody or structure, very much in the vein of Some of Sam Rivers Mid 60's Blue Notes, in fact it's a shame this music was not released until this set.

Both sessions feature Sam Rivers to great affect, The Oct. 1967 session also features Woody Shaw on trumpet and Howard Johnson of Tuba and baritone sax, This music is tight and crisp and definitely lifts the legacy of Andrew Hill, The Feb.1967 session features Rivers again with Robin Kenyatta on alto, and Nadi Qamar playing African Thumb Piano and assorted bells to add some color to the music.

Unfortunately this session could only be found in the original mono Van Gelder session tapes, no stereo copy could be located, but the sound is still remastered and each instrument is clear, the latter session is a little more laid back than the previous, especially on track 6 "Awake" which reminds me of some of the music on Bobby Hutcherson's Dialogues album with Andrew.

I highly recommend this set, It is now out of print, but can be had a reasonable prices, and that Capitol Jazz Vault Download. (You won't believe the price! as of  Sept. 16, 2015 by the way.) The price is absolutely ridiculous for the quality of the music.

 You won't get that fantastic Mosaic box, and Cuscuna liner note, which are worth the original price $39.00 7 or 8 years ago; but at least you can have the music for a fraction of the eBay out of print markup.

 Any one who likes advanced hard bop that borders at times on free jazz will enjoy this wildly varied set. This mosaic set cleaned out the vaults with the Passing Ships issue and a few others, every ounce of Hill's music with Blue Note is now available to the public as Cuscuna states in these liner notes.

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.