Andrew Hill--composer

[bertrand]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Cal Massey left behind a really solid body of work, but only had one record under his own name. He had to depend others recording his work, and although he had some amazingly heavy hitters doing that.. they all had their own careers and music's to take care of.

Archie Shepp probably(?) was the most regular advocate, but... 

I was surprised Blue Note never put together a 'Blue Note plays Cal Massey' compilation CD. They did a Beatles one.

Yes, it is too bad Cal rarely got to record his music but he was well served by the heavy hitters. Is it possible they did not quite play it the way he intended it to be played? Maybe. But when you have Wayne tearing it up on Assunta like he does, I can't imagine it played any better. Whew.

Zane Massey has a project called Cosmic Surf Club that mostly plays Cal's music. I doubt that is the way Cal intended it to be played 😀

[Milestones]

Conrad Herwig has done many albums based on single composers--doing it with the "latin side" method: Coltrane, Miles, Shorter, Silver.  Maybe Hill and Mingus are on the horizon.  

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, bertrand said:

Yes, it is too bad Cal rarely got to record his music but he was well served by the heavy hitters.

He was, but the lack of a leader presence kinda leaves a diffuse picture of who "Cal Massey" was, doesn't it? It's almost he was a songwriter, not a singular composer.  

[bertrand]

Have you heard the Black Liberation Movement Suite, a release that Fred Ho supervise? Definitely highlights Cal as a composer.

[Holy Ghost]

Reminding myself, what an incredible artist he is (still is), and what an impact he has had on my musical enrichment. Still blows my mind to this day:

[Holy Ghost]

2 hours ago, Holy Ghost said:

Reminding myself, what an incredible artist he is (still is), and what an impact he has had on my musical enrichment. Still blows my mind to this day:

But I am ahead of myself, now:

 

 

[Rooster_Ties]

Just happened to listen to Dance With Death on my hour-long walk to work this morning.  My “Billy Harper” Pandora station randomly served up the last DWD track to me, so then I streamed the entire thing.

The best thing about Hill — especially his entire first run on Blue Note — is how even after 30 years of listening to Hill, even now I can’t anticipate where individual solos are going from moment to moment (unless I can remember where they’re going).

Nothing obvious, and his music (and the solos of his collabators) are almost entirely bereft of clichés.  Hill is almost always like a breath of fresh air.

[Pim]

2 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Just happened to listen to Dance With Death on my hour-long walk to work this morning.  My “Billy Harper” Pandora station randomly served up the last DWD track to me, so then I streamed the entire thing.

The best thing about Hill — especially his entire first run on Blue Note — is how even after 30 years of listening to Hill, even now I can’t anticipate where individual solos are going from moment to moment (unless I can remember where they’re going).

Nothing obvious, and his music (and the solos of his collabators) are almost entirely bereft of clichés.  Hill is almost always like a breath of fresh air.

 Beautiful and very accurate description of Andrew Hill. What makes it even better imo is that despite its unpredictability it still all makes sense and there’s a solid base of structure and logic in it all. 

[Coda]

I wish there was a like button, there's so much goodness in this thread.

[Eric]

1 hour ago, Coda said:

I wish there was a like button, there's so much goodness in this thread.

👍

[Rooster_Ties]

As much as I like Andrew’s music — if I’m being honest, it’s really probably more that I really love rediscovering Andrew’s recordings — WHICH, nearly every time I listen to them (whether it’s been a couple of months, or a year since I’ve listened to a particular album), it’s almost like hearing most of them for the very first time.

Not exactly, and less so for Black Fire (which I’ve probably heard the most often) — but for practically all of the rest Andrew’s catalog, it’s a little almost like don’t know these recordings, no matter how many times I’ve heard them before.

They’re (almost) always ‘new’ to me — or hearing them is more like hearing them for the first time, to a degree unlike nearly anything else in the entire Blue Note catalog.

I might (almost) love most of Andrew’s BN output — but what I really love is how they’ve kept me guessing with their unpredictability, for 30 years this year. I got the Hill Mosaic big-box in 1995, my second-only Mosaic purchase, which I really only got because of all the sidemen on it — and I’d only ever heard Point of Departure before that, and didn’t really know what to make of it, neither loving nor hating it back then.  And it also took me a solid 5 years(!) to even half-digest the Hill big box.

All that said, I also don’t see him as some monumental jazz ‘auteur’. Every musician I’ve ever talked to who played with Hill for any length of time has described some experience similar to having questions (lots of questions) for Hill about what to do here, or the meaning of vague charts (to put it charitably) — nearly every time, Hill’s reply was a quiet/tepid “what do you think? He seemed like the LEAST assertive ‘leader’ in all of jazz.

And yet, one could perhaps argue Hill’s actual approach wasn’t all that different than Miles — hire great and creative sidemen, and leverage their strengths. (And Hill probably did arguably ‘write’ more in his process, than Miles did in his.)

Anyway, I love Hill’s Hill’s BN’s — but largely because of the way they seem to almost force “continual rediscovery” — at least in my case.

[andybleaden]

Kicked me out of a desert of music to get Pax back on - Calliope here we come!

[clifford_thornton]

Hill’s chords, rhythm, and sense of melody, much of which work in a churning cloudlike or allover sensation, direct while also indirect, are fascinating to me. I’ve never heard anyone else like him.

[colinmce]

This very good album came out with little fanfare a couple years back-- unfortunately it's only available on a bespoke LP edition that may be out of print, but you can hear it on bandcamp and other streaming platforms:

https://newvellerecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-prayer-for-andrew

As much as I listen to his 60s BNs, I just as often come back to the later small group albums, especially the three later BN dates and Dusk on Palmetto. I am still hoping we can get a recording of his trio with John Hebert & Eric McPherson. I have often wondered if this was the live AH release Michael Cuscuna had mentioned ca. 2009 before Blue Note stopped making CDs. There are a few other fascinating trio recordings out there:

 

 

 

[mjazzg]

On 8/25/2025 at 2:35 AM, Rooster_Ties said:

nearly every time I listen to them (whether it’s been a couple of months, or a year since I’ve listened to a particular album), it’s almost like hearing most of them for the very first time.

This is my reaction too. Even PoD, which I should know backwards the number of times I've heard it, reveals new delights every listen.

 

2 hours ago, colinmce said:

This very good album came out with little fanfare a couple years back-- unfortunately it's only available on a bespoke LP edition that may be out of print, but you can hear it on bandcamp and other streaming platforms:

https://newvellerecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-prayer-for-andrew

Thanks, I didn't know of this.

There's been a couple of very good UK bands playing Hill repertory recently, not yet recorded though.

[Niko]

Ron Horton's A Prayer For Andrew is indeed a really nice album, haven't played it in a while but there was a time when I streamed it frequently... 

[Rooster_Ties]

37 minutes ago, Niko said:

Ron Horton's A Prayer For Andrew is indeed a really nice album, haven't played it in a while but there was a time when I streamed it frequently... 

I had no idea of this release! Damn shame it’s not on CD, or not that I can see.

4 hours ago, colinmce said:

I am still hoping we can get a recording of his trio with John Hebert & Eric McPherson. I have often wondered if this was the live AH release Michael Cuscuna had mentioned ca. 2009 before Blue Note stopped making CDs.

I asked Michael very specifically about that in person at the Library of a Congress in 2014 (after a panel talk he was on with Jason Moran and Lou Donaldson) — after he’d eluded to some live Hill thing when he was doing some press for Freddie Hubbard’s Without a Song: Live in Europe 1969).

Michael said it was not some old(er) archival recording — but it referred to some larger live group thing recorded in the UK more recently (mostly with UK musicians, augmenting his core US quartet, iirc). Or if not UK, somewhere in Europe, or maybe Scandinavia (maybe Finland?) — but I’m thinking it was the UK.

In any case, definitely not a Hill trio thing (which I would have loved to have heard).

Edited 2 hours ago by Rooster_Ties

[colinmce]

Interesting, thanks. Sounds a bit similar to the Jazzpar Octet disc:

https://www.discogs.com/release/3778196-The-Andrew-Hill-Jazzpar-Octet-1-The-Day-The-World-Stood-Still/

[Niko]

This looks like Andrew Hill with a larger UK band...

[mjazzg]

I think it was probably this 2003 tour. I saw the London show

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/may/23/jazz.artsfeatures1