July 20, 1975
Hill made an extraordinary run of albums between 1974 and 1978, but they're largely overlooked -- since most of them were made for European or Japanese labels. Some of these records are still difficult to obtain. But Hill was making magnificent music regardless. In fact, his recordings from the 1970s compare very favorably with his critically acclaimed (and much more well-known) series of LPs for Blue Note in the 1960s.
From this listener's point of view, Hill's strongest records -- the crème de la crème -- were made in 1975 and 1976. They are:
- Blue Black (East Wind, rec. 1975) - quartet
- Divine Revelation (SteepleChase, rec. 1975) - mostly quartet
- Hommage (East Wind, rec. 1975) - solo piano
- Live at Montreux (Arista/Freedom, rec. 1975) - solo piano
- Nefertiti (East Wind, rec. 1976) - trio
I could have easily chosen any of these for inclusion in this survey. But it's Hill's solo outing from Montreux that I pull from the shelf most frequently.
Critics often remark that Andrew Hill had a career punctuated by long periods away from recording and performing. Actually, he recorded throughout the 1960s-2005. The problem was that not everything he recorded was released. Until, that is, a savvy producer from Mosaic and Blue Note (Michael Cuscuna) stepped in and released everything recorded for Blue Note. It's quite a range of material from avant garde to ruminative solos. All of it is worth it, and the 1970s material is uniformly strong.
ReplyDeleteThe Montreaux set is one of at least 6 solo albums, and they all demonstrate his characteristic creative flow. Whether following song forms or not is immaterial because even the song forms are stretched to the max. My favorites are group recordings made in 1963 and 1964.