Payment overdue

Andrew Hill's undiminished grace

by Ed Hazell

If Andrew Hill's Dusk (Palmetto) sounds like state-of-the-art jazz, that's because the jazz world has finally caught up with the 63-year-old pianist and not vice versa. Piloting a sextet of younger players on his first American recording in almost a decade, Hill has never sounded more startling, contemporary, appealing, or enigmatic. His new compositions are gems of small-group jazz writing, with his piano playing distilled to a brilliantly off-kilter blend of rich chords and sinewy lines. And this sextet -- with reed players Marty Ehrlich and Greg Tardy, trumpeter Ron Horton, bassist Scott Colley, and drummer Billy Drummond -- brings the music to life with a depth of understanding and a vivid individuality to match that of any group Hill has fronted in a career that spans more than 40 years.

Hill has been an elusive figure in jazz. He burst onto the Blue Note label as a sideman on Joe Henderson's Our Thing in 1962 and quickly came into his own as a leader. Between 1962 and 1966, he recorded an astonishing string of great albums for the label, including one unquestioned masterpiece, 1964's Point of Departure. (The new sextet, which shares its instrumental line-up with that album, was originally named after it.) Although the recently reissued Grass Roots (Blue Note) demonstrates that he could get funky with the best of them, Hill was not the kind of finger-poppin' hard-bop groover generally associated with the label. His writing and soloing are mercurial. He changes direction suddenly, altering the thrust of his lines with deliberate rhythmic displacements, harmonic ambiguities, and melodic indirections. Hill left Blue Note in 1970, after which he recorded rarely and not always to great advantage. For a time he dropped out of sight entirely, emerging briefly in the early '90s for two excellent albums on the then recently revived Blue Note label.

Dusk is equal to the best music Hill recorded in the '60s, without ever trying to re-create it. The good news is that he has not run out of ideas as a composer, arranger, or soloist. Each composition has its own character or some arranger's touch that makes it memorable. In a mere four minutes, Hill packs "ML" with an a cappella horn introduction, a duet for the pianist and Ehrlich's alto sax, and full-ensemble sections that blend writing and soloing before the rhythm section disappears, leaving the horns alone to take it out. The writing on "Dusk" never repeats itself: a new theme introduces each soloist. Instrumentation, tempos, and combinations of writing and soloing change throughout the album: whether it's the lovely writing for bass clarinets on "T.C." (a dedication to the late saxophonist Thomas Chapin) or the collective improvisation that shades into the composition on "Sept," Hill keeps exploring the potential of his ensemble and testing the limits of his ability to write involved lines that twist and turn but never stop moving ahead.

A Hill composition, like one of Monk's, demands that a soloist meet it on its own terms and find his own voice within it. This sextet takes up the challenge gladly. Ehrlich solos with great lyrical passion on "Sept," coming at his songlike motifs from different angles, refracting and extending them into a unified statement. Tardy ignites several tunes with long, sinuous lines; on "Dusk" he also explores his lyrical side, and he varies the color and texture of his notes on "Sept." Horton has a dusky sweet sound that enriches the ensembles and makes for an arrestingly beautiful solo on the title track. Drummond is a sensitive, responsive timekeeper who echoes and elaborates a soloist's ideas without cluttering the ensembles. And Hill's own solos have lost none of their intrigue or knottiness. On the unaccompanied "Tough Love," you can hear him thinking his way through a puzzle. His lines trace mazelike paths; notes fall ahead of or behind the beat, stretching it as far as it will go; chords interrupt a train of thought that then re-establishes itself. His solo on "15/8" is more of a spontaneous rethinking of the composition in which he questions his initial ideas and tries out new ones.

Hill has rarely received his due. But lately there have been signs of increased interest in this overlooked innovator. Most of his early Blue Notes are back in print. Saxophonist Greg Osby, who was on Hill's '90s Blue Note albums, featured him in a rare sideman appearance on his recent The Invisible Hand (Blue Note). This spring, Horton and New York's Jazz Composers Collective performed a concert of Hill's music arranged for big band -- they recognize him as a fellow searcher for jazz that doesn't simply ape the formulas of the past. Dusk is a remarkable testimony to Andrew Hill's undiminished creativity and determination in that search.