Steve Wyzard AUTUMNAL FINALITY

It's only natural that as Andrew Hill's last studio recordings, Time Lines should elicit the "end-of-an-era" autumnal atmosphere that so many "last time out" jazz albums share. Hill was 73 when this album was recorded, and he had less than 2 years to live. Not that you could tell from listening to these performances, but one can only wonder where this group could have gone next after recording this under-the-radar masterpiece. Unfairly marginalized as a Monk/Powell disciple, Andrew Hill was his own man right up to the very end.

The best way to discuss this album is to look at each player's contributions to the whole, one by one:

Greg Tardy: tenor sax / clarinet / bass clarinet: From his slow, brooding clarinet on the opening "Malachi" to his vicious tenor blasts on the title track, Tardy is this album's biggest and best surprise. His bass clarinet work on "Ry Round 1", "For Emilio", and "Ry Round 2" will draw comparisons to Bennie Maupin.

Charles Tolliver: trumpet: As someone who has listened to Tolliver's 1970 album The Ringer many times, hearing his bright tone on Time Lines was like running into an old friend. His soloing on the first few numbers is somewhat understated, and he doubles contrapuntal lines throughout with Tardy. Don't miss his big, rambunctious moment on "Ry Round 2".

John Hebert: bass: This was my first acquaintance with his playing, and I'm glad the introduction was made. Hebert's vigorous openings on both "Time Lines" and "Smooth" push the group into overdrive, and he joins Tardy's bass clarinet for a duo on "For Emilio".

Eric McPherson: drums: Critics like to dismiss this kind of boundary-pushing virtuosity as "blustery", but his big solo on "For Emilio" will surely remind one of both Jack DeJohnette and Eric Harland.

Andrew Hill: piano: All the material is composed by Andrew, and don't for a moment think his age has slowed him down. Prepare to be amazed as you listen to his stuttering, pounding lines on the title track, his clattering solo on "For Emilio", and his searching intro to "Whitsuntide". His thudding bass piano notes on "Ry Round 2" show how he never "comps" his way through his compositions, but rather adds his own personal punctuation wherever he sees fit. The album closes with a solo piano version of "Malachi", dedicated to Malachi Favors who had recently passed away.

For those who may be new to Andrew's style, this album is probably not the best point of entry. For that I would recommend Dance of Death (recorded 1968, released in 1980), which was my first experience with his exuberant pianism. That being said, Time Lines is much easier going than some of his admittedly difficult mid-1960s albums, such as Compulsion. So if you are familiar with any of the players involved, I can safely say this album is a must-own. Not only that, but I would even go so far as to nominate Time Lines for Jazz Album of the Year, 2006, along with Bennie Maupin's (there's that name again) Penumbra.

darkprinceofjazz Mosaic Select #16 Andrew Hill, is easily one of the best of the select series of reasonably priced 3CD sets that the company has put out in the last 10 years, The sets focus on obscure or neglected artists, and Mosaic produces these sets limited to 5000 units, and all their sets can bring 2 or 3 times what the originally sold for, though in recent years the prices have dropped considerably in the secondary market, so if you have your sights on any of the out of print sets, don't wait, if the economy improves, 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 major on line retailers as "The Capital Jazz Vaults Series" including this one, I suspect that is another reason for the bottom falling out of the 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, 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, for 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, Any one who likes advanced hard bop that borders at times on free will enjoy this wildly varied set, this 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.

darkprinceofjazz 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 it sounded awful and it wasn't worthy of release, As it turned out, the problem was the Session reals were missing a track or 2, but finally, the entire session tapes were found, and Cuscuna was blown away by the sound and the performance I have to say there really are some great compositions on Passing Ships, The title track for one, as well as "Noon Tide" the lightly funky "Plantation Bag" and "The Brown Queen". Another treat from Passing Ships is the criminally underrated saxophonist Joe Farrell and the equally unappreciated Dizzy Reece on trumpet, Woody Shaw too, 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, A lot of colors flourish 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, so when Passing Ships Came out it was sort of a Rosetta Stone to those great albums, Those albums, along with Passing Ships, were some of the first real challenging Modern Jazz albums I got into out side of the Davis Coltrane sphere, and remain some of my favorites, All of Hill's Blue Note's are well worth a listen as well. 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 it out on you tube though.

Sean Trane A bit of a UFO in AH’s discography, LEV is, as its title indicates, a vocal-jazz album, although I wouldn’t call it sung-jazz proper. It develops some highly interesting choir vocals use and techniques that were most likely then-groundbreaking. Ok the music behind these great vocal arrangements (courtesy of Lawrence Marshall) is not always that advanced, but it’s the marriage between the two sections which make the interest of the present album. So as one of AH’s last album on Blue Note, LEV is made of a quintet and that already-mentioned small choir section.

You’d probably think that this is a relatively conventional soul-jazz album, but beware, because if the quintet is mostly “standard”, the real surprise comes from the extremely original and inventive use of the choir. Opening on the enthralling 8-mins Hey, the album plunges into intense grooves and spell-binding choir chants, something that vaguely resembles Magma’s Kobaian-vocals realm, but the music remains firmly jazz. Indeed, the choir chants and drones and shouts, often wordlessly, and you’ll find yourself mostly paying attention to their incantations, rather than the quintet, even if Andrew makes sure that it is the quintet’s album, rather that the choir’s, which in the context of the original version of LEV is not always fortunate for us.

For once, the RVG remaster reissue offer an interesting slew of bonus tracks (almost doubling the album’s running time), something different than alternate takes. Although these tracks come from a completely different session (from a year later) and feature a totally different line-up (save AH naturally) that includes Ben Riley, Ron Carter and Bennie Maupin to name just those, and what a difference it makes, too. The choir used is mainly as the same compositional tool as the previous session though, and in sonic terms, these bonus tracks melt right in with the original album, but the compositions and the intense execution are so superior to the previous session, that I don’t understand that this was never released bore or was released instead of the previous session.

Don’t get me wrong, here it’s not like LEV is a shooting star from another galaxy, but the asteroid did came from rarely explored outer reaches. I’ve heard similar choral experiments and not only from the Kobaian cluster (which probably heard this album before exploring their own space), but also I believe from Ornette. Anyway, maybe not that essential a listen, but it’s well worth the detour, that it is al least a must-hear.

Sean Trane Returning to a trio format, AH’s Nefertiti album shows him taking an interest in Egypt’s mythology some 8 or 9 years after the Impulse!’s “New Thing” wave. The present album sees the reunion of Andrew with his long-time collaborator Richard Davis on bass and also sees Sun Ra & Sanders collab Roger blank on drums. Anyway with its “n’importe-quoi” artwork, the present album is a bit of a pot-pourri,

It would certainly appear to a casual observer that the album’s foundation would lay in the opening 14-mins Blue Black, but Andrew takes a lengthy piano solo Blue intro, and the band finally enters around the 7th minute mark. From that moment onwards it seems that Andrew is thinking of McCoy while playing this extremely interesting second Black half. Just how interesting is the rest of this A-side is a matter of Relativity, but holding the distance is another thing, with a dissonant piece.

Certainly the album’s highlight is the 8-mins title track opening the flipside, were Hill’s spine-tingling’s piano tinkling plays to some stunning Davis bowed bass, while Blank’s drumming is anything but so. After the short clunky and drummy Hattie, Mindflower is a bit disjointed, as if the trio was playing different tunes and the unremarkable closer is more or less in the same mould.

An average AH album, one that would pass unnoticed if there wasn’t the fantastic title track to pull it out of anonymity, Nerfetiti is not an essential listen if you want to explore Hill’s discography, but it can be a worthwhile detour, if only for two 8-minutes passages.