Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Pianist Andrew Hill died on Friday after a lengthy battle with lung cancer. He was 75.
A true modernist, Hill’s compositions displayed an esthetic and intellectual stance that was new to jazz in the early ‘60s when he began recording for Blue Note. The way he used repetition, asymmetry, dissonance and silence were not found in the music of his acknowledged influences: Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Art Tatum.
Hill was born in Chicago on June 30, 1937, attended the University of Chicago’s lab school and performed a novelty act in talent shows as a youth. He began playing piano at 13 and had composition lessons from William Russo and Paul Hindemith while still a teen; he also backed Charlie Parker and Miles Davis in local clubs.
Hill left Chicago in 1961 to join Dinah Washington in New York City, where he also backed Al Hibbler and Johnny Hartman. After a gig with Roland Kirk in California in 1962, Hill returned to New York, where he began recording for Blue Note both as a leader with three startling sessions in eight months. Those sessions resulted in the landmark albums, Point of Departure , Black Fire and Judgment! . He also worked as a sideman on dates with Freddie Hubbard, Eric Dolphy, Joe Henderson and Woody Shaw.
In 1965 Hill became music coordinator for Amiri Baraka’s Black Arts Repertory Theatre; and in 1970 he worked as composer-in-residence at Colgate University, where he received his doctorate. Hill toured with the Smithsonian Heritage Program (1972-‘75) and received a fellowship from that institution. He later taught in prisons and public schools in California while continuing to record.
Hill’s final years were especially productive. He recorded Dusk (Pametto, 1999) and a two-CD set with his big band, A Beautiful Day (Palmetto, 2003). His recent Time Lines (Blue Note) received the 2006 DownBeat critics poll album of the year award.
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
Feb 3, 2025 10:49 PM
In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
Jan 21, 2025 7:38 PM
Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
Jan 16, 2025 2:02 PM
In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a…
“If you don’t keep learning, your mind slows down,” Coleman says. “Use it or lose it.”
Jan 28, 2025 11:38 AM
PolyTropos/Of Many Turns — the title for Steve Coleman’s latest recording on Pi and his 33rd album overall —…
