By Michael Ullman

The recording proves to be both an excellent example of Andrew Hill’s unusual creative methods, particularly the wonderful results he managed to get with ensembles.

Andrew Hill Sextet Plus Ten, A Beautiful Day, Revisited (Palmetto Records, two LPs)

A Beautiful Day, Revisited is an elegantly produced and packaged two LP reissue of music that Palmetto once presented on CD. Recorded during three nights at Birdland in January, the recording proves to be both an excellent example of Andrew Hill’s unusual creative methods, particularly the wonderful results he managed to get with ensembles. It shows pianist Hill challenging himself …he didn’t really have a big band … and his instrumentalists, whom he introduces (all sixteen of them) in “11/8”, the last piece on this collection. Hill might have hit on the perfect description of his writing for ensembles when he named his 1964 recording, with Eric Dolphy and Kenny Dorham, Point of Departure. His written material is often sparse, intended to be a place from which to take off. His freewheeling approach challenged his sidemen. Even trumpeter Ron Horton, who arranged the music presented here, describes the collaboration process as an elaborate mystery.

By the time Horton was asked to arrange the music on these LPs Hill was 71 and the trumpeter had already had a longish history with the pianist. They had a mutual friend in another pianist, Frank Kimbrough, who, in 1996, brought it to Hill’s attention that Horton had been faithfully transcribing Hill’s compositions “for several years.” Hill must have liked what his new trumpeter friend was doing because he asked Horton to arrange for a sextet he was planning. Horton was hired to write for that ensemble, which is the core group heard here. But Hill’s dream was to write for big band. So the all star sextet (Marty Ehrlich and Greg Tardy on reeds, Scott Colley, bass, Nasheeet Waits, drums, and Horton) was supplemented by an additional ten members. Members of this crowd were given opportunities to solo. For example, J.D. Parron on baritone saxophone is the featured soloist on the tune “J Di”, which was named after him.

In his notes, Horton describes what working with Hill was like. The composer showed him what he had and it was perplexing, perhaps deliberately so. Horton was initially flummoxed by the minimal scores: “I didn’t understand what he was going for. I kept thinking it was incomplete .. nothing had titles yet. One piece would be just a series of short sections, sometimes just a few bars per section, separated by open rests with fermatas (rests) over the rest.” They rehearsed a bunch of tunes, but Horton didn’t see a set list for the Birdland gig until five minutes before the performance. Here is a sampling of what he found on the set list: “Band plays BA1 from beginning, but trombone plays BA2 from bar 20 backwards to bar 10, then saxophones repeat bars 40 to 50.” I would have loved to hear what Horton told the band in the five minutes he had before the Andrew Hill big band took the stage. He remembers Hill grinning at him. Yet it all worked: “Somehow, Andrew had taken all these short fragments, stirred them in a big pot, managed to confuse me and about ¾ of the band, and had created something extraordinary.”

The purpose of this obfuscation, it seems to me, was to make it impossible for players (or arrangers) to fall into set patterns. Designed to ensure that the Andrew Hill big band had no habits, good or bad, the strategy proved successful because of the intuitions of the composer and the extraordinary talent of the band members. The situation might also have appealed to Hill’s puckish sense of humor. I’ve been listening to his restless solo piece, “Reverend DuBop”, in which he refers to — and sometimes seems to parody — various bop styles, including Latin. On the 1978 Artists House record From California With Love, that tune is followed by “Pastoral Pittsburgh.” Here Hill plays whimsically, yet powerfully, drawing on his typically full-bodied sound. One wonders what part of Pittsburgh he was referring to. As a soloist, Hill is bold and restless: his cleanly articulated phrases seem to leap out at you. He can also sound bleak. In a story that I hope is true, I read that his “Dedication,” a track on his most celebrated recording, Point of Departure, was originally named “Cadaver”. Hill changed the original title because it made one of his sideman sad. Hill also has range. His ballads, such as his solo performance of “Here’s That Rainy Day”, are sweetly thoughtful, even though he begins to accent odd places, varying his touch and the tempo at will, slowing down with a bunch of glissandos, and even coming to a near stop. He manages to maintain continuity while indulging in unpredictable flexibility.

Pianist Andrew Hill in November, 2002. Photo: Jimmy Katz

The Birdland date opens exuberantly with Hill’s “Divine Revelation”, a kind of fanfare. Horton says this is the most arranged piece of music on the discs. “Divine Revelation” was the title piece of Hill’s 1975 quartet date for Steeplechase. Before Horton had even met Hill, he had taken the piece from the record and arranged it for his own group. A version of that arrangement is what is presented here. Hill’s view of the divinity is uplifting. Almost immediately after the initial fanfare, we hear a solo tenor sax state the melody. Then the whole band takes the theme over. The piece develops with overlapping choirs, which sound increasingly agitated. That collision stops and Hill solos with repeated chords that sound as if he is dedicated to maintaining the music’s rhythmic pulse. He comes across as playful. The horns return to inject a lazy riff, and then Hill continues. Horton has written in various orchestral devices, such as stabs from the trumpets, before the piece opens up with a tenor sax duel between Greg Tardy and Aaron Stewart. There is group improvisation as well.

“Faded Beauty” comes next: it opens quietly with an ensemble dominated by the flute and, at the other end, bass clarinet. Then the band drops out (is this where the writing stopped?) and we hear a lovely duet between flutist John Savage and Hill. After that settles into an ending, a brief ensemble part arrives, and that introduces one of the highlights of this Palmetto Record reissue: Ehrlich’s solo on bass clarinet over bass and drums. (Hill sits out behind this solo.) Ehrlich ends up shrieking, as if a faded beauty was protesting her cruel fate. Hill is featured on “New Pinnochio”, which begins with a simple phrase on baritone followed by some long tones from the band that alternate with Hill’s piano. The performance proceeds with some grumbles from the brass, including some grouching on tuba before the drums establish a swinging beat. Like most of the pieces here, “New Pinnochio” is assembled from sparkling written parts, however brief, and engrossing solos and moments of collective improvisation. The entire set is guided by that structural pattern. Despite the troubles Horton faced before the gig, this set offers wonderfully integrated passages for horns and plenty of space for some virtuoso soloists, There are two versions of the title cut — “Beautiful Day” and “Beautiful Day Thursday”. They are different in so many details. I wouldn’t mind hearing a dozen more renditions. Hill will always sound fresh — everyday of the week.

For over 30 years, Michael Ullman has written a bimonthly jazz column for Fanfare Magazine, for which he also reviews classical music. He has emeritus status at Tufts University, where for 45 years he taught in the English and Music Departments, specializing in modernist writers and nonfiction writing in English, and jazz and blues history in music. He studied classical clarinet. The author or co-author of two books on jazz, he has written on jazz and classical music for the Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, High Fidelity, Stereophile, Boston Phoenix, Boston Globe, and other venues. He plays piano badly.