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Andrew Hill - Time Lines
- Veteran jazz pianist Andrew Hill is back again on Blue Note Records' Time Lines. He appears as part of a quintet boasting such legends and future legends as trumpeter Charles Tolliver (a frequent collaborator with too many credits to list), saxophonist/clarinetist Greg Tardy (from Hill's "Dusk" album), drummer Eric McPherson, and bassist John Hebert.
Hill opens the album with a lower-range-heavy piano riff that's as intense as it is hypnotic. Tardy and Tolliver then enter in unison, almost as narrators to Hill and the rest. It's an interesting effect, and even if you don't understand it, which I'm sure I don't as I can tell without looking in the mirror that I've got my "quizzically bemused" face on, you'll enjoy knowing you want to.
The great thing about this CD is that these guys are mostly all past the periods in their lives where they have to have ostentatious solos to draw attention to their abilities, and can now enjoy their status and explore the dark reaches of jazz blues without feeling like they have to make a statement. Hill and Tolliver now say what they want because they want to, not because they feel they have to.
Speaking of Hill and Tolliver (and this disc mostly belongs to the two), thirty-six years after their first collaboration on "Dance With Death" (with Tolliver succeeding legend Freddie Hubbard of previous recordings), their chemistry is all the better for time. Tolliver's easy old school fluidity is a cool counterpoint to Hill's languid phrasing, each it seems mirroring the other, both leading at the same time.
Which is not to say that Hill and company are perfect. It happens as musicians get older, so does the facility with which they can play their instruments. They're like athletes that way. They have a peak and a prime, and after that, there's no amount of maintenance that will forever stave off age. Yet even though some of the control is gone from some of these guys, the obvious essence is still nakedly present; beautiful and unmistakable.
Eric McPherson it should be noted does a great understated job of keeping a framework without enforcing it, coming across more as a flavoring than the main focus of the dish which, for a percussionist, is a rare and admirable quality. He gets to exorcise his eclectic fluidity more toward the back of the disc, on tracks like 4, 6 and 7, keeping the listener off balance and interested. His unpredictable rhythmic pattern on track 4 juxtaposed (yes I said "juxtaposed", and no, I'm not trying to sound "writery") with Hill's even more eclectic unpredictable rhythmic pattern comes across as a great conversation between two very insistent and awkward gentlemen.
For mature music lovers, regardless of age, I highly recommend adding this album to your collection.
Reviewer: David Fallo
new
Reviewer's Rating: 9
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0
Added: 20-Feb-2006
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