Andrew Hill - Hommage (1975 Japanese East Wind Vinyl LP)

Andrew Hill - Hommage | Vinyl LP - 1975 Japanese East Wind (EW-8017, Nippon Phonogram)

By the mid-1970s, Andrew Hill occupied a strange position in American jazz. His run of Blue Note albums from the mid-60s (Point of Departure, Black Fire, Judgment!) had established him as one of the most harmonically adventurous pianists and composers of his generation, working in the space between hard bop and the avant-garde. But like so many players of that school, he found the American market of the 1970s indifferent. It was Japan that kept documenting him. East Wind, the Japanese label that recorded a remarkable run of American jazz musicians in New York studios during 1975, gave Hill the chance to make his first entirely solo record. Hommage is the result. Stripped of a rhythm section, Hill's approach is fully exposed, and what comes through is the "percussive school" of jazz piano that reaches back through Monk to stride. "East 9th Street" opens the album in under three and a half minutes, compact and rhythmically knotty. "Naked Spirit" stretches past six minutes with the kind of spontaneous, emotionally driven improvisation that characterises the record. "Insanity Riff" is one of the tracks where Hill lets his freer, more cathartic side show.

The one standard is Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady," and it fits Hill's repertoire more naturally than his reputation might suggest. He performed standards throughout his career, and his reading here blends the tune's sophistication into his own harmonic language rather than treating it as a departure. "Clayton Gone" and "Vision" fill out side B before "Rambling," the longest piece at over eight minutes, which RYM reviewers single out as the album's highlight and the track that most justifies its length. The shorter track lengths work in the album's favour, avoiding the monotony that can afflict solo piano records while keeping the whole thing engaging. It is more composed than his freer mid-60s work, but glances at his cathartic side run throughout.

This is the original 1975 Japanese pressing on East Wind EW-8017, manufactured by Nippon Phonogram Co., Ltd.