Point of Departure

Andrew Hill - Point of Departure

Point of Departure
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Music CD Cover

Artist: Andrew Hill
Brand: HILL,ANDREW
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1999-05-18
Music Label: Blue Note Records
Soundtracks:
  1. Refuge
  2. New Monastery
  3. Spectrum
  4. Flight
  5. Dedication
  6. New Monastery (Alternate Take)
  7. Flight 19 (Alternate Take)
  8. Dedication (Alternate Take)

Free Music Notes for Point of Departure

Free Music Review: For experienced jazz listeners, absolutely sublime!
Hit: 5 Stars

First off it's important to point out that this album is not for casual jazz audiences, or novices. It's for people who have listened to a lot of jazz, and know how it's progressed over the years from Dixieland to Free.

For those people, this album is an excellent, sublime piece of music that is almost like a suite of avant-garde. The compositions are all first rate, most notably New Monastery (a catchy, witty tribute to Monk) and Spectrum (which is a mini-suite in itself.) While the tunes are structured, the soloing is based on soloists playing around a tonal center, giving them much more harmonic freedom. With Andrew Hill, Richard Davis, and especially the spectacular Tony Williams comping, it also gives soloists a lot of rhythmic freedom too.

The personel is all first rate, with the slashing, pulsating alto sax of Eric Dolpy (along with some bass clarinet and a bit of flute) lined up with Kenny Dorham on trumpet, and the still-developing but already creative tenor saxophone of Joe Henderson. These three musicians all offer great counterpoints to each other, and Dolphy is in especially fine form, as all his solos, just about every measure, is brilliant and passionate. Dorham sounds a bit less comfortable to my ears (and I find myself wishing for Freddie Hubbard) but this is only a personal preference. Joe Henderson offers a more thoughtful approach than Dolphy's, but his solos give a kind of respectability and intelligence to the music.

Andrew Hill, though, is the man here. Not only is his comping and composing extraordinary, his solos are probing, biting, off-centered and ultimately brilliant. You can hear the influences of people like Monk transfigured into a piano style more suited for this kind of freebop kind of music, and you'll find yourself wishing he soloed for a lot longer.

As for Richard Davis and Tony Williams, all I can say is that these two are the embodiment of how a rhythm section should be in the 60's, able to play with the utmost freedom, and yet NEVER losing the beat. Davis I think is often forgotten in favor of bassists like Ron Carter, Scott La Faro, or Dave Holland, and while their musical prowess is undeniable, Davis is every bit the equal. And Tony Williams is a joy to listen to; passionate yet never overbearing, exciting yet never pretentious.

This music might strike some as hard to listen to, due to it's loose rhythms and slightly a-tonal sound. But close listeners will hear that these musicians know exactly what they are doing, and what they are doing is creating sublime music. For anyone who has listened to a lot of bebop, hardbop, cool, modal, and postbop and is ready to make the plunge into avant-garde, this is indispensable. 5 stars for compositions, 5 for Dolphy, Williams and Hill, and 5 for overall sound.
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Point of Departure Poster

No description available.
Genre: Jazz Music
Rating:
Release Date: 0000-00-00
Media Type: Compact Disk
In an extensive label catalog as uniformly excellent as Blue Note's, it's virtually impossible to pick "the greatest" album. Still, there's little doubt that pianist Andrew Hill's Point of Departure is one of the label's most extraordinary recordings. Hill, a Chicagoan whose varied resumé as a sideman included stints with Dinah Washington, Jackie McLean, the Johnny Griffin/Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis band, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, was a perfect addition to the Blue Note roster: a thoroughly modern composer and a thoughtful soloist, capable of handling both leader dates and sideman roles. Indeed, Hill's stature as the leader here would seem arbitrary were the album not all his compositions. Every player on the album is a band leader and trendsetter in his own right: trumpeter Kenny Dorham, reedmen Joe Henderson and Eric Dolphy, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Anthony Williams. Employing a wide variety of meters, Point of Departure covers a broad range of material, from the angular and gripping "Refuge" though the shifting "Spectrum," to the brisk "Flight 19," and introspective closer, "Dedication." It is, in many ways, the classic Blue Note album: an intense, modern, and gripping performance. --Fred Goodman

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