Andrew Hill - 'Point of Departure' (Blue Note)

The lineup shifts slightly here for this, the third Andrew Hill album of 1964 - the vibes are gone, but we add two saxes and a trumpet, and a young Anthony Williams replacing Elvin Jones on drums. That substitution is felt immediately, for his touch is a bit lighter, and the album starts with 'Refuge', which gives lots of space for Hill and Richard Davis and leaves the brass instruments silent for long stretches. It's Eric Dolphy on alto (and later bass clarinet) and his playing throughout this record is fairly crisp, angular at times, and even a bit sneaky. Again, I'm impressed with Hill's approach to harmony, as he throws some chords in underneath the saxes that must be diminished or 7ths or 9ths or something, cause they seem to question the direction of the piece as a whole. Davis is great because he knows what to do with this – when to play with Hill and when to play against him. To make a bad analogy to football, Hill is like a brilliant midfielder, occupying the centre of the recording and controlling the flow, moving ideas between the rhythm section (defenders) and the brass (the forwards). There aren't many places where Kenny Dorham, Dolphy and Joe Henderson are all playing together, but when they do it's from a place of balance. What's impressive is how much this tries to extend the melodic, formal language of jazz without resorting to a total breakdown of structure. 'New Monastery', for example, actually swings, but while Dorham is declaring a melodic statement, Hill is colouring each rising trumpet burst with cluster of moody piano chords, which has an effect that is thought-inducing without being disconcerting. There's no reason not to occasionally let the groove carry a few phrases, or to have a solo here or there - but this is forward-thinking jazz, of course, a new avant-garde which seems to have been largely overlooked and one that's lovely because it doesn't need to make such a point of this. Dolphy is a nice presence here but it's not like he steals the album, apart from maybe some of the soloing on side two, and Joe Henderson has a really nice interplay with Dorham, especially on the last cut ('Dedication', which takes a somewhat more somber tone). There's a lot more out there, as his Blue Note career spanned the 60s; also I'm curious to know how his art developed further, and particularly how he may have sustained himself into the 80s and other periods where being a composer's jazz composer wasn't necessarily the easiest path financially. But sadly these are the only two records in the accumulation so once again we have to move on.