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.

Colleen - 'The Golden Morning Breaks' (Leaf)

I never understood why Cécile Schott uses the stage name Colleen - it's kinda like if someone named Dave went by a stage name of Kevin. But that's totally her right, just as it's her right to put out a record with such a ludicrous album cover. If Colleen is going for the 'fey, fairy girl who talks to unicorns' vibe then I guess she chose well; the music on this record is certainly a green, expansive pasture of delicate miniatures, and it's about as far away from the Paris city where she is based as one could imagine. This is her second album, which moves away from the reliance on looping pedals that the first LP used, though there are still several electronic-rooted tracks, such as 'The Happy Sea'. But the waves of digital soundbliss here are layered with quietly plinking natural sound. This is a great record to listen to on vinyl as it's warm and engulfing, with lots of close-mic'd zither, particularly on side one. The zither is really the star of the album, or at least something zitherlike; 'Mining in the Rain' is a classical example of a sound miniature, balancing a zither melody with the creaking of chair or some other room ambience. The hesistations between each note are exquisite; there's a genuine fragility that speaks heaps through it's economy. Compositionally, everything stays small and horizontal; I guess these sketches are really just improvisations that have been worked over. Leaf is a good label for her as she's midway between mild, beatless electronica and Jeweled Antler-style sound-drawings. Fidelity-wise, though, she's a world away from the lackadaisical approach of the Americans, and I think The Golden Morning Breaks is a strong record for it (despite occasional digital clipping, used as a texture). By the end of the first side, I'd adapted my own listening to the slow pace of Colleen's work, and found myself enraptured by 'I'll Read You A Story' as it undulates. The longest track is the closer, 'Everything Lay Still', which layers cello and twinkling bells into a blanket of calm. It rises to a narcotic state, stops to look around, and then steps back into the horizon. I sort of feel like Colleen's style of constructed, low-energy soundworld has become a common thing, though I can't really think of many other examples, and certainly in 2005 this felt really fresh and original. The Golden Morning Breaks really is a coherent album, a story in some ways, which begins with the delicate twinkles of 'Summer Water' and ends with 'Everything Lay Still's inverted currents.