News & Updates — Andrew Hill

Happy birthday to tenor saxophone hero John Gilmore. A long-time member of Sun Ra's Arkestra, a major influence on John Coltrane and an icon Blowing Out Of Chicago. Gilmore started playing clarinet at 14 and tenor sax at 17 and he played with Earl Hines before joining Sun Ra's fledgling Arkestra in '53. He stayed with Ra for over forty years, recording on every single Arkestra record until '95 (including most of the legendary Ra-produced doo-wop sides). He brought a gifted and harmonically advanced style and could play sweet to ferocious, but bop & blues was always his main language....

The modern jazz pianist/composer Andrew Hill came from a musical West Indian family in Chicago. A prodigy, he first played accordion, sang and tap-danced before he taking up piano. He studied with Earl Hines, Pat Patrick and German composer Paul Hindemith and as a teenager played clubs, backing artists like Miles Davis, Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker. He toured in Dinah Washington's band and settled in NYC in '61. He worked with Johnny Hartman, Roland Kirk, Al Hibbler and others before a series of strikingly original and phenomenal recordings with the Blue Note label brought him acclaim from the musicians'...

The recently departed Bobby Hutcherson was one of the great vibraphone (as well as marimba) players in jazz. His music could look forward or look back and he cut some Latin and soul-jazz records as well. He sometimes would use the four-mallet technique, especially when there was no piano. His '60s & early '70s albums remain my favorite material. Bobby grew up in the Los Angeles area, started playing some piano as a child but was inspired to play vibes after hearing a Milt Jackson record. He knew Dexter Gordon and Eric Dolphy from around L.A. He briefly studied with...