Label:
Blue Note – BLP 4167
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released:
1964
Style:
Post Bop, Free Improvisation
Recorded at Van
Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, March 21, 1964.
Design
[Cover], Photography By [Cover Photo] – Reid Miles
Liner
Notes – Nat Hentoff
Recorded
By – Rudy Van Gelder
A1
- Refuge . . . . . . . . . . 12:18
A2
- New Monastery . . . . . . . . . . 7:05
B1
- Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . 9:48
B2
- Flight 19 . . . . . . . . . . 4:15
B3
- Dedication . . . . . . . . . . 6:45
Andrew
Hill – piano, composed
Eric
Dolphy – alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet
Joe
Henderson – tenor saxophone
Kenny
Dorham – trumpet
Richard
Davis – double bass
Anthony
Williams – drums, percussion
Pianist
and composer Andrew Hill is perhaps known more for this date than any other in
his catalogue -- and with good reason. Hill's complex compositions straddled
many lines in the early to mid-1960s and crossed over many. Point of Departure,
with its all-star lineup (even then), took jazz and wrote a new book on it,
excluding nothing. With Eric Dolphy and Joe Henderson on saxophones (Dolphy
also played clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute), Richard Davis on bass, Tony
Williams on drums, and Kenny Dorham on trumpet, this was a cast created for a
jazz fire dance. From the opening moments of "Refuge," with its
complex minor mode intro that moves headlong via Hill's large, open chords that
flat sevenths, ninths, and even 11ths in their striding to move through the
mode, into a wellspring of angular hard bop and minor-key blues. Hill's solo is
first and it cooks along in the upper middle register, almost all right hand
ministrations, creating with his left a virtual counterpoint for Davis and a
skittering wash of notes for Williams. The horn solos in are all from the hard
bop book, but Dolphy cuts his close to the bone with an edgy tone. "New
Monastery," which some mistake for an avant-garde tune, is actually a
rewrite of bop minimalism extended by a diminished minor mode and an
intervallic sequence that, while clipped, moves very quickly. Dorham solos to
connect the dots of the knotty frontline melody and, in his wake, leaves the
space open for Dolphy, who blows edgy, blue, and true into the center, as Hill
jumps to create a maelstrom by vamping with augmented and suspended chords.
Hill chills it out with gorgeous legato phrasing and a left-hand ostinato that
cuts through the murk in the harmony. When Henderson takes his break, he just
glides into the chromatically elegant space created by Hill, and it's suddenly
a new tune. This LP is full of moments like this. In Hill's compositional
world, everything is up for grabs. It just has to be taken a piece at a time,
and not by leaving your fingerprints all over everything. In
"Dedication," where he takes the piano solo further out melodically
than on the rest of the album combined, he does so gradually. You cannot
remember his starting point, only that there has been a transformation. This is
a stellar date, essential for any representative jazz collection, and a record
that, in the 21st century, still points the way to the future for jazz.
_
Review by Thom Jurek
In
1964, the term avant-garde could have been applied to any number of different
musical angles in jazz. The free experiments of John Coltrane and Ornette
Coleman, with their pure emotional howling set within very limited contextual
framework, are perhaps the most notorious. But there was another avenue that
retained a significant structural environment with greater emphasis on
composition,even if those compositions were themselves quite a stretch. Hill's
third recording as a leader, the diabolically brilliant Point of Departure, may
be the apex of this school.
This
album includes some of the fiercest, high density writing of the era, with each
track featuring tight, byzantine written statements and full-throated blending
of timbres. The music includes dissonant harmonies, often employing multiple
melodic ideas, and often played very fast. It would be easy to imagine the
musicians scratching their heads on the first run through, struggling with
music that reached for new levels of complexity. Nevertheless, and despite the
very complicated, wrought compositions, the band plays rather loosely. They're
all there, but a perfect precision performance does not appear to have been
Hill's core demand. Instead, people come in and out slightly ahead or behind
the beats, and even when they're harmonizing, cacophonous filigrees abound.
On
top of all that—and that's already a lot—Point of Departure features
extraordinary improvising. Eric Dolphy—on alto sax, flute and his trademark
bass clarinet—pursues pathways that make perfect sense within the music, but
still sound like they've arrived from another planet. Joe Henderson's tenor
work is right out there with Dolphy, and Kenny Dorham's trumpet adds a bright
brass blare over all of it. Hill's piano is all over the map, and he plays the
way he writes: inventive, unpredictable, and fearless. Notably, although the
improvising is very aggressive and forward-looking, everyone still keeps his
statements within the context of the music. Nothing on this record ever veers
off into free territory...
A
musical masterpiece.
(_
By Greg Simmons)
If you find it, buy this album!
ANDREW HILL (Sextet) – Point Of Departure (LP-1964)
ReplyDeleteVinyl Rip/FLAC+Cover
1fichier:
https://1fichier.com/?f4aqnbojxo
Very impressive line-up that includes not only Dolphy but also Joe Henderson, Tony Williams, etc., etc. Thanks Vitko! Just curious: Another laser turntable rip?
ReplyDeleteYes, as well as the next two LPs, that I will post tonight.
DeleteCheers -Otto-.
...and thanks for all 3! Just grabbed Freddie. Thanks, Vitko!
DeleteVitko, thanks, again!!
Deletean exceptional transfer! surely an improvement on the old ron mcmaster. more timbre, air, presence; obviously for richard davis, but also I believe I can hear new and welcome detail in even the punch of Anthony's kick drum. i'll have to compare it to the newer RVG remaster out of curiosity. thank you for sharing this very unexpected experiment with laser!
ReplyDeletejoe henderson on new monastery! what a perfectly monstrous execution! (in a good way ;-)
Thanks! What a great sound!
ReplyDeleteThank you. One of my favorites. So far, I have only heard the CD version.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to reup this title?? Thanks.
Would also love a re-up of this if possible. thanks!
DeleteThank you for this, but the link is down. Will you provide a new link, please? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteany chance of a re up? Many thanks
Hello ,could you please reup?
ReplyDeleteThe requested file does not exist
ReplyDeleteIt could be deleted by its owner.