Andrew Hill: Smoke Stack (Blue Note 80 series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Blue Note 80 series edition is on 180g vinyl, mastered from the original analog tapes. Hill wrote all seven pieces for an unusual piano trio with two bassists playing together throughout.

This edition

• Blue Note 80 series
• 180g vinyl
• Mastered from the original analog tapes
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Andrew Hill recorded Smoke Stack in December 1963, barely a month after his Blue Note debut, and it came out in 1966. It was his second session as a leader for the label, and one of his boldest, with the same fearless drummer from the first date back behind the kit.

The idea was simple and strange: a piano trio with two acoustic bassists, Richard Davis and Eddie Khan, weaving lines around each other while Roy Haynes keeps the drums light and shifting. The title track and "Wailing Wall" are dense and dramatic, "Ode to Von" salutes the Chicago saxophonist Von Freeman, "Verne" is dedicated to Hill's first wife, Laverne Gillette, and "30 Pier Avenue" is named for the address of the Lighthouse, the jazz club in Hermosa Beach.

Hill's writing still sounds startlingly fresh, angular and lyrical at once, and the two basses give the whole record a deep, rolling floor. Two bassists on one session is the jazz equivalent of wearing a belt and braces, and Hill made it sound like the most natural plan in the world.

Also at Kops: more Andrew Hill on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# 0852544), a reissue of the 1966 album.