Grass Roots
Blue Note founder Alfred Lion considered Andrew Hill to be his last great discovery, and the reasons are apparent from this fairly obscure 1968 effort. Hill composed demanding yet elastic structures that straddled hard bop and free jazz; as a pianist, his abstract comping challenged soloists with elaborate counterpoint and fresh, alternative directions. Hill is joined here by one of the more conservative groups that he recorded with, but there's a high level of interactivity. He enjoyed a close playing relationship with trumpeterLee Morgan, andMingusveteranBooker Ervincontributes his personal mix of kicking Texas tenor and harmonic exploration. A rhythm section ofRon Carterand Freddie Waits completes the band, and the result is thoughtful, complex music that still inhabits the edges of the postbop idiom. --Stuart Broomer