Five Originals from a Master Composer
Hill's five originals here are working blueprints—spare, smart, leaving room for the players to think.
Grass Roots catches Andrew Hill in his stride as a composer. He's written five originals, and they work like sketches: economical, purposeful, designed to let good players do their job. Lee Morgan on trumpet and Booker Ervin on tenor sax are the front line, and they've got the space to respond to what Hill and Ron Carter set up. Freddie Waits keeps things moving without fussing. This is Hill the writer, not Hill showing off his own chops, though he's playing piano well enough to matter.
The music feels direct and unhurried. These aren't the kind of heads that announce themselves; they reveal themselves. Morgan and Ervin take their time with the solos, which suits the material. Carter and Waits lock in and stay there. It's the kind of album that doesn't grab you in ten seconds, but it holds your attention once you're listening. Nothing here is flashy or difficult to follow, even if the compositions themselves have more angles than they initially appear.
In Hill's catalog, this is solid middle-period work—not as experimental as some of his later stuff, not as raw as some earlier Blue Note dates. It's a good place to land if you want to hear Hill writing for a quintet and getting genuine responses from his musicians. The 2000 reissue tacked on alternate takes from a later sextet session with Woody Shaw and others, which is helpful for completists but doesn't change the core value of the original five tracks. If you're new to Hill, start with something else first; but if you're already interested in him, this deserves your time.
Who's playing
Where next?
More by Andrew Hill
All 13 albums →
The musicians on this record
Cornbread 1965
Lee Morgan
plays trumpet here
plays trumpet here
Uptown Conversation 1969
Ron Carter
plays double bass here
plays double bass here
Structurally Sound 1967
Booker Ervin
plays tenor saxophone here
plays tenor saxophone here
