2006 · Album
Time Lines
Recorded 1959 · Riverside Records · Produced by Orrin Keepnews
Architecture of Time, Built on the Fly
Hill's piano doesn't accompany these musicians—it argues with them, shifts beneath them, refuses easy resolution.
Time Lines finds Andrew Hill deep into his vision of what a jazz piano trio could be. This isn't a record about showcasing a leader's chops over a rhythm section. Instead, Hill treats the piano, bass, and drums as three equal voices constantly renegotiating what the music is doing. On tracks like "Spiral," the composition itself seems to dissolve and reform—Hill's angular melodic lines weave through spaces that Wyatt Ruther and Roy Haynes are creating, and there's this feeling that none of them quite knows what's coming next, but that's the point. It's controlled tension, not chaos.
What sets this apart from Hill's other work is how deliberately unsettled the album feels. Where earlier recordings sometimes built toward resolution or clear statement, Time Lines stays in motion. The trio never settles into a groove you can predict. Haynes especially seems to be responding to Hill's shifts in real time, his drumming always one step ahead or behind the obvious pulse. It's the kind of playing that can sound unpolished if you're not listening carefully, but it's actually precise—just precisely uncommitted to any single rhythmic pocket.
This isn't an album for casual listening, and it's not Hill's most accessible work. His vision is fully formed here, but it's a vision that demands attention. If you've heard Hill's later Blue Note work and want to understand where that approach originated, or if you're comfortable with the kind of piano trio music that keeps you slightly off-balance, this is essential. It's the work of a musician who believed the piano trio was still full of unexplored territory.
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