Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz; Post-Bop
Recorded: Oct 8, 1965, Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Freddie Hubbard - trumpet, flugehorn
John Gilmore - tenor sax, bass clarinet
Andrew Hill - piano
Cecil McBee - bass
Richard Davis - (3) bass
Joe Chambers - drums
Nadi Qamar - African drums, thumb piano, percussion
Renaud Simmons - congas, percussion
Blue Note founder Alfred Lion considered Andrew Hill his last great discovery. "Compulsion" comes from that peak period (1963-65) when it seemed that Andrew Hill was recording a masterpiece every four months. With this album, the pianist/composer moved his music into denser, freer territory adding two percussionist to the quintet with great results. These extended performances, driven by Joe Chambers' beautiful, sensitive drumming, offer great solos from Hill, Freddie Hubbard and John Gilmore.
Compulsion continues Andrew Hill's progression, finding the pianist writing more complex compositions and delving even further into the avant-garde. Working with a large, percussion-heavy band featuring Freddie Hubbard (trumpet, flugelhorn), John Gilmore (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet), Cecil McBee (bass), Joe Chambers (drums), Renaud Simmons (conga), Nadi Qamar (percussion), and, for one track, Richard Davis (bass), Hill has created one of his most challenging dates. The extra percussion is largely used for texture, as is the dueling bass on "Premonition," and that's one of the reasons why the record is so interesting -- it's a shifting, provocative, occasionally unsettling set of shifting tonal colors. Hill's compositions often seem more like sketches and blueprints instead of full-fledged songs. This, of course, is not a bad thing, since this approach allows the musicians room to improvise and discover evocative new sounds. Overall, Compulsion doesn't hold together as well as Black Fire or Point of Departure, but the session has enough fiery, challenging highlights to make it necessary for Hill fans.
---Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic |
