Andrew Hill

Biography Early life Hill was born in Chicago, Illinois, to William and Hattie Hill. (In the early 1960s, to promote himself by seeming to be more exotic, Hill told people that he had been born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.) He had a brother, Robert, who was a singer and classical violin player. Hill took up the piano at the age of thirteen, and was encouraged by Earl Hines. As a child, he attended the University of Chicago Experimental School. He was referred by jazz composer Bill Russo to Paul Hindemith, with whom he studied informally until 1952.

While a teenager, he performed in rhythm and blues bands and with touring jazz musicians, including Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. Hill recalls some of his experience as a youngster, during a 1964 interview with Leonard Feather: "I started out in music as a boy soprano, singing and playing the accordion, and tap dancing. I had a little act and made quite a few of the talent shows around town from 1943 until 1947. I won turkeys at two Thanksgiving parties at the Regal Theatre," parties sponsored by the newspaper Chicago Defender, which Hill coincidentally used to sell on the streets. During the next few years, the piano gigs brought him into contact with many musicians, some of whom became relevant influences: Joe Segal and Barry Harris, among others. In 1961, after travelling as an accompanist for Dinah Washington, the young pianist settled in New York City in 1961,

Hill rarely worked as a sideman after the 1960s, preferring to play his own compositions. This may have limited his public exposure. He later taught in California and held a tenure-track faculty appointment at Portland State University from 1989 to 1996. While at PSU, he established a Summer Jazz Intensive program, in addition to performing, conducting workshops and attending residencies at Wesleyan University, the University of Michigan, the University of Toronto, Harvard University, Bennington College and other schools.

Hill's album Dusk was selected best album of 2001 by both DownBeat and JazzTimes; and in 2003, Hill received the Jazzpar Prize. at the time an organist at the Red Carpet. They married in 1963 and moved to New York. He married dancer/educator Joanne Robinson Hill in Portland in 1992. They moved to New York City in 1995. From 2000, Hill and his wife lived in Jersey City, New Jersey.

In May 2007, he became the first person to receive a posthumous honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music.

Playing style Hill's main influences were pianists Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Art Tatum. "Monk's like Ravel and Debussy to me, in that he put a lot of personality into his playing [...] it's the personality of music which makes it, finally," he said in a 1963 interview with A. B. Spellman. Powell was an even greater influence, but Hill thought that his music was a dead end: "If you stay with Bud too much, you'll always sound like him, even if you're doing something he never did." Hill referred to Tatum as the epitome of "all modern piano playing".

Compilations One for One (Blue Note, 1975)[2LP] Mosaic Select 16: Andrew Hill (Mosaic, 2005)[3CD] Mosaic Select 23: Andrew Hill-Solo (Mosaic, 2007)[3CD]

As sideman With Walt Dickerson To My Queen (New Jazz, 1963) – rec. 1962

With Roland Kirk Domino (Mercury, 1962)

With Jimmy Woods Conflict (Contemporary, 1963)

With Hank Mobley No Room for Squares (Blue Note, 1964) – rec. 1963

With Joe Henderson Our Thing (Blue Note, 1964) – rec. 1963

With Bobby Hutcherson Dialogue (Blue Note, 1965)

With Russel Baba Earth Prayer (Ruda Music, 1992)

With Reggie Workman Summit Conference (Postcards, 1994) – rec. 1993

With Greg Osby The Invisible Hand (Blue Note, 2000) – rec. 1999