I have yet to attend a jazz gig at Walker Art Center when the crowd didn't give the artists a standing ovation, besieging said artists to come out and play the requisite encore. Pianist Andrew Hill's gig on Saturday night was no exception. Now, as jazz fanatic, fellow City Pages blogger Brad Zellar points out, the guy is a legend, and he hasn't been here for 40 years. And on that score, there's no doubt the Blue Note groundbreaker deserves more than a little love right out of the gate. That said, the show was a disappointment and, as a result, signing on for the obligatory standing O felt even more disingenuous than usual.
The main problem could have been prevented, had the techies in charge of the mixer board spent some more time prepping the room. Hill's chord-heavy approach--on this night, wonderfully angular and primarily in the middle or lower register--literally got lost behind the omnipresent saxophonist Greg Tardy and the overly busy bassist John Herbert. Early in the gig, the quartet sounded like they were playing underwater.
Even if you were able to get past the muddy production value (and I never did), though, it was impossible not to notice that the only musician on stage who really deserved equal time with Hill was Nasheet Waits, one of today's great lyrical drummers. Tardy was technically proficient, but his tone never changed unless he was honking, and by night's end he literally started repeating himself. Herbert rarely locked in with anyone, and often times seemed uninterested in what anyone else around him was doing, including Hill, fortifying the misnomer that "free" jazz is nothing more than a bunch of head cases engaged in unchecked self-indulgence.
It really would have been fascinating to listen to Hill and Waits together alone. They both have the ability to surprise, both playing outside and in. More importantly, they have an innate sense of swing that always keeps things in a groove, even when the groove is upside down or wholly unrecognizable.
(For more background on Hill, check out Dylan Hicks' smashing piece in this week's CP.)
