sad news, andrew hill 1931-2007 has died

i was lucky enough to see hill back in 97 when he came out to australia.

there must have been no more than 4o people in the audience, the venue was a small pub, that has since gone the way of most small jazz venues which occasionaly presented more adventurous stuff.

poker machines!!

hill was driven back to his hotel after the show in a delapidated morris minor or some such thing, they did'nt(the organising body for contemporary jazz and improvised music,here)even pay his cab fare,and the pubs pa had broken down ,and was only intermittently functional cutting out midway through the first set.

to top it all off ,there was a large group of yuppie suits at one of the back tables talking through almost the whole show, not aware that they were witnessing the concert of a lifetime .

at one point hill so palpably frustrated ,gesticulated to the members of the group to wind down, then promptly announced a new number,saying this one had lyrics and its about how money cant buy you class.

the band which was a good aussie pick up group(john pochee,loyd swanton,and sandy evans)then on cue launched into something at quite ferocious tempo, after which one could have heard a pin drop. at least thats my memory of it, a great gig under adverse conditions.

and the tickets were cheap for the time 15 bucks.

so few people one wondered what made it worth it to hill.

who was so obviously a layed back kind of guy radiating bonhommie, some appreciative fans went and shook hands after the show, saying they felt priveleged to see someone of that calibre

he took that persons hand and smiling wrily said oh i dont know about that.

heres the link to a great interview from all about jazz, with hill from which the colour photo

up top was taken http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=20839