IRT Magazine

IT IS WITH MUCH SADNESS THAT IRT REPORTS THE DEATH OF JAZZ LEGEND ANDREW HILL, PERHAPS THE GREATEST PIANO PLAYER TO EVER RECORD FOR BLUE NOTE RECORDS, WHO LOST HIS LONG, VALIANT BATTLE WITH LUNG CANCER AT THE AGE OF 75 THIS PAST FRIDAY (APRIL 20, 2007) IN HIS JERSEY CITY HOME. THE HOME WHERE IRT SENIOR EDITOR SHAWN SCHEPS WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO SIT AND ENJOY WHAT IS NOW HIS FINAL MAGAZINE INTERVIEW, WHICH CAN BE READ UNCUT AND IN ITS ENTIRETY JUST BELOW THIS MESSAGE. OUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS GO OUT TO HIS FAMILY UPON OUR HEARING OF THIS TRAGIC NEWS, AND OUR STAUNCH APPRECIATION TO MR. SCHEPS FOR TURNING IN SUCH AN AMAZING INTERVIEW WITH THIS WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING. -Ed.

Andrew Hill: The IRT Interview
By: Shawn Scheps

Here at the IRT we’re dedicated to bringing our readers articles on music that we feel is authentic. With that said, music doesn’t come any more real than that of Andrew Hill’s. Not many musicians can claim to have not ever compromised themselves in order to please someone other than their listeners or themselves. However, Andrew Hill can rest assured that he has never compromised his artistic integrity for the man or the money. Hill, who was called “the last great protégé” by Blue Note Records co-founder Alfred Lion, has spent his career staying true to himself, not to the passing trends and gimmicks of the past six decades of music. For instance, while many of his contemporaries sold their souls to fusion in the ’70s, Hill steered his ship clear. And when the ’80s ushered in the era of cheesy commercial jazz, you would not hear Hill’s music by tuning the dial to CD 101.9.

For those unfamiliar, the legendary pianist and composer’s was born on June 30, 1937 and raised in the South Side of Chicago. He got his professional start gigging in Chicago back in ‘52 and by summer ‘53 was accompanying Charlie Parker at the Greystone Ballroom in Detroit. He also rehearsed with Miles Davis during these early years and recorded his debut, “So in Love,” with a trio that featured ….. in ‘55. He moved to NY in ‘61 and performed with Rahsaan Roland Kirk before his own recording career took solid root after being introduced to Alfred Lion by Joe Henderson. Subsequently he was signed to the label for the first of three times in ‘63 where he spent the better part of the decade composing and recording some of the era’s most original and forward thinking music with many of post-bop’s luminaries including - Eric Dolphy, Roy Haynes, Richard Davis, John Gilmore, Woody Shaw, Tony Williams, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Bobby Hutcherson, Charles Tolliver and Lee Morgan.

Although his profile, along with that of jazz in general, waned with the advent of fusion, Hill never stopped composing, recording and forging forward with his music. He spent most of the ’70s and ’80s on the West Coast presenting solo concerts, classes and workshops in prison as well as teaching music at Portland State University as well as gigging as a public high school teacher and occasionally performing at international jazz festivals. Throughout these years Hill released music on Steeplechase, East Wind, Artists House and Soul Note labels before returning to Blue Note in ‘89 for two albums. Although these albums helped to increase his visibility in the jazz world, it was his album “Dusk,” released by Palmetto in ‘00, that really brought him back into the limelight, garnering all-around praise as well as numerous awards. They say the third time is a charm and with Hill back on Blue Note his most recent release, “Timelines,” proves this. It’s a masterpiece and testament to the fact that his vision is as intact, alive and advanced as ever. He was awarded the Playboy Jazz Artist of the Year

IRT: When you came to NYC in the early 60’s I believe the first album you were on was a Joe Henderson album, right?

AH: I think the first album was Walt Dickerson, “To My Queen,” and then… no, actually the first one was Roland Kirk’s “Domino.” I was working with him and we did it right after Newport and the second one was the Walt Dickerson, “To My Queen.”

IRT: So then the Joe Henderson album the first Blue Note session you were on?

AH: No, I think the first Blue Note session was…Hank Mobley. Wait, no, Joe Henderson was my first Blue Note session.

IRT: That must have been amazing to have just been around in that scene during that time…

AH: Well that was a different time, and you know, it’s amazing how much society has changed. Musicians played for the love of the music and you know, you’d do like four or five sessions a day. And most of the time people were playing with so many different bands that they were rewarding and refreshing and each one had a different approach, it hadn’t polarized itself to the point where it was just one sound, you know where it says “Coltrane sound.” Even though before that there was the Charlie Parker sound, but then it had eased up where other individuals were possible. So it was a good time because people were playing different ways instead of variations on one way.

IRT: And the cross-pollination of ideas must have been inspiring.

AH: It was inspiring, it was. You know like as people become more, allegedly sophisticated, things begin to seem to be different. You know people say like, “oh they were in an inspired town,” but it wasn’t really so much about inspiration than being prepared to be able to explore. Like the space engineers before their jobs disappeared; in the mid 60s almost two-thirds of the places where the musicians used to perform disappeared. So there was no room for that type of attitude after a certain point. Because in NY you always have had like let’s say, the Village Vanguard, but with the Village Vanguard back then you had places like, Wells and Sugar Ray Robinson’s. Places in Harlem that, you know, you had fried chicken and pancakes and chicken and waffles. But they had jazz then and that’s one thing where it’s sad, that old, you know either there’s white jazz or there’s black jazz and for white jazz the black jazz wasn’t in script because these places were owned by pimps and dope dealers and there was this whole part of society being phased out; but you had these places all across the country, like in New York you could run to Rochester to Jon Hendricks’s place, he had a jazz club. You had all these places that just disappeared so with that disappearing it reshaped the jazz situation and the people who later paid for are the shape of the music itself.

IRT: And this is probably around the time when a lot of your contemporaries began embracing technology and incorporating electronic elements into the music with the whole fusion movement.

AH: Well, fusion yea, yea. The only thing that kept me away from fusion, I said, “if you hit, you know the world is yours for a moment, you know all this is opened, money, work.” But if you don’t hit you compromised for nothing and threw away your artistic seniority for nothing. But they were beginning to incorporate electronics into the music but that was after all these other places got lost because we were talking about the two places, and you know because the Village Vanguard is still there but Sugar Ray’s and Wells and all those other places across the country aren’t there anymore. You know, so who supported it was, then rock-jazz came and then the music almost disappeared because then you have a little more intellectual contingency, like AEC (Art Ensemble of Chicago). But these things, rules, like as middle-class intellectual institution work, before it was built upon a traditional situation that has evolved for 250 years, just evolved into the community where it was a popular music and then in the latter 60’s it made the transition from popular music to an art form. So that’s always the sign of death or something that’s gone to sleep for a while. Now the music seems to be coming back again.

IRT: I think it’s cool that you stayed true to the roots of the music and kept the acoustic thing going throughout the 70s and continued to take it in innovative directions. Did you ever have the urge to take a more commercial route?

AH: Well, you know you think about it because no matter what one says, you’re conscious of money and the things that money will buy. But then, after money anyway it don’t matter cause here you’re about to take a gamble on your life in an area that you basically know nothing about. So they always sound, it’s not always they can contrive me and say, well you know, “here I am playing fusion,” which went to another formula for putting a fusion band back then together, or you know a so called energy band. Even though it was like a phenomenon to have all these un-schooled musicians getting paid a fortune, there was nothing to build on. So you take that energy and try and build on something without no motion, or just a static noise or a roll, which is hip but it was less…and for a lot of people it turned out to be their last musical statement. They played fusion and the next thing you know there was nothing to come back to. It wasn’t like three or four years ago where you can make a spectacular mistake and come back and play something beautiful and get accepted by other people; because a lot people were leaving the music cause they refused to accept the music the way the journalists were representing to them what the new thing was. To the journalists it was anything that could have some type of hope to it; but you know, it’s good for journalism but that doesn’t mean it’s good for the ears.

IRT: So what’s your opinion on the future of jazz music?

AH: Well, you look at it right now and it’s doing pretty good…you don’t have too many big record companies anymore. So on one hand one can say that’s terrible but on the other hand one can say well, that it’s good to an extent it’s shaping the music according to them and the only way it can survive is to be supported by the people. And then in New York or all these other cities you have your bigger jazz clubs and your smaller jazz clubs for young artists that are developing. And then with the digitized music and music streaming, you know like people who never heard your music can get Yahoo.com for like five dollars and listen to things they wouldn’t have listened to; you know like Charlie Mingus, or anyone, and just listen and give themselves a music appreciation lesson and become familiar. Before things, albums, were more expensive and there is so much hype and you have to get through the hype to get to who was playing. And now all these things have been eased, the only problem I see creeping its head up is these corporations, you know like the MacArthur Foundation. Now they don’t want to give a genius award to anyone over 40 (laughing) and all this stuff….but actually that’s really terrible because for the first time in a long time the young can pull from the older artists and play for the people and can get this synergy, that they used to have with the people and move the music forward. And then you have these other companies that kind of involved with music by, artificial means I call it, you know, getting this “money”…but you know I think the music is good…sometimes I think that the future of the music is great. And then when one young person comes out that can really play, like Charlie Parker and his music among my school contemporaries, then that’ll move the music along. So that’s all it needs is one who can really play, you know. Some are more looking for the connection between rap and jazz but I don’t think it’s the connection I think the connection is just a young person that’s really playing.

IRT: That’s going to push it forward…

AH: Well that’s it…

IRT: So who’s that, have you met them?

AH: (laughter) I can tell all the potential and they’re getting better and everything again you get down to it and their only form of survival is the people.

IRT: Do you still listen to a lot of new music?

AH: I listen to it only because, if it’s in the way it was presented to me as the my music of my youth was, improvisation, or you know now many people say “this moment was documented” and the greatness and stuff which was really intended to just be a passing phrase and then, talking about technology, you can preserve that moment even though that moment is over and can’t come again. I used to talk to Gene Ammons about that, you know, why he would be repetitive in his solos on the record. Then you go to that era, where all of a sudden at some point the highlight of that song is that he’s gonna play the same solo that he played on the record. So you know it’s not just improvised music I’m playing now, I’m playing popular music because once people get that record I keep saying there’s just something there they don’t just listen to it once; they listen to it over again so they hear things they haven’t heard and things they have heard, that’s part of that process. They can sing you the most abstract of solos note for note. But I always say that the involved audience is coming back, people are listening to music and you know, in any hard times what happened is people would become more involved with the arts again. It’s good to shake your booty but people seem to be demanding a little more than that, you know, society as a whole.

IRT: So would you say music for you is very of the moment? Like on your latest album, “Timelines,” were are all the pieces recently composed?

AH: Yea, they’re all fairly recent because you know some people like to create their library and re-record. I can see the chance in which in it I would say, I’ll record and do this, do this or do that, but I can’t do it that way. Because in what happens is, to save and preserve a moment that never was, you seem to lose something. So it’s better for me, you know you can’t write music for musicians specifically, but to have it kind of current where you can connect into something now, instead of reaching for a past period that one wasn’t able to participate in, but you still have this as a memory for that day back then.

IRT: So do you have a lot of music that you’ve written over the years that you never recorded that you probably won’t?

AH: Well, almost everything that…I’ve been writing things for string quartets and other things and a lot of it has gone un-recorded and a lot of it has disappeared…at least I’ve been lucky enough as to compose it and get a lot of things done and be able to hear it myself. It’s important in itself compositionally.

IRT: So how long have you been living in Jersey City?

AH: Since ‘96.

IRT: And before that you were in NYC?

AH: No before that I was in Portland, Oregon.

IRT: Okay, so when you moved back east you moved here?

AH: Yea, we moved here. First we moved to Dixon Mills, you know where?

IRT: Where is that?

AH: You know right up the street it used to be where they made the number two…

IRT: Oh the pencil factory.

AH: Yea the pencil factory where they have these unusual apartments.

IRT: So how do you like it around here?

AH: Well I like it because here you’re literally a stones throw away from New York, but you can come here and get away from some of the madness of New York. It has its moments of everything, you know where it becomes so quiet you become your worst fear; because you have all of these terrible things in your imagination that come from living right next to New York but you know, I like it. You can be yourself, you don’t have to have a 24/7 act going, you can kind of just relax into where you are. It’s a nice place to live.

IRT: Yea, I’ve been here for about two years, it’s nice that it’s been somewhat undiscovered by the yuppies and hipsters and you can still find an affordable place to live.

AH: Well when we came in it turned out, we got the place for $300,000 to $400,000 and you know now the price is $900,000 and going up. So now a lot of people are re-discovering it, especially this neighborhood. You know but that’s just the way of the world on one level. After they build all of these luxury condos and such, but why are people going to live there. They got places for them to live, now each one almost has to make a million dollars to afford it, you know. (Laughter)

IRT: It blows my mind…

AH: Oh that blows my mind there too.

IRT: And what the fallout of it is going to be.

AH: Well there has to be a real estate crash, it’s too ridiculous.

IRT: And where are all these people coming from

AH: (Laughter) I mean and where are they going to work at!

IRT: There has got to be some recession or depression in this country’s future, the way things are going.

AH: Oh I’ve been predicting a lot of terrible things for a long time but it don’t happen, it just keeps on going.

IRT: How do you feel on the condition of our country on a whole right now?

AH: Oh my god, did you see that special on the ice age on Saturday. Well I look it as the ice age; they say if we stop doing everything now it’s too late.

IRT: You mean with the whole global warming or in general?

AH: Yea, everything. We don’t have to do anything, we will have exterminated ourselves.

IRT: Even just talking in terms of global warming, I drove up to VT this past weekend to get away…

AH: And you didn’t see that much snow.

IRT: No snow.

AH: No snow!

IRT: Not even in the mountains

AH: Not even! Well every aspect is the same way you know, what should be done. But it’s so late now like they say if we stop we still can’t cancel out 50,000 years of going back…no snow and the hurricanes and storms will be worse. I mean everything else is the same way, it’s terrible…you know some bad decisions that have taken over…You know so that’s why artists come up important globally and internationally because if the world can open itself back up to the artist’s way and not behave materialistic then that may give the world a few good moments before…and then they might find a way of salvaging what can be salvaged. Because with the glaciers disappearing that means a lot of the land masses are going to disappear.

IRT: Right, oceans are all going to rise.

AH: Yea, and in a seaport town like New Orleans, you know they’re basically gone. Like I said, I don’t know what to say. You know it’s terrible cause I can say “What do we do now?” It can’t be salvaged.

IRT: I think that’s the way a lot of people see it, I’m just surprised more people aren’t standing up and…

AH: Oh well they’re standing up, you know because they’re saying, “Oh our children. Look at the legacy for our children.” The children have no legacy but death. Unless they find another planet and if there is another planet whose going to want us there. You know so that’s why the arts become important because maybe through a certain frame of mind other things become possible.

IRT: Exactly, because I don’t see it going in that other direction now.

AH: Uh ah, me neither. You look at it and the path is scary because it’s all up and down and there you have this whole batch of ignorant people, endorsing. What can you do?

IRT: And then there is no accountability. These people want to act as if no mistakes were made on their part.

AH: Oh, Oh, Oh, there are no mistakes made, they just…

IRT: Incompetent…

AH: Well, they’re competent, they’re destroying the United States making it a potential third world country.

IRT: The way I see it is this country has had its rise to greatness and now…

AH: Oh, they took the jobs away, so once you put the jobs elsewhere, everyone wants the Indian market, the Chinese market wherever, you know forget this poor people in the states. Demographically they are important, as consumers.

IRT: Right, and then there is the message we’re showing the rest of the world.

AH: Well that’s why I think with artists, because sometimes the arts, if they get strong enough, can be strong enough to alter the civilization to a certain extent. That’s why I believe it’s getting strong because there has to be another side of us besides the animal side that saves us.

IRT: It seems like the 60s was the pinnacle of that.

AH: Oh that was the end, really the 50s and 60s. Like everyone says, the 50s in jazz was like the intellectual-Jewish formal-evening period and then it started going down in the 60s, it became the black-nationalist period. But musically it went to, as you call it, you know like music so loud you couldn’t hear, you know tone deaf. So then crowds just accepted music a lot instead of following the traditional evolution. So that’s what stopped the music back then. Then everything started becoming more materialistic. You know people getting more money so they could dress up, go out, shake their ass, and leave their government in someone else’s hands because they have their disposable income and they can get all these toys. Things to keep them…earning more money and that becoming culture. When before, someone would say, “well culture is a little bit by going to college,” but not anymore. You can be stupid as ever as long as you have a good memory and can apply what you can for the good of the corporation.

IRT: Some of the dumbest people I know are ones with higher level degrees.

AH: (laughter) Oh, I know! That’s amazing. I look at them and I want to say, “well you don’t know everything!” There is so much knowledge and you need to put it all together.

IRT: Right, having an open enough mind to expose your self to stuff…

AH: Right, exposing yourself and bringing up new things. Well, we’ll see, or those who will shall see. It’ll be alright, because in some kind of way the arts always have a way of maintaining or saving humanity.

IRT: What would you say some of your most memorable sessions or gigs going back to the 50s and 60s were?

AH: Well they all were good from that period. It’s not that anecdotal…one could remember like the music being good to having a great time playing the music. But like I said it was a different time; it was a time of more being, more so than reflecting…it represented a perpetual good time for a brief moment.

IRT: Were you ever conscious of the legacy you were leaving behind at the time?

AH: No one was in it for the legacy, we were more in it for the moment than the legacy.

IRT: Looking back at your music do you have a favorite album that you did?

AH: I like them all even though some have been naturally accepted by society more than others, you know. But I like them all because they were all done with a certain type of sincerity. That’s why for me when it would get to the point where I would just be a step away from becoming a studio musician I would step away, because as I’d say “look, just cut to the point that all I really enjoy is making the money.” You know a little bit when it’s available. But then I just gave a good part of myself away for nothing.

IRT: And you never stopped playing music at all, even during those years that you weren’t releasing recordings?

AH: Oh no, and because this almost connects to the same sentence, all of a sudden it becomes so much about money. You know, you don’t play unless you got gigs, you don’t practice unless you have something to practice to at that gig. So all of a sudden you get to this point where you may have this natural talent for playing music, but the feeling has left. The feeling kind of joins Washington and Ben Franklin, you know, and I always look at it that it would be a shame to lose that. Because then you literally have nothing.

IRT: And then you see all these musicians playing on autopilot.

AH: Well, that’s good, I don’t like to tell people how to live or what they should enjoy but for me compromising, if it was compromising for nothing, why compromise. It’s indicative of someone saying, “I’ll give you the world,” and give you the world and then even though you have given a major part of yourself away you do have, something/nothing, but you do have something tangible that you sold out for. I mean but just to sell yourself out for nothing and you know $50,000 or $40,0000; you understand if you’re not producing that regularly you have nothing because all of that is going to go away anyway. And if you gave yourself away you have nothing.

IRT: In the press release I got from Blue Note there was a quote where you were talking about artists pushing the boundaries for their audiences and not for themselves, can you elaborate on this?

AH: Oh, they’re so obsessed with something new and like I was telling someone, you may have come up with something entirely new but if it has nothing to do with people, just the obsession to be different, then you’re not participatory anyway. I mean cause you know, you have a product or you’re trying to sell yourself as a genius. In other words, everyone has this genius phobia, where they want their work to be different, but their work has nothing to do with people. You know there are societies here, you know visions, where everyone can scratch each others back but then when you look at it being destructive and all and degenerate; you know but music is supposed to fit into society, not because to be an outcast. You know, and that’s not why people do things, you do things no matter if you like the way the government is going, but still do things in a competitive manner to try to appease the people. Because that’s all it’s about in society and society itself has a different way of easing the pressure of society itself on the people.

IRT: What artists come to mind when you think about people that are doing that nowadays?

AH: Well nowadays people are getting back to, but not to the point when I was a kid; I would go and hear Louis Armstrong and I didn’t enjoy it that much. But to the people who liked it, something important had happened. You know they left with something fulfilled and recently, that’s why this group has attracted me because it seems to have that potential where we can go out and please the people.

IRT: And you have shows coming up next week?

AH: Yea, March 1st through the 4th at Birdland.

IRT: You excited about that?

AH: Oh yea, any opportunity to perform. That’s why I feel that it’s important to keep myself. You know not keep myself to the point where a performance was nothing more than a gig. Try to make it something special and build from that point on. You know something for the people besides take their money. (laughter)

IRT: So you found out you were sick a couple of years ago?

AH: Oh yea, in Portugal, all a sudden I thought it was a heart attack. Fortunately for me we were coming back to the states the next day. To me the worst thing in the world one can do is to get sick and stay over there, if you have the chance to come back here and try get to the root of the problem. So the problem, I had a heart attack, and then you go through a series of tests and I found out that I have cancer. So I just have to deal with it and give myself…you know right now, the cancer in my lung is terminal, but it don’t have to be; it’s just a disease where if you have the money, you can keep yourself going indefinitely.

IRT: So it’s definitely terminal what you have?

AH: Oh, well lung cancer… well everything is terminal. It’s a terminal life. So approaching it like that, that’s why I make each performance so good because there are still unanswered questions to be addressed that one really wouldn’t even consider if everything was allegedly normal. So that brings up the question of what is music really supposed to be? Is it supposed to be something that brings one notoriety or is it supposed to be something where one relieves the people?

IRT: Something that you just put out there…

AH: For people, rather than one image that one is trying to create of ones self which is unimportant the next day, because all of us in society we’re just part of something that’s come before us and that will go on after us. So we just take our little stick, like a relay race, and take it to next point and then someone will take it from there.

IRT: Would you say you feel a sense of urgency to put out as much as you can?

AH: Well no, but just to utilize time more effectively. Because you can put a lot of stuff out and it’s just junk. You know try to have a product where it has what it’s supposed to have, like feelings and such and such something. Like you said earlier, where people can pick up a record a month from now and still have the desire to pick it up… something lasting.

IRT: Well I have to say that your whole catalog of music is something I feel will be lasting for a long time from now.

AH: Oh bless your heart. It has… withstood the test of time. You know being a call back at this point, you know, look how lucky I am. I was just lucky enough to get the Playboy award and so many different awards and such…

IRT: Any unreleased gems like “Passing Ships,” that had never got released, that we can look forward to?

AH: Well they rediscovered “From California with Love,” that was, John Sinclair, when he had his Artist’s House. So he released part of it…but two or three discs that he has that have never been issued that they have… they are getting ready to put out. (Scheduled to be released 10/06 on Mosaic Records as Mosaic Select 23) But it’s not that much, there was a company called Test of Time records… they make me sorry I didn’t do more in a commercial way because now they’re looking under a rock for things that were done and there aren’t too many because I protected myself too well. Now for some reason it looks like almost anything out there, if there was, would be good. There would be a market for. But it’s not that much, all that’s been covered.

IRT: So besides jazz, what non-jazz music has influenced you?

AH: Oh so much. I grew up in the times of the movies, where you had the big movie productions, where almost all the classical composers were writing for the movies. Jazz was important, it was the music of my youth, I grew up and it was the popular music. In a regular situation you can hear various artists, Lester Young, all of them coming out of these various apartments, but then there were places to jam. So that got more attention, but then the shifting harmonies and stuff, but you had the movies too and had all these dynamic harmonic scorers. There was so much music in there and then as one becomes more sophisticated even in their selection, they become a recordphile…then you learn about Bartok and different things. So you have all of these influences then when you get to a certain age you just follow them according to their form, you know but there are so many…you’re not just contained oneself to a small music called jazz. You know it’s big, but it’s still small because for a reason, I used to try to fit things into different areas but then I tried to deconstruct this image of myself as this renasonce man…just for well I intended to get before the people as one gets older, at least me, I’m quick to say, this is hype. This is hype and this is hype. But then what I don’t say, is when I was coming through the reigns and stuff is how I was part of the hype. (laughter) You know so I like the separation and not realizing where I am, you know even my thoughts about doing the string quartet. You know that’s indicative of listening to other types of things. Because with string instruments you have to be better with writing everything down, you can’t leave anything to chance. I mean it’s a whole slew of string music I’m listening to. And for the big band you have Maria Snider, so many different people, Sarah Jones, Mel Lewis…I opened myself up to all the old big band charts because it’s all there.

IRT: You ever do any arranging for movies?

AH: I had an offer two or three times but I really wasn’t open enough to do it.

IRT: What’s your opinion on hip-hip?

AH: Well I have to be careful on that because I remember in the 80s I looked around and I said “oh, young people are out,” because usually with jazz, up until that point, you had all these various generations…you would always have young people. But then there was no young people and then I start looking back and I said, “it was the period of break dancing and hip hop.” So that was a period when people became environmentally handicapped. You know where they problems and such and such where they couldn’t buy musical instruments. And they had a break with society itself where certain things were re-established…you know like the basic fundamentals of rhythm and monotone, but then as to a byproduct of fusion. Fusion really in a sense really opened the door to those who didn’t want to go through that door where to win awards. In other words to reflect the history in other areas.

IRT: It was also a byproduct of taking music out of the schools.

AH: Oh, well they took the music out of everything, there used to be community centers that changed into daycare center as people started to work. So that’s why I say today is better than maybe it has been in twenty years, because with them streaming music in, the people who are conscious … they can just stream this music as a chance to evolve themselves.

IRT: We can only hope it goes more in that direction.

AH: Well it seems to be, it’s really amazing.

IRT: Right even when I got into jazz, before they had all the internet sites to download from, you had to rely on reviews or taking a chance on buying something or through friends that would buy records.

AH: And that’s expensive.

IRT: It’s real expensive.

AH: And this way, it costs you to download, but there is so much material there is no need, I mean I can’t think for anyone else but there is a lot of material where one can easily catch up and want to understand one thing they can go back…just to have that opportunity without having to spend a fortune is amazing.

IRT: Your new album is probably up on iTunes and all those sites.

AH: I don’t know. Well that’s the good part about being with a big company and it’s been their project. They put as much muscle into it as they can to get as much out of it as they can.

Last Modified : April 23rd, 2007
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